It’s a family affair at Dieter Roth’s studio Ever since the death of Dieter Roth in 1998, the Basel studio in which the famously reclusive artist worked and died has been preserved pretty much intact, faithfully retaining the spirit and feel of its late occupant. The lair-like space is rarely open to visitors, as it remains the workplace of Björn, Roth’s son and former collaborator—but Björn decided to host a couple of open evenings for selected guests at the start of this year’s fair. Not only were visitors free to wander through the extraordinary, immersive environment, with its cubicles and cubbyholes crammed with all manner of art materials and memorabilia giving glimpses into the Great Man’s life and thoughts, but Björn also chose to emphasise the intimate family feel by lining the walls with rarely seen works of art from the 1980s made collectively by him, his siblings and his father. And the Roth family continues to be closely involved with ensuring that this environment evolves in an appropriate way. Björn revealed how, just days earlier, his sons—Dieter’s grandsons—decided to substitute the art materials on top of the studio’s wheeled “painting carriage” with bottles and glasses to form an impromptu mobile bar. A most functional, and hedonistic, intervention that definitely would have met with Dieter’s approval.
Angst, acted out If your idea of fun includes smoking, shaving and birds of prey, you should head to the Kunsthalle Basel to see performances from Angst—a new “exhibition-as-opera” by the German artist Anne Imhof. The show is staged in a darkened room with an installation consisting of paintings, a hot tub-like structure, elongated punching bags that stretch to the ceiling and falcons, as well as cans of shaving cream and Pepsi-Cola. The performers pose in and around the hot tub, stomp around and feed each other cigarettes. According to the gallery, the show is inspired by “the gestuality in [the French film director] Robert Bresson’s films… the coded languages of the doormen at the legendary Robert Johnson nightclub in Offenbach, where [Imhof] once worked, and the task-like movements of New York’s historic Judson Dance Theater”. Be warned: it’s not easy, stepping around the dancers to see the rest of the show, but that’s angst for you.
W-w-w-work it out Visitors passing The Breeder’s stand at the Liste fair this evening (5pm-6pm) will be treated to the surreal sight of a two-legged Guggenheim museum performing a routine to an exercise video by the supermodel Cindy Crawford. Meanwhile, a pink rabbit and a giant banana paint words on to the windows to the point of illegibility. All this frenetic activity is the work of the Athens- and Los Angeles-based artist Jannis Varelas. The piece is called Couple of Steps Towards Socialism—a wry comment on our fixation with activity, regardless of whether it achieves anything. And why the Guggenheim? “Institutions appear to be working towards transforming, but nothing ever changes,” Varelas says.
Football fever Emotions are running high on the fair floor over Euro 2016, the international football tournament that has dealers and collectors in a frenzy. Börkur Arnarson, the director of the Reykjavik-based gallery i8, is cock-a-hoop about Iceland’s draw with Portugal on Tuesday. “We are well chuffed,” Arnarson says, pointing out proudly that, “with a population of 331,918, 0.007% of Iceland’s population is playing for Iceland”. But the most fervent fans can be found on the stand of Kerlin Gallery from Dublin, where the staff are just as stoked about the Republic of Ireland’s 1-1 draw with Sweden on Monday. “Every draw is a victory,” declared a jubilant Kerlin director in a rather philosophical vein, prompting a round of singing from the gallery crew, who chanted in unison: “Come on you boys in green! Come on you boys in green!” Passing fairgoers from non-Irish regions looked delighted, if bemused.
Have a swinging time in Prouvé’s prototype Paris-based Galerie Patrick Seguin has brought two structures by Jean Prouvé to Design Miami/Basel. One of them, the Maxéville Design Office (1948), has a racy past: it once housed a swingers’ club called XY. The gallery’s co-owner Laurence Seguin explained that the prototype was set up in 1952 and taken over as an abandoned building by the French state when the factory with which it was associated closed in 1983. Since then, it has housed a restaurant, a heating engineering company and, from 2013 to 2015, the XY Swingers Club. (Displayed behind the structure is a grateful postcard sent to the club’s proprietors; it ends with “super temps”.) A timeline near the structure states that it was also home to “Le Bounty relaxation center (Hammam, Spa)”, from 2006 to 2012. Was that not a sex thing too? “Ehhhhh,” Seguin replied. “Yes?” Fortunately, the whole structure has been remodelled with new materials. It is for sale for $3.8m. Another Prouvé structure downstairs, the Villejuif temporary school, has a considerably less colourful history. It is on sale for $3.5m.