Art Basel Paris 2025: Reminiscence

Written by Joas Nebe.

A good tradition of the Art Basel brand is to curate a publicly accessible program alongside the fair. In Paris, this includes works by Alex Da Corte, a performance featuring a balloon figure and four performers at Place Vendôme, as well as two kinetic sculptures by Julius von Bismarck at the Petit Palais.

Alex Da Corte's performance "Kermit The Frog" (Sadie Cole HQ, London) features a three-quarters inflated balloon figure floating over the pavement at the upscale Place Vendôme, with its flagship stores, expensive jewelry shops, and the Ritz Carlton where Lady Di used to stay. The torso, legs, and arms are inflated, but the head is not. The round white googly eyes scrape along the pavement, and the limbs are manipulated back and forth by four performers in Kermit costumes. Da Corte plays with the expectations that, on the one hand, the balloon figure will float fully inflated above the square within the set performance time. On the other hand, he evokes the childlike anticipation felt by generations who participated in Macy's legendary Christmas Parade, either in front of their screens or on the streets of 5th Avenue in New York. Da Corte awakens this anticipation and sabotages it because his Kermit will never float fully inflated more than half a meter above the pavement. Kermit becomes a cipher of the conditioning that (American) consumerism has inflicted on us since childhood.

Julius von Bismarck, the great-grandson of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the German Empire, again sabotages the claims of the Hohenzollerns, which they project everywhere in Germany after the resignation of the founding chancellor with oversized, multi-story statues in important places. The chancellor, presented here like an emperor or king on a horse in medieval armor, turns out to be an oversized Wakula figure. This toy features a button in its base that collapses the figure when pressed. When the button is released, the parts hanging from rubber bands spring back together, and the figure stands on its base as if it had never fallen over. An electric motor causes the equestrian statue of the chancellor to tip over and then reconvene after a while. On the other side of the room stands another oversized Wakula figure, a giraffe, which collapses and straightens itself every ten minutes—an allusion to the German colonial history that began under Otto von Bismarck, a topic that is often avoided (the elephant in the room).

In the Salon d'Honneur, Projecte SD from Barcelona showcases the works "Carbon Copy Jungle" and "Secrets of the Amazonas - Tomo River" by Gilda Mantilla (USA) and Raimond Chaves (Bogotá). The two artists visited the library Centro de Estudios Tecnológicos de la Amazonia (CETA) and the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana (IIAP) in Iquitos, where they gathered copies of illustrations from books and newspapers and partially redrew them. The drawings are characterized by black lines reminiscent of comic strips. This association is enhanced by the exotic animals, such as a crocodile, and the tropical clothing of the depicted figures. The result is a work that traces the inspiration that can arise from reporting or scientific works, leading to a largely fictional comic strip product.

Jimmy Durham (Michael Rein, Paris, Brussels) also engages with the exotic. Durham constructs a totem figure from found objects (a cow skull, a snail shell as an eye, a metal part of an axe as a horn, a knife, a lighter as back armor) that is completely out of context since totem figures only gain meaning through the cult and rituals surrounding them. What Rein presents here is a quotation of an image that he has from a specific cultural context, thus resembling classic cultural appropriation as highlighted and criticized by decolonization research. However, for Rein, the conscious theft, through the political and cultural context of our time, has a twist. The appropriation of an artifact aimed at aesthetic enjoyment serves as a warning against the misuse by Western aestheticizing.

Ortuzar Gallery from Tribeca presents three ceramic works by Akinsanya Kambon, an artist who engages with the colonial history as a descendant of the Yorubas (a tribe in West Africa). Kambon's work consists of four parts, a curtain that hangs over three ceramic figures, one depicting a royal embrace, another Odüduwà the divine creator, and a third features Idris Alooma, a ruler from the Alooma dynasty that ruled parts of present-day Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon in the 16th century.

In contrast to Jimmy Durham, Akinsanya Kambon approaches the past of his ancestors' country—Kambon was born in the USA—from the perspective of the colonized. The ruler Mal Idris Alooma, a significant leader of the tribe, is depicted as a symbolic figure. His wisdom is embodied in his oversized head. The figure is relatively small and made of fired, glazed clay, highlighting the fragility of the hero's era and standing in contrast to the eternal ruler images made of bronze or marble known in the Western world.

"Royal Embrace," a second clay figure of the same size as Mal Idris Alooma, shows two kings who, despite the title, do not embrace but stand firmly side by side on both feet, looking at the viewer in a challenging manner. They appear to be on the verge of beginning a wrestling match rather than offering a reconciliatory gesture. Thus, power is always and everywhere threatened, fragile.

Even Odüduwà, the divine creator, sits atop the heads of the creatures of his dominion but only slightly overshadows the ruler figures, upon whom, as well as him, we as viewers look down.

Kambon's works gain their true significance in relation to the (past) ruler cult of the West, which aims for eternity, while for the Yoruba, it is viewed within the natural cycle of becoming and perishing (clay as material).

Photo credits:

Sadie Cole HQ/Alex Da Corte/Joas Nebe

Sies + Höhe and the Ranch/ Julius von Bismarck/Joas Nebe

Projecte SD/Raimond Chaves + Gilda Mantilla/Joas Nebe

Michael Rein/Jimmy Durham/Joas Nebe

Ortuzar Gallery/Akinsanya Kambon/Joas Nebe