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Design Basel to Germany
17 August 2022
I visited Design Miami where at Carpenters Workshop Gallery was an incredible work by Joep van Lieshout
I dropped into Friedman Benda and never wanted to leave! Shin had the same idea as me, and snuggled into the Misha Kahn sofa
I arrived in Kassel and dropped into the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur. I spotted a great work by Sigmar Polke from 2003 ‘Hüter der Schwelle/ Guardian of the Threshold’
Some of the public art from the first sculpture park decennial exhibition remains, such as Thomas Schütte’s ‘Kirschensäule (Cherry Column)’
Then we enjoyed a wonderful tour of some of the sculptures including a monolithic offsite project by Richard Serra
A highlight of this little walkabout was being able to join the ice cream queue, it was so hot!
There were so many similarities to the Zabludowicz Collection and K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. It was great to see such an in-depth collection of Ed Atkins
Some great works by Isa Genzken
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen had been built to house a great collection which includes three buildings K20, K21 and Schmela Haus. I loved Lygia Pape’s exhibition ‘The Skin of ALL’ which is a multifaceted show based on her love of experimentation. I am so pleased that Pape receives worldwide recognition today and has created some incredible work over five decades. I loved her abstract geometric paintings
We then went to visit the studio of Imi Knoebel with his granddaughter. He welcomed the Tate group which included, Clara Kim and Caroline Hussey-Bain. Imi Knoebel is one of the leading German artists of the post-war period. It was fascinating to watch his process as he guided us through his four-floor studio
The next day, we went to see Thomas Ruff which was a real trip highlight. We explored Thomas’ work in depth and we were very excited to see him in his incredible studio built by Herzog and de Meuron. Thomas showed us his new work which he will be presenting at David Zwirner; it was just fascinating. A great photo with some of my favourite people including Chair and ex-Chair of Patrons at Tate, Suling Mead and Midge Palley
Thomas Ruff showed us his process on the computer which was fascinating. The process is called ultra-factual and instead of using paper he decided to use carpet as his background
Meanwhile, back at the Zabludowicz Collection, Libby Heaney was giving a great talk with plenty of quantum exploration and slime!
She was awesome and brought the quantum world to life
For those who know me well by now, you will know that visiting the Julia Stoschek Collection was my trip highlight. The show had been curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and it was called ‘World Building: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age”. It was all about the relationship between gaming and time based media art with a journey through various ways in which artists have interacted with video games. I was so lucky to be at the opening and it was such a special show. We were so thrilled to have been shown around by Anna-Alexandra Pfau
The first work we were confronted by was ‘Pacman’ by Sturtevant
I found myself at the Keiken installation which was also on at the Zabludowicz Collection at the same time. Hong Gyu Shin showed us how it was done!
Then it was back in the UK and a farewell to Ivor Braka at Cadogan Square where he is moving to a new abode in the same square. Beatriz Milhazes was donating her work to be auctioned for James Thornton’s environmental charity, ClientEarth