Basel

Hello and welcome back to my Blog after some time.

Saturday the 16th of June saw a host of Erasmus students set out for basel. Florian, Felix, Anna, Jan, Hiromi and myself. BAsel lies about an hour and a half north west of Luzern. We are going to basel to take in the 'Art Basel 38' Art fair.
Basel itself doesn't seem as impressive architecturally as other places I have been to, neither is the journey there as beautiful, which isn't to say that it isn't a nice place, and it does have the mighty river Rhine flowing through its midst.
We tack a tram for a rattling ten minutes through the streets and arrive rigt outside the art festival. Its located in a large rectangular square(?), Art Basel one side and the Swiss art awards the otherside, inbetween it is lilttered with large sculptures of chrome icecubes, tree houses, ornate trucks and immoral Santas.
The venue is huge and reflecting this is the quantity of work as well as its diversity of new and established artists. Before going our seperate ways we agree to meet an hour and a half later, after 10 minutes I realise how insufficient this is going to be in order to take it all in. Hiromi and I pass through video art, instillations, sculpture, interactive pieces, and on. The air is a fug of video clips and the pink noise of so many people talking at once.
Unfortunately cameras were not permitted and I am unable to show you any of the work. My favourite piece of the day was by vallance. Vallance sent one of his personal ties to the heads of various countries during 1978-79. He had a set format for his letters, this is what he basically wrote:
"As a gesture of goodwill between our countries I am sending you one of my personal ties. The tie is a symbol of modernity and civilisation and by swapping ties we can help to bring our cultures closer together. i would ask in return that you send me one of your personal ties".
Or something similar. The exhibit featured letters from about thirty countries, each with a reply each with very different responses. The smaller countries tended to display enthusiasm and openess to the idea of cultural togetherness, many returned personal ties, the more developed countries imposed a strict boundry of official distance refusing gifts from 'nobodys' but sending polite replies, some countries participated in his gesture but with disbelief in his motives, and some countries were confused by the gesture. Every letter reveals something of the identity of the country at that time, every letter featured beautifull headers and seals, some with autographed photos, some with ties, others with versions of their countries tie.
The fair exhibited an array of truly beautiful and inspiring works, and a could creative doesn't borrow, he steals. Or so I'm told.
We also went to the neighboring building which was hosting various galleries from around the world. if 'Art Basel 38' was enormous then this was gargantuant, we barely saw half of it in the hour and a half we spent their. It was strange being so close to such famous and notorious pieces of work, the cast of artist and catalogue of work was astounding. Warhol, Picasso, Auerbach, Frued, Bacon, and on and on. It was equally strange to be surrounded by such obviously wealthy people, swaggering and pressing their way through the peons.
I seem to reach art saturation after a few hours and am unable to digest anymore. Naturally the only thing left to do is shop. However everything is shut, so we settle for dinner and then home.