Jaeyong Choi, Theodore Livesey & Jacob Storer and Lana Ruellan: NEU NOW #9

Now entering its 9th edition, NEU NOW showcases top graduating students and recent graduates of higher arts education institutions from across Europe and beyond, in all art disciplines, for the third time, during Art Basel at FHNW Academy of Art and Design.

The exhibition addresses the next generation and their socio-political responsibilities in the contexts of vision and innovation through art and design: With works by Jaeyong Choi (Germany), Theodore Livesey & Jacob Storer (Belgium) and Lana Ruellan (France).

Jaeyong Choi’s works Mass and black, black, black employ cable ties as their main material. Commonly used to connect two things in a bond unbreakable through natural means, such as attaching price tags to objects, cable ties represent materialism in its simplest form. The product’s value does not change according to its real inherent value, but rather according to the price that is attached to it. The subject of this work is multiplication. Although multiplication begins with minor links, it gradually increases in size and affects not only individual change, but also has a major impact on society, culture, politics and other elements of contemporary life. Links can be found in all kinds of relationships and communication, and those links exist through repetitions and connections—the total number of which is comparable to the stars in the universe. Just like these, an invisible cord connects the world repeatedly. 

The practice of Theodore Livesey and Jacob Storer is built around an avid interest and obsession with literature and the written word. It could be called a multi-disciplinary practice, however it feels to us more like a re-contextualisation of the written word. How can words be performative? How can words be kinetically available? What is performative about the process of writing, editing, translating or interpreting? Since training together at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, Jacob Storer is now performing with Trisha Brown Dance Company and Theo Livesey is performing with the company of Gisèle Vienne, based in Paris. They continue to develop their work together under the name Amphigory, and have recently self-published the second anthology of texts developed during the performance This Page is Intentionally Left Blank.

During the opening, their performance This Page is Intentionally Left Blank will take place. The performance will be repeated on June 14, 2017 at 9am.

Within her work Chemical Recomposition of Minerals the artist and ceramist Lana Ruellan reproduces and accelerates the natural processes that cause the creation of minerals. Several thousands of miles beneath us, under our feet, molecules assemble, creating viable and stable chemical structures. These structures then go through very high pressure and high temperatures to create a mineral, it could become a rock you might step on, or a gem on a piece of jewellery. The outcome of Lana Ruellans work: granite, turquoises, chemically identical to natural gemstones, but very different from the original mineral because of the lack of time and pressure. Lana Ruellan works with representation of nature by unfolding minerals’ creation and by building seemingly new ones. In doing so she brings out the invisible shift that accompanies recreation and stands for change.

NEU NOW is an initiative of the Swiss Cultural Entrepreneurship platform at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in cooperation with the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA).

The opening of NEU NOW #9 takes place in the framework of CELEBRATING THE CAMPUS OF THE ARTS BASEL—our annual summer party with exhibition openings (Tobias Nussbaumer / Ingela Ihrman), bars, barbeque and the electronic music festival EMERGING REAL. 

Getting there: Take Tram Line 11 (From Basel SBB toward Aesch, Tram Stop Freilager) or our shuttle Bus at 7pm and 7:30pm from Art Basel (at Isteinerstrasse)