2018 exhibition programme

Esther Hunziker
January 25–April 2, 2018

Basel-resident artist Esther Hunziker (b. 1969) often combines seeming realities with real illusions in her work, creating quite individual, unpredictable actualities. In the context of her first major institutional solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Baselland she returns to a subject of previous works: science fiction, and interweaves science with fiction in search of a new, expanded understanding of objects. Alienation is thus the central topic of the exhibition. The english word alien contains ideas of both the extra-terrestrial, what lies beyond the earth, and the foreign, yet at the same time it also relates to quite terrestrial, everyday feelings like being a stranger, being unrelated to things and inadequacy. An extensive publication from Mark Pezinger Verlag will appear in conjunction with the exhibition.

Places of Longing
January 25–April 2, 2018

What could our places of longing be? What identies them and what might endanger them? What accords with our personal image of an extraordinary day, an unusual experience of nature or a paradisiac state, for us or other beings? Can we find this amid the quotidian? In the most varied manner selected video works investigate this question of the societal and individual longing for an ideal place of being oneself. With recent acquisitions for the dotMov.bl collection as well as other contributions from, amongst others, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, Max Philipp Schmid, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger and Monica Studer / Christoph van den Berg.

Solo Position: Nicole A. Wietlisbach. A kulturelles.bl Initiative
January 25–March 4, 2018

For her first solo exhibition in the framework of the “Solo Position” prize format Nicole A. Wietlisbach (b. 1989), who lives in Basel, creates a special complex of work within the spaces of the Kunsthaus Baselland. Recent works that display the artist’s interest in alienation and reduction will be presented. Her engagement with linear structures in nature will be brought into focus, as well as the estrangement and alienation of everyday images and habits. Landscape, compositions and music, as well as drawing and painting are all key elements in this work. “Solo Position” is a competition format aimed at artists in the region which enables an artist a solo exhibition in the three Kabinett galleries at the Kunsthaus. A public call for entries took place for the fifth time in early 2017. The jury members were the expert commission for art from the Canton of Basel-Landschaft and the Director of the Kunsthaus Baselland.

Purchased! The Canton Basel-Landschaft’s new acquisitions
March 16–April 2, 2018

A Kunsthaus Baselland initiative: 2017 purchases by the Canton Basel-Landschaft from the studios of artists Sabine Hertig (b. 1982, lives in Basel, works in the Dreispitz) and Krassimira Drenska (b. 1947, lives and works in Reinach) will be presented in the Kabinett galleries, alongside other, complementary works.

Vittorio Brodmann. Kunsthaus Baselland Annual Exterior Project 2018
March 16–December 31, 2018

Born in 1987 in Ettingen and currently living in Berlin, Vittorio Brodmann will develop a work specifically for the large exterior banner of the Kunsthaus Baselland that will be on show one year long. The new work will be based on Brodmann’s typically narrative painting practice that is frequently reminiscent of comic scenes. With this the annual exterior project is awarded for the fifth time: 2014: Bianca Pedrina; 2015: Kilian Rüthemann; 2016: Matthias Huber; 2017: Daniel Göttin. The format is designed specifically to offer artists from the region a lasting presence here.

Rossella Biscotti
Rochelle Feinstein
Naama Tsabar
April 20–July 16, 2018

Rossella Biscotti (*1978, Molfetta, Italy), uses montage as a gesture to reveal individual narratives and their relation to society. In her cross-media practice, cutting across filmmaking, performance and sculpture, she explores and reconstructs obscured moments from recent times, often against the backdrop of state institutions. In the process of composing her personal encounters and oral interrogations into new stories, the site of investigation tends to leave its mark on her sculptures and installations. By examining the relevance of the recovered material from a contemporary perspective, Biscotti sensibly weaves a link to the present. Relationships, support structures and entanglement are issues she questions in her most recent work.

Over almost 30 years, New-York born Rochelle Feinstein (b.1947), long-time professor of painting and printmaking at Yale University, has created a body of work that engages with the cultural and political connections within artistic production in general, and painting specifically. For Feinstein, painting is an anti-hierarchical endeavour, dealing with the question of what this medium can mean today, societally and culturally, without having to persevere with traditional forms. The solo show at the Kunsthaus Baselland will also include recent works by the artist from 2017 and 2018, a fresh cycle of paintings in a hang that interacts with the architecture of the Kunsthaus.

New York-based artist Naama Tsabar (b. 1982, Israel) investigates multi sensory environments and various charged spaces. Finding the power structures and the often out of sight components that enable fantasies to develop and offer an alternative to the realities of the outside world. Alluding to the implicit gender roles and coded behavior in music and nightlife, she turns to the aggressive gestures of rock and roll as well as its associations with masculinity and power, and undercuts them. In her works Tsabar channels the decadence of urban nightlife and its connections with danger, seduction and subversion.

Next Generation Institut Kunst HGK FHNW Bachelor and Master Degree Show
August 27–September 2, 2018

The Institut Kunst at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design is invited to the Kunsthaus Baselland once again, offering prospective artists an exciting platform on which to present their degree work to the public in a professional context.

Beehave. A Summary.
September 14–November 11, 2018

The honeybee plays a key role within our whole ecosystem. Starting from contemporary discussions about how bees are dying and current threats to the species, artistic works come about—in part in response to science—which demonstrate subjects relevant to society as well as principles of living and acting together. This is a group exhibition created in cooperation with the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and presents the honeybee as a source of artistic inspiration.

Regionale
November 25–January 2019

What started many years ago as a Christmas exhibition has meanwhile become one of the largest cross-border projects in the Basel, South Baden and Alsace region. 

Director: Ines Goldbach
Education programme: Christina Schmitt
Exhibition assistant/Press contact: Patricia Hug & Carole Ackermann, office [​at​] kunsthausbaselland.ch