Lehmann Maupin will participate in the 2021 edition of Art Basel with a presentation of new and historical works from across the gallery’s program. Highlights include emblematic sculptures by the late Swiss artist Heidi Bucher, whose retrospective Metamorphosen opens September 17 at Haus der Kunst, Munich; Kader Attia, whose solo exhibition Kader Attia: On Silence premiers this fall at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar and who was selected to curate the 12th edition of the Berlin Biennale in 2022; and Teresita Fernández, whose permanent installation Paradise Parados will be unveiled at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) this fall. The booth will also include new and recent work by McArthur Binion, Mandy El-Sayegh, Shirazeh Houshiary, Lee Bul, Liza Lou, Arcmanoro Niles, OSGEMEOS, Angel Otero, Robin Rhode, and Erwin Wurm. In the Unlimited sector, Lehmann Maupin will present two monumental works by Nari Ward and Lari Pittman.
Central to the gallery’s presentation are Heidi Bucher’s evocative works from the 1970s and 1980s. Bucher, who maintained an ideologically important, yet overlooked practice, in most part due to her gender and choice of materials, is best known for her innovative use of latex to cast large-scale architectural features, including entire buildings. These “skinnings” or “moltings,” including Door of the Herrenzimmer (1978) and Untitled (Puerta interior Palacio / Interior palace door), Lanzarote (1984), were particularly significant as they marked both Bucher’s return to Zurich after living abroad in the United States and Canada, and the enfranchisement of Swiss women, who did not gain the right to vote until 1971. Bucher’s major retrospective exhibition, Metamorphosen, opens September 17 at Haus der Kunst, Munich.
Lehmann Maupin will also debut a new sculptural work by Kader Attia, consisting of a Salampasu mask perched against a raw canvas embellished with pigment and broken mirrors. The artist, who grew up in Algeria and the suburbs of Paris, draws from his experience of living within two disparate cultures to examine the intricacies of social, historical, and cultural differences across the globe. Attia’s work will be the subject of the solo exhibition Kader Attia: On Silence at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar; and the artist will curate the 12th edition of the Berlin Biennale in 2022.
Art Basel Unlimited
Measuring 30-feet wide, A Brief History of Known (2021) belongs to Nari Ward’s acclaimed Breathing Panel series: large-scale copper works in which the artist applies darkening patina to the soles of his shoes, leaving a trace of his performative gesture on the surface. Ward punctures geometric patterns into each panel, referencing traditional Congolese cosmograms, an ancient prayer symbol that represents the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. iPhone protective case impressions are also incorporated into this work, a nod to the use of the technology in bearing witness to the critical, historic events of today, while the many shoe print impressions imply a large group of people, suggesting crowds or a protest march.
Pittman’s Curiosities from a Late Western Impaerium consists of 70 works on paper that grouped together evoke a Wunderkammer (or cabinet of curiosities). Embracing this Renaissance concept, the artist arranged the works thematically to explore a disparate array of concepts, including manifestos, political posters, antidepressants, snow globes, brain scans, and genetically engineered plants, among others. By grouping these together, Pittman continues to address the histories of identity, violence, class, and human nature through the polemicized lens of the decorative embodied in the memento mori and other forms of commemoration.