Having participated in the fair for over two decades, Lehmann Maupin returns to Art Basel with a presentation that celebrates its artists’ global institutional programming, from the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, to the National Galleries Scotland in Edinburgh and SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico. Highlights include works by Teresita Fernández, Kim Yun Shin, Do Ho Suh, and Nari Ward—who each have major exhibitions on view in museums and biennials around the world. Together, the works on view traverse a wide range of media, probing the dimensionality and haptic experience of material. Concurrent to the fair in Europe, a group exhibition is on view at Lehmann Maupin’s seasonal gallery in Milan, Italy through June 21.
As part of the fair’s Unlimited sector, Lehmann Maupin will present Liza Lou’s landmark installation work Security Fence (2005). Crafted entirely from glass beads on steel and razor wire, Lou’s to-scale installation reconstructs exterior prison security measures—a chain link fence with barbed wire on top. Calling notions of security and fragility into question, Lou’s elaborate handmade work introduces touch and contact into a space of isolation, lending care and dignity to an otherwise dehumanizing and industrial structure. In September, Lou will debut an all new body of work in New York, spanning the gallery’s Chelsea location. In October, the Brooklyn Museum will debut the permanent installation of Lou’s Trailer (1998—2000), which the institution recently acquired.
Additionally, Mandy El-Sayegh will debut a new installation for the fair’s Parcours initiative, which organizes public art projects outside of the fair. Body Promise will transform two spaces in the Clarastrasse shopping center, creating an immersive environment through printed matter on the walls and floors and several large-scale paintings. El-Sayegh will also stage several performances in the space over the course of the fair, including on Monday, June 10th, Wednesday, June 12th, and Friday, June 14th, all at 7:15 PM.
At the booth, highlights include Nari Ward’s sculptural installation Empire probes themes of identity through highly tactile material. Composed of new and found art objects sourced from his neighborhood, the work comprises a decorative glass cabinet painted black with indelible ink and filled with an assortment of unusual black globes. These globes are tufted in balls of cotton dipped in sugar and singed with fire, resembling scorched topographies. Referencing the western museological phenomenon of the cabinet of curiosities, Empire gestures towards the often invisible forces that construct community and cultural identity. Ward’s retrospective exhibition Ground Break is currently on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy through July 28.
Nearby, a selection of paintings and sculpture by first-generation Korean artist Kim Yun Shin are engaged with the natural environment. Crafted from solid wood, Kim’s sculptures are deeply rooted in traditional Korean hanok architecture, which uses a distinctive technique that joins wooden blocks without nails, as well as the philosophical concept of yin (division and fragmentation) and yang (addition and integration). Similarly, Kim’s vibrant paintings allow her to explore these sculptural concepts in a two-dimensional format. Kim seeks to access the primordial world through her mediums, and in doing so, her works visualize the intersection between nature, time, and history, reconsidering the essence of human existence. Concurrent to the fair, Kim’s work is prominently displayed in Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. A selection of the artist’s historically significant sculptures are on view in the Giardini section of the main biennale exhibition.
Do Ho Suh’s boundary pushing use of paper as a sculptural medium is reflected in a key work from the artist’s Self-Portrait/s series, presented at the booth. Developed between 2007 and 2021 at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, Suh's Self-Portrait/s are Gampi and Abaca paper casts of his Uni-form/s: Self-portrait/s: My 39 Years (2006). The works build on the artist’s long-standing inquiry into ideas around identity, memory, and physical space. For Suh, clothing presents the most immediate personal space we inhabit. In these new paper works, the uniforms are ghostly apparitions of their original selves—a memorialization of intimate spaces once occupied and the associations and memories those spaces hold. Suh’s Self-Portrait/s originally debuted in his current solo exhibition Tracing Time at the National Galleries Scotland, on view through September 1. Next year, the Tate Modern in London will present a major solo survey exhibition of Suh’s work, on view from May 1—October 26, 2025.
The gallery will present wall-based sculptural work by Teresita Fernández, on the heels of her solo exhibition Soil Horizon at Lehmann Maupin New York. Across her decades-long practice, Fernandez explores an expansive reimagining of what constitutes landscape: from the subterranean to the cosmic, to contentious borderlines and borderlands. In Manigua(Apparition)2 (2023), the artist constructs an immersive landscape by meticulously assembling charcoal, black sand, and other natural materials onto a large reflective surface. Using raw materials extracted from the earth, Fernández demonstrates how landscape bears signs of intercontinental exchange and colonial power. As the artist uncovers the many layers of history, culture, and politics embedded in place, she evokes the notion of the “stacked landscape”—an understanding of place that embraces the many social and historical dimensions embedded within any single location. This summer, SITE Santa Fe will present Teresita Fernández / Robert Smithson. Opening in July, this two-artist exhibition will feature over 30 works by Fernández and mark the first time Robert Smithson’s oeuvre has been placed in conversation with an artist working today. Other forthcoming projects include a monumental site-specific installation at the Detroit Institute of Arts to be unveiled in 2025.
Finally, a new painting by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, entitled La migranta (2024), will debut at the fair. Vicuña is known for her dynamic practice that integrates poetry, performance, Conceptualism, and textiles in response to pressing concerns of the modern world, including ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. In 2022, the Guggenheim Museum in New York presented Vicuña’s solo exhibition Spin Spin Triangulene, followed closely by the debut of her installation Brain Forest Quipu, commissioned for the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. The exhibition Cecilia Vicuña: Soñar el agua, una retrospectiva del futuro (1964–) is currently on view through September 15 at Pinacoteca de São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil; in 2023, the exhibition traveled to the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires, Argentina after making its debut at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile. This November, Vicuña will present an exhibition of new work at Lehmann Maupin in New York.