Art Basel: Basel, Switzerland

For this year's edition of Art Basel, James Cohan present a selection of new and important work by Firelei Báez, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Eamon Ore-Giron and Elias Sime. In the 2021 edition of Unlimited, Art Basel's sector for large-scale installations, James Cohan will present Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian's monumental installation Third Family (2011). The fair is open to the public from September 20 through September 26. 

In advance of the fair, preview a selection of available works here. 

In Laure (New Generall Chart for the West Indies of E. Wright's Projection), a seated figure painted in vibrant hues extends over a reproduction of an English sea-atlas from 1794. This spread was the first English-language atlas of American waters, and its prominence—with a long and continuous run of editions—points to the excessive mercantile exchange happening between Europe and the Americas during this time. By transforming this historical document with her bright painterly language, Báez illustrates how trade routes across the Caribbean region circulated not only commodities and bodies, but also revolutionary ideologies. Using abstract gesture to build swirling layers that ultimately comprise a strong, shape-shifting woman protagonist seated atop dense flora, Báez choreographs a new relationship with these channels of movement. The artist’s figurative, humanizing intervention challenges legacies of capitalism and imperialism to create possibilities for self-determination and alternate futures.

These works belongs to a series in which Monir dissects and reassembles the traditional surface of the mirror-mosaic into various maze forms, opening up spatial arrangements drawn from architecture to new possible interpretations. For Monir, the luminous reverse-painted glass pathways in these wall-based sculptures invoke the mazes of Persian gardens as well as the extravagant hedge labyrinths of English and French estate gardens. Her Maze works incorporate sacred geometries to give meditative, physical expression to the Farsi adage Hameesheh yek raah hast—“there is always a way”—inviting the viewer to discover their way in and their way out of the path laid out by the artist.

In his series Infinite Regress (2015–ongoing), Eamon Ore-Giron’s totemic visual language is subject to an ongoing process of reformulation. In philosophy, infinite regress is a sequence of reasoning which never ends, a paradox of limitless regeneration that disproves the concept of fixed knowledge—in connecting one element to another, a third one is generated and so on, endlessly. Ore-Giron paints with highly-pigmented flashe on raw brown linen, creating evocative forms that recall religious iconography, sacred landscapes, and celestial bodies in cyclical passages of time. With simple geometric shapes that shift in and out of graphic fields of gold, the paintings in this series are each a variation on the one that came before, suggesting a trajectory of future iterations. Their chromatic planes play on spatial recession and optical perception as they trace an infinite path forward.

At the core of Elias Sime's work is human contact and connection. His pieces, which include swirling braided wires and colorful dynamic circuit boards, highlight the humanity in the man-made, and serve as perspective to connect us, our environment, and technology.

Breaking from his earlier Tightrope compositions, the works in Elias' latest series, TIGHTROPE: ECHO!?  feature three-dimensional megaphones that have been affixed to the surface of the picture. The series' title and the introduction of this new tactile element suggest a heightened interest in communication, and the way in which information is successfully or unsuccessfully transmitted. Megaphones are often used in large communal gatherings as a means to project a message. Yet the series title, ECHO?!, suggests the presence of voices unheard.

James Cohan will present Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian's monumental mirror-work installation Third Family (2011) for the 2021 edition of Art Basel UNLIMITED. To learn more about this work, please click HERE→