Basel Bullshit (Or Actually, Cow Shit)
Basel Diary Day 1: I've gone to a dairy farm to show art, EE-I, EE-I, Oh
🛶 Read SKC on Gaddafi and Berlusconi in Venice here 🛶
🔃 Read Anna Kornbluh on her latest book, Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism here 🔃
🚆 Read Gabrielle Sicam on Jesper List Thomsen’s exhibition at Hot Wheels London here 🚆
The Basel Diary Series is daily reportage from the Basel art fairs from June 9th to June 18th for the Season 4 Episode 6 vertical. The gallery will be exhibiting at Basel Social Club from June 9 - 16.
Much of my anxiety around art fairs has to do with my clothes: what the hell do I wear? Some grab art’s bombast by the horns and turn themselves into living, breathing street art — sought out by the tacky, and quick to depreciate, but eye-catching nonetheless. I look to find the least offensive outfit possible; something that allows me to entirely slip into the crowd and possibly past the security at a Liste afterparty. Something that says both “I know what I’m doing here” and “I could feasibly be getting paid to tell you where the toilets are.” I decided to pack a suit for the first time in my art career.
This was a mistake. Before going to the airport, I needed to go to the gallery to collect the work I’m showing at Basel Social Club — the main component of which is an eight year-old child-sized mannequin (apparently mannequins are differentiated in even numbered, two-year age gaps — huh). Having adopted the logistics strategy of a shoulder shrug and a checked bag receipt for a golf bag — apparently the same size — on Ryanair, I ended up walking through Euston with a large box strapped to my arm and resting on my roller bag. I looked like a low-budget art Transformer, the hangers for my newly dry cleaned suit digging into the palm of my free hand. If my teachers had threatened me with this bullshit and not bad grades (a far kinder fate for a wannabe art star), I might have paid closer attention.
Travel was mostly unexciting — I was able to dislodge the wire hangers from hand once I dropped off my child-cum-sports-equipment, and the busses ran with smug but useful Germanic efficiency. I almost panicked when the bus stop closest to the fair left me on the side of a quiet, indistinguishable rural road, but a bit of wandering and a few lucky guesses got me where I needed to go. The resident cows even gave me a polite but ambivalent möööö.
The most striking thing about this year’s location for Basel Social Club — beyond its size (electric bike is the recommended mode of transport around the fair) — is the unmistakable smell of cow shit. It is oppressive and immediate; there is no doubt that this is very much a working farm. Still, I have to commend what Robbie Fitzpatrick + Co. have pulled off: entirely successful or not (time will tell), it has immense ambition. Organising an exhibition is difficult, so organising 70 galleries across acres of land is like asking an art dealer to win the Tour de France, consuming only diet cokes and Marlboro cigarettes.
It was blustery and rainy and my phone was swiftly running out of battery, so I decided to try to make it to my host’s house before it got too dark. I am graciously being put up by a London friend who grew up here, and so I’ve already gotten luxuries that most don’t this week: clean towels and a piece of fresh fruit.
All in all, it’s success tinged with dread: the whole thing wasn’t called off before it started, but now it looks like I’m in for the long haul.
If you have any tips or invites, text me at +447513141017.