Where does art happen? When releasing the shutter, developing the photo or hanging it on the wall? It doesn’t really matter. What counts is the moment when we look at these works and gasp in delight. This is just a foretaste of the six days of photographic art that await you at photo basel in June.
Michal Chelbin, Pierre Cardin Men Archive, 2017
If you have the really big names on your CV, you could wear your nose up high. The New Yorker, GQ, The Financial Times and The Guardian carry Michal Chelbin’s work around the world, and the Israeli photographer’s photographs hang on the walls of the SF Moma, The Metropolitan Museum New York and Sir Elton John’s home. Why? Just take a look.
Marleen Sleeuwit, Interior no. 68, 2022
She simply has it, this eye for the seemingly banal that other eyes carelessly overlook. No wonder Marleen Sleeuwit has become an artist. Her installations are a conglomeration of ceilings, carpets, fluorescent tubes and glass wool, whereby she masters the play with perspectives like no other and thus increasingly blurs the boundaries between photography and optical illusion.
Gideon Lewin, Avedon, Inspecting, Baja, 1974
Vogue wanted tanned bodies and tight butts in 1974. Richard Avedon was to photograph, Rene Russo to model. Russo was sent to Baja a week before the shoot to get a tan – but the sun didn’t help, so Avedon’s make-up artist had to help with dark make-up. However, the scene was not photographed by Avedon, but by his studio manager Gideon Lewin.
Fatoumata Diabaté, L’Homme en Objet, Bala Na Djolo, 2013
Women often live in the shadows. One reason why Fatoumata Diabaté focuses on her own gender when she unpacks the camera. What makes up everyday life in their home country of Mali also belongs in front of the lens. In this work, everything revolves around the stories of her childhood, which made for big eyes around the wood fire.
Arnold Odermatt, (archive no. # 2823), Buochs, 1965
Sometimes talent lies dormant where you wouldn’t expect it. Odermatt’s hands first kneaded dough and later the minds of traffic offenders before they got to work on the camera. Odermatt photographs on duty as well as in civilian life – and with his documentaries, he lends an elegance to the everyday life of his work with the Nidwalden police that one would not have expected.
Gabriel Dia, Burning, 2020
Gabriel Dia knows how to express himself. Be it in words, his writing or through his photographs, which have won him numerous prizes and even more applause. The eternal questions of gender and identity have occupied the Senegalese living in France his whole life – time to pass them on to us.
Patrick Fuchs, insulator red, No.05, 2020
For anyone growing up in Toggenburg, the electric pasture fence is the first real test of courage. For Patrick Fuchs, the childhood memory
a source of inspiration. However, it is not the wire that the photographer focuses on, but its insulators, 30 of which he has already staged and photographed so carefully that steel and plastic actually become something of a treasure.
Christoph Sillem, Place Vendôme 1, 2020
When real places become theater stages, there is a good chance of coming face to face with a photograph by Christoph Sillem. For his Daguerre series, the German went on a treasure hunt through the city on the Seine and found settings that are normally nothing more than dull everyday life.
Ellen Kooi, Coruna – bloemen, 2019
In her photography, Dutch photographer Ellen Kooi focuses on the confrontation between people and nature. What looks like a spontaneous snapshot is actually planned well in advance, as Kooi combines natural and artificial light, puts a lot of thought into perspective and takes the traditional genre of landscape photography to a new level.
Kacper Kowalski, OVER#34, 2016
Kacper Kowalski was actually supposed to follow in his parents’ footsteps. But architecture wasn’t really his thing, he preferred to escape his thoughts and whizz through the air on a paraglider. At first, photography was just an excuse to take to the skies again and again. Then came the accident, everything changed, but one thing remained: the camera.
Marianne Bjørnmyr, Between a Rock and Hard place IIX, 2019
It’s okay that Marianne Bjørnmyr’s works are not directly understood, as the Norwegian’s aim is to dispel doubt with her work. The fact that Norway exported niobium to the USA in 1951, which was used during the Cold War, provided the background for this photograph, which represents so much more than one might think at first glance.
Maurizio Sapia, The Human Brain, EXP_1256.RAW, 2021
You always need a plan B in life. After his career on the bike, Maurizio Sapia focused everything on photography. He learned this from the ground up, founded his own studio, h2o, in 2001 and now focuses on the marriage of photography and painting. For his current work, he draws inspiration from the human brain and tries to capture thoughts, ideas and dreams.
Thomas Hoepkers, dancer doing the Ketjak dance, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, 1965
Thomas Hoepkers is one of the greats: the first German at the Magnum agency, where he was even president, Hoepkers is known for photographs that went around the world. At photo basel 2023, he will be showing as yet unpublished works – such as this black-and-white delicacy from Bali, which captures the Balinese dance drama in which up to 100 loincloth-clad dancers give their all.
Shen Wei, Shorts, 2020
In his series “I Miss You Already”, Chinese-American photographer Shen Wei explores the freedoms and limits of his own self and reflects on himself as an artist. Emotions run high – not only during the creative process, but also when looking at the finished work.
Christopher Thomas, Bittersweet, 2001
It is a real cocktail of emotions that Christopher Thomas serves us. Sadness meets happiness, melancholy meets rapture. The German photographer has dedicated himself to this subject for 20 years, and will continue to do so until he can no longer do so. The works are created in the most diverse locations all over the world, whereby it is not the geography that takes the viewer’s breath away, but the dramaturgy.
photo basel international art fair
The world looks to Basel in mid-June. The city on the Rhine has not only Art Basel to thank for this, but also the photo basel international art fair. For six days, galleries from all over the world will be showing photographs by artists that inspire reflection, discussion and dreaming.
photo basel, 13. until 18. June 2023, Volkshaus Basel, Rebgasse 12-14, 4058 Basel, Switzerland, photo-basel.com
Fancy the inside view? Here, photographer Simon Lohmeyer reveals his best tips for successful photographs.
Teaser photo & photos: photo basel international art fair
