Fondation Beyeler, Art Basel and Theater Basel are delighted to announce ‘14 Rooms’, a major live-art exhibition to be staged in Basel from June 14 to 23, 2014. Curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition will feature performative works by artists including Marina Abramovi?, Allora and Calzadilla, Ed Atkins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Damien Hirst, Otobong Nkanga, Roman Ondák, Santiago Sierra, and Xu Zhen. With an overall exhibition design by Herzog & de Meuron, ‘14 Rooms’ is a collaboration between Fondation Beyeler, Art Basel and Theater Basel.
Curators Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, have invited 14 international artists to each activate a room, exploring the relationship between space, time and physicality with an artwork whose ‘material’ is a human being. Giving visitors an insight into a more performative and interactive practice, visitors will encounter a new situation within each of the 14 rooms, engaging in a diverse series of immersive and intimate experiences.
Conceived specifically for Basel, Ed Atkins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Otobong Nkanga will create new works for the show. Alongside these world premieres, historical and rarely seen works by acclaimed artists from around the world will be brought to Basel.
The curators and artists will be attending the opening of the exhibition.
While the artists themselves are not present in these works, they instruct performers on how to act out their specifications, resulting in over 70 performers – primarily from the Basel region – taking part in the exhibition. ‘14 Rooms’ will be staged in Hall 3 of Messe Basel in walking distance from Messeplatz. The exhibition will open to the public ahead of Art Basel on Saturday, June 14th and will stay open until Monday, June 23rd, a day longer than the fair.
‘14 Rooms’ will be accompanied by an education program conceived and run by Fondation Beyeler.
Originally commissioned as ‘11 Rooms’ by Manchester International Festival, the International Arts Festival RUHRTRIENNALE 2012-2014 and Manchester Art Gallery, the project was shown as ‘11 Rooms’ at Manchester International Festival in July 2011, as ‘12 Rooms’ at the International Arts Festival RUHRTRIENNALE 2012-2014 and as ‘13 Rooms’ by Kaldor Public Art Projects at Pier 2/3 in Sydney’s Walsh Bay in April 2013. For each edition, the artists list partially changed.
Ann-Christin Rommen, Marc Bättig and Samuel Leuenberger are the producers of the exhibition.
Further information on ‘14 Rooms’ is available at artbasel.com/basel/14rooms.
