Live from September 23rd to September 26th and featuring 100 Art Basel galleries from 28 countries and territories, ‘OVR:2020’ will be exclusively dedicated to works made this year.
Luis Gispert, Untitled (Barrel Back), 2020, Oil on linen, 62 x 50 x 2.5 inches (157.5 x 127 x 6.5 cm). Moran Moran at Art Basel OVR 2020
This new format will give participating galleries the opportunity to present tightly curated exhibitions, showing up to six works simultaneously. Collectors will be able to discover 600 exceptional works created in 2020 by established and emerging artists across the globe, including painting, sculpture, drawings, installation, and photography, as well as video and digital works.
Several galleries will focus their presentation on a single artist. Highlights include: neugerriemschneider’s presentation of two new works by Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose production will be live-streamed over the course of ‘OVR:2020’, creating an element of interaction often missing from the current pandemic-impacted artistic landscape; François Ghebaly showing new works by Cameroon-born and New York-based artist Ludovic Nkoth that are distinguished by swirling forms, a complex use of color, and a transnational perspective; Alison Jacques Gallery’s debut of six new works by Erika Verzutti, whose first major UK museum exhibition will open in January 2021 at Nottingham Contemporary; ‘Open Body’ at White Cube, featuring new works by Antony Gormley that explore the tension between stability and collapse; Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde’s presentation of works by Dubai-based collective Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian, who appropriate images from the current media landscape; PKM Gallery showcasing a series of phosphorescent paintings by Koo Jeong A, whose pigments capture daylight to glow at night; new photographs by Marilyn Minter at Salon 94 that vividly manifest our culture’s complex and contradictory emotions around the feminine body and beauty; and a selection of recent sculptures and installations by Alicja Kwade at König Galerie.
Multiple galleries will feature presentations that address vital themes of social justice and racial equality. Several highlights include: Anat Ebgi’s selection of video and digital collage works by Jibade-Khalil Huffman that closely mine the contradictory and intrinsic nature of racism in America; Jenkins Johnson Gallery’s ‘Stand Up, Speak Up, Speak Out’, featuring works by five African Diaspora artists – Lisa Corinne Davis, Rashaad Newsome, Blessing Ngobeni, Amani Lewis, and Raelis Vasquez who explore international political and social issues of 2020; and ‘Gentle People’ at Jessica Silverman Gallery featuring Sadie Barnette, whose work draws on her family history, particularly the life of her father Rodney Barnette, a founding member of the Black Panther Party. Ebony G. Patterson, whose work addresses themes of global social and political injustices, will present her most recent works on paper at moniquemeloche. Various presentations will reflect on the lived experiences and the sociopolitical narratives of 2020, including new paintings by Ramiro Gomez at P.P.O.W that bring America’s essential workers to the forefront of our visual culture, in dialogue with the topic of immigration and the increasing criminalization of border-crossing; works by Ziad Antar, Elena Damiani, M’barek Bouhchichi, Maha Malluh, and Catalina Swinburn at Selma Feriani Gallery that explore the individual yet collective challenges presented by the global health crises and subsequent political unrest; and Altman Siegel’s selection of new works by Lynn Hershman Leeson that address the mask as an identity construct, directly referencing COVID-19 and the current state of the pandemic.
Several presentations will also explore humans’ varied and nuanced psychological responses to our surroundings and the circumstances of this year, including ‘Roots’ at Commonwealth and Council, which brings together works by artists Beatriz Cortez, Carolina Caycedo, Clarissa Tossin, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, and EJ Hill that meditate on the anxiety, yearning, and also hope of the current moment, considering the resilience of nature, the liberating potential of the body, and Indigenous knowledge; Foksal Gallery Foundation’s presentation including ceramic works by Pawe Althamer that reveal the artist’s experience of lockdown as a period of deep reflection upon intimate worlds and the people closest to him; and Various Small Fires’ ‘Dream State’, featuring Californian artists Jessie Homer French, Anna Sew Hoy, Judith Linhares, Calida Rawles, and Glen Wilson whose works visualize their dreamed environments and ideals, while reflecting on their concerns with the current state of reality.
Marc Spiegler, Global Director, Art Basel said:
‘The viewing rooms that comprise Art Basel’s ‘OVR:2020’ represent an incredible force and variety of artistic perspectives, which together offer our audiences across the globe the opportunity to experience artists’ most recent works – both conveying and contending with the lived experiences of our time.’
The Online Viewing Rooms will be available via the Art Basel website under artbasel.com/ovr, as well as on the Art Basel App for the most mobile-friendly experience.
OVR:2020 Preview (by invitation only) Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020, noon (CET) – Friday, September 25th, 2020 noon (CET)
Selection Committee for OVR:2020 Sadie Coles, Sadie Coles HQ, London Massimo De Carlo, Massimo De Carlo, Milan, London, and Hong Kong Mills Morán, Morán Morán, Los Angeles Prateek Raja, Experimenter, Kolkata Lisa Spellman, 303 Gallery, New York Jasmin Tsou, JTT, New York.
