Unlimited: Presenting 88 ambitious and large-scale works spanning six decades

This year Unlimited, Art Basel’s unique platform for artworks that transcend the traditional art fair stand, will present 88 projects from galleries participating in the show, a record number of projects for the sector. Curated for the fifth consecutive year by Gianni Jetzer, curator-at-large at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., Unlimited will showcase a strong selection of works by renowned international artists including AA Bronson, Ai Weiwei, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Gretchen Bender, Pablo Bronstein, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey Emin, Isa Genzken, Dan Graham, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Jannis Kounellis, Joseph Kosuth, Louise Lawler, Sol LeWitt, Laura Lima, Paul McCarthy, Pamela Rosenkranz, Martha Rosler, Dieter Roth, Frank Stella and James Turrell.

Since first introduced at Art Basel in 2000, Unlimited has become a key element of the show, providing galleries with a unique opportunity to showcase large-scale sculptures, video projections, installations, wall paintings, photographic series and performance art that cannot be exhibited in a gallery booth at an art fair. A unique platform for galleries, Unlimited provides an impressive overview of both Modern and contemporary art, with work of significant art historical relevance exhibited alongside new work by artists living and working today, across 16,000 square meters of exhibition space. Unlimited is notable for its embrace of the artworld's globalism including pieces by India's Archana Hande, China's Yan Xing and Cheng Ran, Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth, Singapore's Ho Tzu Nyen and Samson Young of Hong Kong.

Highlights of Unlimited include El Anatsui’s ‘Gli (Wall)’ (2010), presented by Jack Shainman Gallery (New York, Kinderhook), comprised of five hanging curtains made of recycled materials, which come together to create an immense yet contemplative intervention within the space. Presented by David Zwirner (New York, London), Stan Douglas’ ‘Luanda-Kinshasa’ (2013) is set within a reconstruction of the legendary Columbia 30th Street Studio in Midtown Manhattan. Featuring a band of professional musicians improvising together, the work is a documentation of a fictitious recording at the famous studio in the 1970s. galerie frank elbaz (Paris) and Gagosian Gallery (New York, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Le Bourget, Rome, Athens, Geneva, Hong Kong) will present Davide Balula’s ‘Mimed Sculpture’ (2016), a performance with mimes tracing the invisible presence of art-historically significant sculptures. Gretchen Bender’s monumental 24-monitor multi-projection screen installation, ‘Total Recall’ (1987), will be presented by Metro Pictures (New York). The work explores the accelerated image flow of television and exemplifies Bender’s concept of ‘electronic theatre’, in which she aims to infiltrate the corporate domain of mass media representation by overloading the viewer with information.

Presented by Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai), Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris, Brussels) and Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna), Mithu Sen’s ‘MUO (Museum of Unbelongings)’ (2016) is a display cabinet filled with everyday objects, each individually named and collected by the artist since childhood. In Hans Op de Beeck’s ‘The Collector’s House’ (2016), presented by Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Beijing, Boissy-le-Châtel, Havana), Marianne Boesky Gallery (New York) and Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna), the viewer will enter an immersive installation of a black and white neoclassical evocation of a private room featuring sculptures, paintings, furniture and books, all handcrafted from soft grey colored plaster as if everything has been frozen and petrified. Miguel Abreu Gallery (New York), Karma International (Zurich, Beverly Hills) and Sprüth Magers (Berlin, London, Los Angeles) will present a site-specific installation by Pamela Rosenkranz. The work, titled ‘Blue Runs’ (2016), furthers Rosenkranz’s ongoing experiments with liquid forms and consists of a continuously recycled thin blue water stream flowing through the faucet of a ceramic sink. All that will be visible to visitors will be the sink and its perpetual blue stream of running water, evoking cultural, political and scientific meanings. ‘Zoom Pavilion’ (2015) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer in collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko, presented by Carroll / Fletcher (London), is an interactive installation that consists of an immersive projection. The piece uses facial recognition algorithms to detect the presence of people within the exhibition space and record their spatial relationship.

Ariel Schlesinger’s ‘Two Good Reasons’ (2015), presented by Galleria Massimo Minini (Brescia), is a repeated choreographed movement between two large sheets of polypropylene. Sprovieri (London) will present ‘Jungle Jam’ (2010) by Chelpa Ferro, a series of food blenders filled with plastic bags in place of the usual cutting devices, which move and shake when activated, creating an original rhythmic sound. Tunga’s sculptural installation ‘Eu, você e a lua (Me, you and the moon)’ (2014), presented by Luhring Augustine (New York, Brooklyn) and Galleria Franco Noero (Turin), relies on the repeated use of symbolic forms. Welded, cast, and made of clay, objects are paired with evocative geological and organic materials, exploring the relationships between language, image and object. David Zwirner (New York, London) will present ‘Six Columns’ (2006) by John McCracken – six monumentally scaled black columns first sketched out by the artist in the 1970s.

Unlimited will once again feature a number of significant historical works, including ‘Damascus Gate, Stretch Variation I’ (1970), a seminal work by Frank Stella presented by Marianne Boesky Gallery (New York), Dominique Lévy Gallery (New York, London) and Sprüth Magers (Berlin, London, Los Angeles). Robert Grosvenor’s ‘Untitled (yellow)’ (1966), presented by Paula Cooper Gallery (New York) and Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin, Paris), is a recreation of a sculpture by the artist first shown in a survey exhibition of

‘American Sculpture of the Sixties’ in 1967, and is emblematic of the artist’s early installations, in which he presented monumental sculptures that were cantilevered and suspended in space. Sean Kelly (New York) and Sprüth Magers (Berlin, London, Los Angeles) will present ‘Titled (Art as Idea as Idea)’ (1968), Joseph Kosuth’s first ever gallery installation of what has become his dictionary definition series – in this case 10 different definitions of the word ‘nothing’. Alison Knowles’ ‘Make a Salad’ (1962) will be presented by James Fuentes (New York), fifty-four years after its original debut. Performers will prepare various salad ingredients before emptying the contents onto a large tarp and then encouraging onlookers to toss the salad with the artist by holding the edges of the tarp and catapulting the salad into the air, before it is served. In 1973, Dieter Roth began a long-term project known as ‘Flacher Abfall / Flat Waste’ (1975-1976/1992), for which he collected food packaging and other found scraps, before subsequently encasing them in over 600 binders and filing them in bookshelves. Presented here by Hauser & Wirth (Zurich, New York, Los Angeles, London, Somerset), the piece addresses Roth’s artistic role as collector, cataloguer and archivist. Galerie Nagel Draxler (Berlin, Cologne) and Mitchell-Innes & Nash (New York) will present ‘House Beautiful: Bringing The War Home’ (1967-1972) by Martha Rosler, a photomontage work protesting against the Vietnam War, combining Vietnam War photojournalism with cutouts from contemporary home design magazines, thus mixing the prosperity of postwar America with images of soldiers, corpses and wounded Vietnamese civilians to disturbing effect.

A limited-edition catalog, published by Hatje Cantz Publishers, will accompany Unlimited, including descriptive texts and images about each artwork. The catalog is for sale at the show as well as in bookshops. Cost: CHF 50.

Julie Mehretu, carlier gebauer

Prabhavathi Meppayil, Pace, Esther Schipper / Johnen Galerie, GALLERYSKE

Jonathan Monk, Meyer Riegger, Blondeau & Cie, Dvir Gallery, Lisson Gallery

Ciprian Mure?an, David Nolan Gallery, Galeria Plan B

Paulo Nazareth, Mendes Wood DM, Galleria Franco Noero, Meyer Riegger

Hans Op de Beeck, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Galleria Continua, Galerie Krinzinger

Tony Oursler, Lisson Gallery

Adam Pendleton, Galeria Pedro Cera

Tobias Pils, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Steven Pippin, Gavin Brown's enterprise

Pope.L, Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Gerwald Rockenschaub, Mehdi Chouakri, Galerie Vera Munro, Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Lehmann Maupin, Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Pamela Rosenkranz, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Karma International, Sprüth Magers

James Rosenquist, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Martha Rosler, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Galerie Nagel Draxler

Dieter Roth, Hauser & Wirth

Ariel Schlesinger, Galleria Massimo Minini

Mithu Sen, Chemould Prescott Road, Galerie Krinzinger, Galerie Nathalie Obadia

Paul Sharits, Greene Naftali

Alan Shields, Van Doren Waxter

Chiharu Shiota, Galerie Daniel Templon

Laurie Simmons, Salon 94

Frances Stark, Gavin Brown's enterprise

Frank Stella, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Dominique Lévy Gallery, Sprüth Magers

Rayyane Tabet, Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Antoni Tàpies, Galerie Lelong

Wolfgang Tillmans, David Zwirner

Tunga, Luhring Augustine, Galleria Franco Noero

James Turrell, OMR

Ho Tzu Nyen, STPI

Haegue Yang, Kukje Gallery / Tina Kim Gallery

Samson Young, Galerie Gisela Capitain, team (gallery, inc.)

Gilberto Zorio, Lia Rumma