The Basel Print Room houses around 300,000 works. Around 200 contemporary drawings, mainly recently acquired, can currently be viewed and studied in the Kunstmuseum Basel.
“Drawing today. New in the collection” is the title of the current small exhibition. “Today” and “new” – both terms indicate a topicality that is obvious to visitors as soon as they enter the exhibition rooms. Drawing has changed over the centuries – millennia. In any case, it has little in common with traditional drawing lessons in schools.
Drawings are not only used to prepare a larger work, in the form of sketches, or to study the possibilities of a representation. The drawings exhibited in Basel are small works of art of its kind Whether they are abstract or figurative, they are always expressive. They are dedicated to themes that concern us today.
All works by the nine artists were created in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Miriam Cahn (*1949 in Basel) is the oldest, the British-Kenyan painter Michael Armitage (*1981 in Nairobi) the youngest.
Miriam Cahn, Dawn (with yellow eyes) 1981. Charcoal and yellow chalk on tracing paper
The artists – seven of the nine are women – use colored pencils, charcoal, ink, sometimes watercolors and brushes for their work. It is often a game with lines, fragile shapes, but also with very broad strokes. The Basel-based artist Maja Rieder (*1979 in Niederbipp) uses a broad brush for her drawings – she insists on this word. She starts on large sheets of paper, applying the gouache or ink using her whole body. Folding, then unfolding and hanging up are all part of the work process. The effect of these works is impressive: on the wall, the large picture appears three-dimensional like a mesh.
Maja Rieder, Yellow Carpets, 2014 / 2017. Gouache.
What distinguishes the drawings from “ordinary” paintings – as far as these are still created today – are not only the tools such as brushes, etc., but also the materials on which the drawings are created: paper in many shapes and qualities, the color of the paper, everything plays a role for individual artists. It is also important how the chosen color is absorbed by the paper. Pélagie Gbaguidi (*1965 in Dakar, lives in Brussels) uses pages from old books for her works and inserts individual wool threads, a particularly original material in this context. A red wool thread hanging down from the work looks like a moving line that extends over the edges of the picture.
Pélagie Gbaguidi, Chaîne humaine, 2022. (detail) Wax pastel and colored pencil on a historical book double page, perforated in places.
The Japanese-Swiss artist Leiko Ikemura (*1951 in Tsu/Japan, lives in Berlin) started out as a draftswoman, but is now known for her paintings and sculptures. The oil pastel serves the contours, the watercolour, applied wet on wet, creates the atmosphere and lets the Subject blur, as if it were not yet clear what would become of the forms. Leiko Ikemura’s works are created at the moment when an idea or an image, like life in general, is still in the process of becoming. Nothing is yet finished.
Leiko Ikemura, CP Summer, 2018. Watercolor and oil pastel
The paintings of Renée Levi (*1960 in Istanbul, lives in Basel) are characterized by lines in all shapes, squiggles, waves or loops. Her drawings were created parallel to her paintings; she used to see them primarily as part of her creative process, but Levi has only been willing to exhibit the drawings since 2012. It is a game between chance and control, whereby the quality of the paper is also important: depending on how it absorbs or repels the color, different effects arise.
Renée Levi, untitled (2012), ink on coated paper, two sheets, connected in the middle with adhesive strips (photo mp)
The works of Martin Assig (*1959 in Schwalm, lives in and around Berlin) are exhibited separately, in the older part of the art museum, directly in front of the entrance to the Kupferstichkabinett. You shouldn’t miss this part of the exhibition.
Martin Assig, Menschenmensch, 2023. Ink (photo mp)
Assig works primarily with ink and brush in small formats. His works are formally closest to traditional drawing, but in terms of content they transcend physical forms. Behind the fragments, the clothes or coverings, the body parts, it is the souls of people, their incomprehensible appearances, that Assig wants to bring to light. Spirituality is important to the artist, and his confrontation with transience shapes him. His small sheets radiate human sensitivities such as fear and pain – and poetry.
Miriam Cahn (*1949 in Basel) is known for her uncompromising feminist attitude and the resulting paintings, which are also absolutely focused on women. Like many of her colleagues, her artistic beginnings lie in drawing. She often works with charcoal and often in series (see above), using her hands, feet and even her whole body. The visitor was particularly impressed by two smaller works that Miriam Cahn created in the aftermath of the Bosnian War. The horror of destruction and the sheer destruction itself hang next to each other – together they form a screaming protest that still needs to be heard today.
Miriam Cahn: Sarajevo, 10.8.92. created in 1993; left: brush in black, right: finger paint. (Photo mp)
It is everyday impressions that Silvia Bächli (*1956 in Baden) in an installation of 18 drawings, depicts things or the movement of a hand. Above it hang six variations of the upper body of a woman with bare breasts but no face. Nevertheless, the viewer feels observed – as if the neighbor were looking out the window. The title goes back to a 19th century rhyme that was sung to children until the 1960s, until people became aware of its racist content. Silvia Bächli is alluding more to the role of women and their physicality.
Silvia Bächli: «Is the black cook here?», 1988. Various techniques: gouache, oil chalk, oil pastel, charcoal, ink and text with inkjet printing (photo mp)
“Drawing has never been as free as it is today,” we read in the museum’s announcement. We learn this on our leisurely tour. The diversity of contemporary art in drawing is obvious. Although the exhibition does not take up a lot of space, it is worth allowing enough time. The predominantly small formats deserve close inspection.
Drawing today. New in the collection.
Basel Art Museum / New building and main building.
Until January 5, 2025
Cover image: Silvia Bächli, Untitled, 2011, acrylic
All Photos mp
