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Interview
with Maarten Baas, designer |
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Winner
of the Design Miami's edition “Designer of the Year Award” 2009. Dutch designer Maarten Baas talks about his astonishing
creations “clocks". |
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Interview
with Adam Szymczyk, director of Kunsthalle Basel (May 2008, Basel) |
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NOMAD:
Speaking of Zurich and Basel, we have the feeling that while Basel
is more institutional, Zurich may be more open to receiving young
artists and has a more intense subculture scene. Do you have any
opinions on that?
Szymczyk: There are important museums
in Basel, but the city is divided between the more established Gross-Basel
and more experimental Klein-Basel, plus it has a much less explored
suburban industrial fringe zone, with occasional club-like establishments
and all kinds of nightly happenings.
NOMAD: Basel holds a very particular
position in the international art world thanks to Art Basel, along with
an impressive number of museums and private foundations. Not to mention
Basel-based star architects like Herzog and de Meuron. What kind of
impact do all these realities have on the city?
Szymczyk: Art
world invades the city once during the year, in early June, but there
is also a constant and slower flow of international visitors, who come
to see exhibitions and cutting-edge architecture throughout the whole
year. And there is a great art-loving local audience, which makes it
a pleasure to run the Basler Kunstverein, with its almost 2,000 members.
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Elena
Filipovic and Adam Szymczyk, curators of the 5th Berlin Biennial for
contemporary art
Photo: Uwe Walter,
2007 |
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NOMAD:
Traditionally Kunsthalle Basel is dedicated to present emergent artists;
in which way do you pursue this mission?
Szymczyk: Yes
I do. At the moment we have a show by Ahmet Ögüt, a Turkish artist born
in 1981, and another one by Aleana Egan, who was born in Dublin in 1979.
Neither of them have had an important institutional solo show before.
At the same time, we often look retrospectively towards some major artists
who escaped the attention of museums or were too radical to be shown
when they were making work. For instance, two years ago we organized
the first European retrospective of American artist Lee Lozano (1930-1999),
who moved from painting to conceptual statement and then decided to
leave the art world entirely, while changing name to "E", for "energy".
NOMAD: How do you discover new talents?
Szymczyk: I
ask some people I know. I ask artists a lot. I always learn something
from artists.
NOMAD: You have chosen to work with
the Basel-based graphic designer Ludovic Balland on the catalogue of
the actual Berlin Biennale you curated. What incentive did you have
for working with him?
Szymczyk: Ludovic
is a highly intelligent graphic design artist who is totally aware of
the political, aesthetic and practical implications of his decisions
with regard to page layout, typography, binding etc. He has a strong
awareness of the history of book design and his approach is holistic:
he is interested in the content of the book and in finding a
relationship of equivalence or friction between the stuff we deliver as
editors and the shape he gives to it. To work with him was a challenge
to our original ideas for the content of the book. Everything was
changing in discussions: the selection of images, the order of texts,
the choice of source texts, the content of image captions. We worked
together on each aspect – from the cover pictures to a single letter.
Making this book, which is as idiosyncratic, diverse and complex as it
is precise, and which was also done in an extremely short time, could
only be a pleasure with Mr Balland. Any other designer was bound to
fail. |
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Poster
of 5th Berlin Biennale designed by Ludovic Balland |
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