VOLTA BASEL

DISCOVER. CONNECT. COLLECT.

VOLTA Art Fair returns to Basel for its 16th edition during this year’s Basel Art Fair Week. 69 galleries from across five continents and 50 cities assemble at the renovated venue of Elsässerstrasse 215, showcasing compelling new projects from artists of over 40 nations for a real life fair experience. Directed by Kamiar Maleki, VOLTA fosters galleries in staging ambitious solo and group presentations, refining the experience to its essential elements: the artists and their work.

Connected via shuttle bus or tram between Art Basel, visitors may escape the Messe’s hectic pace and immerse within VOLTA’s focused booth curation. The fair extends viewing hours from Monday, September 20, through Sunday, September 26.

“We are more than excited to welcome you back to an in real life fair experience at our newly renovated venue. Basel has always been and always will be the true centre of art fairs, and while we have been extremely busy in the background — re-branding, strategizing, and developing our fair — we are ready to resume action and provide a platform for our galleries to showcase some amazing art.”, says VOLTA Director Kamiar Maleki. “Our vision is to position VOLTA as the leading satellite fair in the cities it exhibits in. A fair for grass root collectors. We aim to make art more accessible by showcasing positions from different regions but trying to remain focused on a local collector base. VOLTA is about discovering, connecting and ultimately about collecting.”

FEATURED PRESENTATIONS

One third of the participating galleries have elected to showcase solo or two artists in a dialogue presentation. First time exhibitor Saradipour Art International (Los Angeles/Mahshahr, established in 2018) presents two Iranian artists of the same generation. Abbas Nasle Shamloo and Mahdieh Abolhasan create physically and emotionally charged depictions of humanity’s complicated, and destructive, relationship with the environment. Retro Africa from Abuja curates a solo presentation by Nigerian artist Alimi Adewale under the theme Changing Faces: New Frontiers in Figurative Art for its inaugural participation in Basel.

Long-time exhibiting Gallery Kogure from Tokyo present new works by ceramic artist Yoca Muta, bringing together traditional Japanese Kutani-yaki, as well as elements of pop culture such as western drawings, and contemporary Japanese manga.

For this September edition, Léna Roselli Gallery (Budapest) stages a two-booth presentation with sculpture artist BOLDI and painter Mózes Incze about How Humans Relate to the World. For their second presentation Playful Nature the gallery brings together new works by Ivan Lardschneider and Daniel Tarcsi. Nuweland (Oosterzee-Buren, established in 2017) gathers three South African artists to engage with the underlying violence within beauty. Featuring Morné Visagie (printmaking), Sanell Aggenbach (deconstructed painting), and Pierre Fouché (woven and lacework). Bavan Gallery (Tehran, established 2018) unveils three individual approaches to contemporary life in Iran, linked with a broader international discourse, via Elham Etemadi, Payam Qelichy, and Keiman Mahabadi. Returning VOLTA New York exhibitor Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston) introduces her emphasis on concept-driven artwork by showcasing new paintings by Austin Eddy and Natalia Wróbel for her inaugural participation in Switzerland. Among the fair’s patron galleries Galerie Thomas Fuchs (Stuttgart) will bring new works by Rainer Fetting, Sebastian Gumpinger, Jochen Hein, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, and Yongchul Kim to Basel. Charlie Smith London (London) curates their booth around an exploration of folk within contemporary painting, emphasizing notions of fable, mythology, fairytale, and narrative. Artists will include Sam Jackson, Simon Keenleyside, Melissa Kime, Concha Martinez Barreto, Richard Moon, and Dominic Shepherd.

CONNECTING TO ITS SWISS ROOTS

Founded in Basel in 2005, the fair is excited to welcome three Swiss galleries to their exhibitor roaster for the September edition. Basel and Fujisawa based Selene Art Media (Basel) introduces Japanese artists Souun Takeda and Kohei Kyomori. While ARTPOWHER Contemporary (Zurich) stages a solo presentation by British-Nigerian artist Sola Olulode.

VOLTA ENCOURAGES COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN GALLERIES

Zurich based Pythongallery and Von Fraunberg Art Gallery (Düsseldorf) collaborate on a shared presentation for Nature and Provocation: Pythongallery balances the real with the surreal via Willy Verginer’s figurative wood sculptures, which are lifelike yet somehow “wrong” and “strange” and are painted in swaths of flat acrylic. Photographer Georg Küttinger, whose imagery fragments to infinity behind layers of plexiglas. Von Fraunberg Art Gallery likewise engages with figuration and pure abstraction via Christoph Rode’s interiors and Maxim Wakultschik’s portraits, both of which hover at the lifelike/abstract border, segueing into the soft-focus color forms of Rita Rohlfing’s acrylic glass and paint reliefs.

London based Kahn Gallery and Nadia Arnold Ltd. collaborate in short surveys of their respective programs, featuring an international roster of emerging artists. Kahn will bring Edouard Merzouk, Gregory Watin, Anna Valverde, and Ulla-Stiner Wikander; complemented by Arnold’s selection of Adam Riches, Schalk van der Merwe, Felix Dolah, and Stefan Gunnesch.

Courtesy of Volta Art Fair

Artwork caption: Batoul Yaghi, Black Wild – Into the Deep, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 122 x 6 cm. Courtesy of Volta Art Fair