It is the most beautiful conspiracy we have ever seen, and in two ways, because the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is never satisfied with simple things and simple solutions. At the Fondation Beyeler in Basel he created a fleeting, daring, outrageous work of art that the whole city speaks about with such enthusiasm as if there was nothing more important in the world at the moment: Renzo Piano's building of the Fondation has desecrated Eliasson with heretical audacity by he had half of the glass fronts removed and half a dozen rooms in the museum flooded. Now the pond, which otherwise ends at the glass panes, pours into the halls in which Claude Monet's "water lilies" usually hang - even filled with water lilies and duckweed and colored with the fluorescent dye uranine,which makes the water shine frog green during the day and ultramarine blue at night. You wander on wooden walkways through this architectural-aquatic intermediate realm, smell the plants, hear the insects and feel the conspiracy with every fiber: on the one hand, in the literal sense of the word, the common breathing of man and nature, on the other hand, the complicity with an art that no longer has limits knows, but only flowing transitions.
Jakob Strobel y Serra
Deputy head of the features section.
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The work of art with the descriptive title “Live” is open around the clock, can be viewed free of charge from nine in the evening, and the people of Basel celebrate Eliasson's work of fraternization - and themselves - night after night with open-air parties in the park Fondation. That is in their nature, because in hardly any other European city is the conspiracy between art and the inhabitants as passionate as in Basel - here painting and sculpture are not decoration, but rather a collective affair of the heart since early modern times. In order to allow visitors from outside to participate in this complicity, the “Arts & Culture” project has now been founded on the initiative of the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois. The first house on the squarea Basel institution for more than three centuries and, thanks to its location directly on the Rhine promenade, the most beautiful living room in the city, has teamed up with three other hotels, the Fondation Beyeler and the art museum and created a tour for art lovers including the appropriate package deals. The route currently comprises fifteen points to which you can be guided using QR codes. Using a mobile phone, they are scanned on a brochure with a city map and brief explanations of the art venues and always take visitors to their destination by the shortest route, either on foot or by motorized vehicle.the Fondation Beyeler and the art museum have joined forces and created a tour for art lovers including the appropriate package deals. The route currently comprises fifteen points to which you can be guided using QR codes. Using a mobile phone, they are scanned on a brochure with a city map and brief explanations of the art venues and always take visitors to their destination by the shortest route, either on foot or by motorized vehicle.the Fondation Beyeler and the art museum have joined forces and created a tour for art lovers including the appropriate package deals. The route currently comprises fifteen points to which you can be guided using QR codes. Using a mobile phone, they are scanned on a brochure with a city map and brief explanations of the art venues and always take visitors to their destination by the shortest route, either on foot or by motorized vehicle.
A mixture of dragon, unicorn and whale
The route aims to depict the entire spectrum of the art city of Basel. That is why she not only connects classics such as the thousand-year-old minster with its colorful Burgundian roof tiles or the town hall with its colorful facade painting, but also unusual places such as a monumental graffito by the Swiss street artist Tika or the building of an old brewery, whose Tower is famous for its emblematic external staircase. You will be taken to the Rhine promenade, which is itself a total work of art, and to Baloise Park, where not only banks and insurance companies are based. Here, among all the money, art is shown, currently an exhibition with works by the sculptor Thomas Schütte. He placed the patinated bronze figure of a gigantic mythical creature in front of the corporate headquarters,a good-natured mixture of dragon, unicorn, elk, whale and sea lion, which constantly snorts from its nostrils. And at some point you stand in front of the Läckerli Huus, in which the most famous Basel dessert has its origin, a gingerbread biscuit, optionally with the aromas of cocoa, truffles, lemon, pear, apple, cinnamon, cloves or Swiss gin. This is what is called an expanded concept of art in Schwyzerdütsch.