Basel (Switzerland) (AFP)

Art Basel, the great contemporary art fair, has reopened its doors to the public highlighting dystopia, Black Lives Matter and gender identity, after its cancellation last year due to the health crisis.

This large fair, held in Basel, Switzerland, is above all a commercial event, where artists and galleries come to meet rich collectors.

But the event which welcomed no less than 93,000 visitors in 2019 is also very popular with art lovers who come for the simple pleasure of the eyes.

To improve its image, the fair exhibits monumental works every year in a section where paintings, sculptures and installations are grouped together to be sold to museums and very large collections.

Key pieces include a canvas by Guyano-British artist Frank Bowling, a large painting by British artist David Hockney and a bread house by Swiss artist Urs Fischer.

But after several editions dominated by political works after the election of Donald Trump, then by feminist works in the wake of the "Me Too" movement, the 62 monumental works presented for this 2021 edition implicitly testify to the upheavals that shook the world. world during the pandemic.

A bread house, work by Swiss artist Urs Fischer exhibited at the Art Basel fair, September 21, 2021 in Switzerland Fabrice COFFRINI AFP

- Stained glass for underground bunker -

The Californian artist Lari Pittman in particular presents a vast collection of paintings closely juxtaposed one beside the other which is intended to be a kind of snapshot of a fallen Western civilization.

"It's a cabinet of curiosities", deciphered the artist during an interview with AFP, but with objects collected by "a collector from a distant future", who would have found for example "needles for antidepressants "he said showing a first canvas," aerial views of secure districts, "he continued, pointing to a second canvas," a motorway sign warning of the risks of cannibalism and encouraging to accelerate "on a third," stained glass for an underground bunker "on the next one ...

Californian artist Lari Pittman in front of paintings exhibited at the Art Basel fair, September 21, 2021 in Switzerland Fabrice COFFRINI AFP

"It's quite dark," recognizes the artist who should have exhibited his work before the pandemic but believes that it finds its place in this edition.

"We are coming out of an incredibly dystopian period on a global level", judges the American who also evokes the political situation in the United States "during the last four years".

On the principle of juxtaposition, the American artist Carrie Mae Weems presents a series of canvases of all sizes, entitled "Repeating the obvious" which each reproduce the blurred face of a young afro. -american, illustrating the deaths at the hands of the police which by dint of repetition end up becoming faceless victims.

The work "Repeating the obvious" by the American artist Carrie Mae Weems exhibited at the Art Basel fair, September 21, 2021 in Switzerland Fabrice COFFRINI AFP

Outside the exhibition hall, the Danish-Norwegian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset have placed an old Mercedes with Russian license plates in which two men sleep, coiled up against each other, titled " The Outsiders "(the excluded).

The two wax mannequins with more lifelike features symbolize two workers who would have come to set up the fair, "to do all the hard work that one cannot see", and sleep in their car because they cannot afford a room. hotel, explained the artist duo to AFP.

"It is also a work on the intimacy between these two young men, with Russian plates, because today it is very difficult to show this form of intimacy openly in Moscow", they added.

Given the restrictions that still hamper travel, the organizers have planned many online events for this edition, including virtual walks through the fair.

Artists in transparent plastic bubbles perform "Tears" by Monster Chetwynd, in front of the entrance to the Art Basel fair, September 21, 2021 in Switzerland Fabrice COFFRINI AFP

They allow you to discover the works on display through the eyes of an aesthetic activist, a princess or even with a French touch, with a visit led, among others, by the founder of the fashion house Zadig & Voltaire.

© 2021 AFP