Bizarre Silks, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, etc.

On view at Kunsthalle Basel is “Bizarre Silks, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, etc.,” an exhibition conceived by Nick Mauss, in which scenographic, conceptual and curatorial concerns coincide. “Bizarre Silks” follows Mauss’s longstanding interest in the form of the exhibition as a medium in itself.  The exhibition is presented as a series of unexpected encounters in which the artist draws out each artwork’s distinct presence while heightening the relationships between them. Some of the works featured in the exhibition include 2 untitled scrapbooks collaboratively made by William S. Burroughs and Brian Gysin, shown as film, a performance by Hugo Rojas which shares a space with ‘reenactments’ of works from Rosemary Mayer’s series Ghosts (1981), and Edward Owens’ Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1968-70). With Georgia Sagri’s oversized Deep Cut, Open Wound, and Fresh Bruises (all 2018), the exhibition space is transformed into a vulnerable organism in a state of crisis to which the viewer is a witness and tasked to rethink their conception of care.