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My last day in Basel and we had time to visit Mika Rottenberg's show at the Museum Tinguely. I had never seen this work called ‘Cheese’ in which a group of women tending chickens and making cheese. The idea came from a story about a group of 19th century sisters with long hair who used their unusually lustrous long hair as a marketing tool for a hair growth tonic – and made a fortune! So many of Mika’s ideas are already here in this installation from 2008
There were many wonderful works with incredible surreal narratives. It was a mesmerizing show.
At the Kunstmuseum it was nice to see the work of Michael Armitage again, here is ‘The Dumb Oracle’ 2019. It was in a show called ‘When We See Us’ featuring 120 artists from Africa or the African diaspora, it was a kaleidoscope of the last 100 years of black artists.
We headed to the CNBC studio where I joined a lovely and interesting panel with Simon de Pury and Alia al Senussi, we were questioned by Tania Bryer
Then we headed to Finland and checked out some of the design show at Fiskars. I liked the work by Katarina Reuter
The work of Peetu Liesinen ‘Far Enough to See the Stars’ was beguiling.
In the garden we all met up with Imran and Peetu met up for a lovely walk around the grounds
There were even basket works by Markuu Kosonen which were most interesting
It was a treat to see the work by Jukka Mäkela. The Brice Marden of Finland.
We headed to a ceramic show called Kwum, where the ceramicist Karin Widnäs met us
Next stop was England and straight to the Hayward to visit the work of Tavares Strachan. I loved the work of ‘Ruin of a Giant’ (Harriet Tubman)
‘Robert’ is one of my favourite art works ever. Strachan’s artistic practice activates the intersections of art, science and politics
As we walked around were lovely performances including in the bare concrete stairwells
I loved the work Ruin of a Giant (King Tubby) and Ekow Eshun explained to me about this work
There was stunning suite of ‘A Map of the Crown’ works. In these bronze busts Strachan pairs classically rendered faces with traditional African and Afro Caribbean hairstyles made with human hair collected from Barbershops in the Bahamas. He is always questioning historically canonised narratives that exclude or obscure certain people and communities
My favourite of all works was the vessels that open up and reveal prominent people. Drawing on cultural traditions in which pots are valued not only for their practical functions but also as they carry messages through the visual language on their surfaces. This one features ‘The Inner Elder (Biko as Septimius Severus)’ who was an African emperor of Rome from AD 145 to 211 Now Summer Begins, have a good one everyone
