Art Basel 2023

For the 2023 edition of Art Basel, Petzel is pleased to present works by artists integral to the program with those new to the gallery’s roster, including: Walead Beshty, Ross Bleckner, Cosima von Bonin, Simon Denny, Roger-Edgar Gillet, Charline von Heyl, Martin Kippenberger, Sean Landers, Maria Lassnig, James Little, Allan McCollum, Rodney McMillian, Malcolm Morley, Sarah Morris, Joyce Pensato, Pieter Schoolwerth, Emily Mae Smith, Nicola Tyson, Austin Martin White, Xie Nanxing, and Heimo Zobernig.

Petzel is thrilled to exhibit a painting by Maria Lassnig from 1984, featuring one of the artist’s ‘body awareness’ self-portraits. Highlights on view include signature paintings by Malcolm Morley and Martin Kippenberger, alongside historical examples by Charline von Heyl and James Little. New paintings by Sarah Morris and Simon Denny accompany ongoing institutional exhibitions nearby Basel.

The works available here will also be on view at Petzel’s stand at Art Basel, Booth L12.

In 1985, Martin Kippenberger made a series of paintings that examined the politics of architecture, primarily focusing on clinics, prisons, and schools. In the present work, Kippenberger has depicted the Betty Ford Clinic in California. The rehab center was established in 1982 by former first lady and outspoken recovery advocate, Betty Ford. Kippenberger’s painting address the absurdity of structural aesthetics in modernist buildings when applied to institutional containment.

Maria Lassnig’s painting from 1984 titled Glücksrad / Glücksspieler translates to Wheel of Fortune / Gambler. The glowing shades emphasize the ecstasy and anguish animated in the faces of the figures that surround a roulette wheel, awaiting results of either debt or fortune. Lassnig’s self-portrait seated at the bottom is accompanied by those at the top of the canvas— believed to be Hermann Nitsch, Peter Weiermair, or Otto Breicha, prominent artists and curators. Such art world figures at the wheel of fortune could also suggest the business of art. At the center of the roulette table stands an hourglass with much of the sand passed through it, asserting the fact that the only certainty in life is the passage of time.

Malcolm Morley’s Titan from 1994 highlights his signature painting technique he termed ‘Superrealism’, referring to his exquisite rendering of details based on photographic sources. Morley consistently selected images that were compositionally related to art historical painting genres or held autobiographical connotations. Such works focused on images, such as complex battle scenes and catastrophes that were based his still- life arrangements of toy model boats and planes.

In his new Metaverse Lanscapes, Simon Denny fuses traditional landscape painting and modern abstraction while depicting the virtual worlds rapidly developing through blockchain technologies. He confronts the viewer with physical representations of digitally constructed territories, translating the metaverse into picturesque realizations of the social and polical circumstances in a decentralized marketplace.