Special projects at VOLTA7

13-18 June '11

Basel

Kaikai Kiki and VOLTA7 are proud to announce a special exhibition spread over two locations at the fair, with the booths offering guests a wide-ranging mix of art, live entertainment, and charity efforts. After the earthquake in Japan and the cancellation of Takashi Murakami’s GESAI art fair, VOLTA7 is pleased to host them in Basel.

The exhibition marks the European debut of a new generation of young Japanese artists, many of whom have received personal mentoring from Murakami himself. As a function of this training, the artists were provided space at Kaikai Kiki's Miyoshi Studio, where they engaged in an intensive period of production and conscious self-exploration, aimed ultimately at helping each of them discover their own personal voice.

From Berlin/New York the The HomeBase Project also finds temporary sanctuary at VOLTA7. The HomeBase Project is an International site-specific urban art project that explores the notion of home as a window into questions of identity, and as the foundation of humanity. By pursuing a nomadic model annually in neighborhoods undergoing change and inviting a diverse group of international artists / collaborators, HomeBase seeks to challenge the role of art as a tool for cross-cultural dialogue, social integration, and community cultivation, thus fostering interconnectedness in society through the arts.

Other collateral projects include the presentation of work by German artist Marc Fromm by the art foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, as well as an ongoing site-specific event by local Basel artists’ group Stellwerk, who will present their Stellwerk/SHOWROOMBASEL, presenting and distributing products, furniture and media by local micro-labels and young designers. StellwerkSHOWROOMBASEL's dedication is to promote and encourage innovative design in Basel and worldwide.

Finally, VOLTA7 is proud to announce this year’s VOLTA7 edition artist, Carlos Aires. Aires undertakes iconographic research on images of explicit sexual attitudes, world disasters, pop characters, art historical masterpieces and war-related shots taken from the internet, newspapers and archives; then he uses a digital process to capture the silhouettes drawn from the images and employs laser-cutting equipment to prepare the pieces of a previously sketched installation.

Marc Fromm, Junge Dame mit Haustier (Young Lady and Pet), 2010, Linden wood, oil, puma skin, 235 ×175 × 245 cm