Artists focus on non-representational paintings at Regionale 19 in Basel

As part of Regionale 19, a format promoting contemporary art from Switzerland, Germany and France, Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel (HeK) or House of Electronic Arts Basel, presented a selection of artists, who employed electronic and digital media to engage with the attributes of sound.

The art exhibition Regionale is a cross-border project that is unique in its form. For the 19th edition (November 25, 2018 – February 3, 2019), 18 institutions from three countries participated, each showing artistic positions from the region of Basel and the tri-national region (Northwestern Switzerland, South Baden, Alsace). This year’s edition was titled Sound Embodied.

Outgrowing the tradition of the Basel Christmas or annual exhibition, the exhibition format launched by the Regionale in 2000-01 serves to promote and intensify the understanding between artists, cultural creators and institutions on a tri-national level. The Regionale was open to all artists of the tri-border region who could apply to participate from May to July. For the participating curators and the audience, the Regionale offered the possibility to gain an overview of the current work and to get to know new artists from the neighbouring countries. The selected, participating artists were given the opportunity to present their work to a broad, supra-regional audience.

Music and fine arts have a long tradition of inspiring each other. The exhibition at HeK showed a selection of works dealing with the attributes of sound and studying the visualisation of acoustic experiences. The artists presented, experimented with the physical and sculptural characteristics of sound, for example creating generative compositions or arranging music for an imaginary future audience. Some used resonators to reveal the concealed sounds of objects and electronic devices. Others employed sound as a conceptual guide to examine social media behaviour or to evaluate the production and staging of music events. Whether through robotic installations, augmented reality works, or synesthetic compositions – the artistic approaches enabled us to broaden our sound horizons.

Curated by Boris Magrini, the show included artists Markus Aebersold & Chris Handberg, Jonas Baumann, Anja Braun, Emma Cozzani, Elvire Flocken-Vitez, Dirk Koy, Karin Lustenberger, Marie Matusz, Elia Navarro, Frederic Pagace, Gabriele Rendina Cattani, Patrick Steffen, Fiona Valentine Thomann, Ambra Viviani, Michel Winterberg, and Katharina Zimmerhackl.