Wolfgang Tillmans, ‘Anders Pulling Splinter from his Foot.’ 2004. Via Design Boom.
Currently on exhibit at Schaulager in Basel are approximately 200 paintings and sculptures dating from the 15oo’s to the present, taken from the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel.  Alongside the works are thirty pieces from the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation and several works from private collections. Schaulager is meant to function as a kind of new form of art institution, “one that is neither museum nor traditional repository,”  but a “viewing warehouse,” with optimal climatic conditions where art can be simultaneously stored, preserved and viewed all at once. Curated by Theodora Vischer, the current exhibit juxtaposes old and new artworks and was carefully selected and arranged.  The installation was “not produced based on the model of a classical museum hanging. Rather, the result was a different, new narrative, or better: an essay of pictures. It evolved, image by image, by means of diverse and unexpected relationships and numerous dialogues that ensued between the works, until finally the essay ‘Holbein to Tillmans’ took shape.”
Rodney Graham’s, ‘Allegory of Folly: Study for an Equestrian Monument in the Form of a Wind Vane,’ from 2005 alludes to an earlier work; ‘Praise of Folly,’ by Erasmus of Rotterdam, which was illustrated by Hans Holbein the Younger, a German artist from the 16th Century. Via DesignBoom.
Related Links:
Holbien to Tillmans [Schaulager]
Video of Holbein to Tillmans Exhibition. [Schaulager]
Holbein to Tillmans at Schaulager, Basel [Vernissage TV]
Holbein to Tillmans Exhibition at Schaulager [Design Boom]
Holbein to Tillmans- Prominentt Guests from the Kunstmuseum Basel [The ArtNetwork]
Schaulager, which opened in 2003,  normally dedicates itself exclusively to contemporary works and thus the exhibit is notable for having artwork from the 1500’s to the present. From Cranach to Holbein, Arnold Böcklin to Ferdinand Hodler, and Bruce Nauman to Jeff Wall and Wolfgang Tillmans and more, the collection covers the contemporary and the historical. This juxtaposition of old and new, combined with the unique exhibition space which is free from the classic order of a more traditional museum, is meant to conjure unexpected dialogue, encounters, relationships and associations. In some pieces, such as Rodney Graham’s work, above, associations are intrinsic; in this case, Graham’s piece acts as a contemporary reference to an earlier work.
Sebastian Stoskopff’s work entitled: ‘Zuber mit karpfen, glutherd mit artischocke und grunspechte,’ 1928, is part of the exhibition. Via DesignBoom.
An exhibition room at Schaulager with works of Frank Stella, Carl Andre and Antoine Pevsner; all part of the ‘Holbein to Tillmans’ show.
The underlying occasion for the exhibition is the major Van Gogh exhibition at the Kunstmuseum which made it necessary for the museum to remove parts of its own collection to increase space. Schaulager proposed storing the pieces while also displaying them with other works as part of a special exhibition, and the concept  for ‘Holbein to Tillmans’ took shape.
Viewers gather inside the exhibition space at Schaulager for the ‘Holbein to Tillmans’ show. Via Channels.com.
Hans Hug Kluber, ‘The Family of the Master of the Guild Hans Rudolf Faesch of Basel, 1559. Via The ArtNetwork.
‘Holbein to Tillmans’ will be showing at Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland until October 4th, 2009.
– G.Suter
