Art Basel 2021

DANIEL BLAU is pleased to present an exhibition of modern and contemporary work by renowned international artists at Art Basel 2021. The show encompasses multiple media, from works on paper to oil paintings on canvas and stained-glass compositions.

Among the highlights is a selection of ink line drawings by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), presented here in stunning antique frames. His exceptional draughtsmanship and interest in the human form is visible in these early works from the ‘50s. Warhol’s drawings have been the focus of ever-growing attention in recent years, receiving widespread acclaim after a number of high-profile museum exhibitions, and we are pleased to bring them now to our Art Basel audience.

 
A number of contemporary artists, including Billy Al Bengston (b. 1934), Markus Lüpertz (b. 1941) and Georg Baselitz (b. 1938), will be exhibited through DANIEL BLAU as well. We are excited to be the first gallery to present a Bengston painting at Art Basel: his large, boldly colored 1981 Malu Draculas. It is a piece highly typical of Bengston, whose vivid watercolour and paper collages evoke the warm Pacific landscapes of his home, of the Californian and Hawai’ian earth, ocean, and sky he lives and works among.

 
The discovery of the “Dithyramb” – a term from the poetics of the antique world, originally denoting a form of song in praise of Dionysus, god of wine, and which has come in common parlance to describe an attitude of exuberance towards life, of a passionate ‘inspiration’ and ‘drunkenness’ – marks the beginning of Markus Lüpertz’s painting career. His thick brushstrokes lash out at the viewer from the large, two-meter canvas in the striking example exhibited here, Weintraube (Dithyrambisch), granting his subject – an otherwise ordinary bunch of grapes – a truly monumental quality.
 
Baselitz’s hand is immediately recognisable for the swift, confident strokes that characterise all of his work, from sculptures and paintings to more intimate paper-based art. On exhibition will be a first state proof (from an edition consisting of nine diverse prints) of one of his first, gigantic linocuts. Here, as in countless other works, the artist’s wife, Elke, acts as his subject and muse.
 
Also on display are two stained-glass windows by Neal Fox (b. 1981), whose colorful and highly detailed work takes a special delight in the musical and countercultural universes it references and asks us to revel in too.
 
A rare example from Kirkeby’s transitional period, a boldly painted eagle head referencing American Pop and Abstract Expressionist artists like Rauschenberg.
 
Eugène Leroy is a much-overlooked master of texture and light on canvas.
 
ar. Penck is present in one of his rare early canvases which at the time had to be smuggled out of East Germany – by unstretching them and folding them to fit in the trunk of a car to be exhibited on the western side of the iron curtain.

 
Fair Dates:
Vernissage:
September 20 – 23, 2021
11 am – 8 pm
 
Public Days:
September 24 – 26, 2021
11 am – 7 pm

Booth F10
 
Messeplatz 10
4005 Basel