Lisson Gallery at Art Basel Paris 2024

1 October 2024

From 17–20 October, Lisson Gallery participates in the third edition of Art Basel Paris, with a presentation featuring historic and recent work by a selection of artists from its roster. Alongside sculpture by Olga de Amaral, Tony Cragg and Otobong Nkanga and painting by Carmen Herrera and Rodney Graham, highlights of the booth include works by Kelly Akashi, Dana Awartani, Ryan Gander, Van Hanos, Anish Kapoor, Richard Long, Hélio Oiticica and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Alongside the major solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, opening on 12 October, Lisson Gallery brings two works by Olga de Amaral to Art Basel, including the suspended, towering Nudo 23 (plata 5) (2014), and the wall-based Viento Oro (2014) in linen, gesso, acrylic, Japanese paper and gold leaf. At the Fondation Cartier –Amaral’s first major retrospective in Europe – the artist (born 1932) presents nearly eighty works made between the 1960s and now, including some of her earliest explorations and experimentations with textile, many of which have never been shown before outside of Colombia.

Lisson Gallery at Art Basel Paris also marks the gallery’s first presentation of work by the influential Brazilian artist Tunga (1952-2016), following the recent announcement of representation. Creating contemporary forms inspired by Surrealism, psychoanalysis, philosophy and alchemy, Tunga embraced a multi-faceted practice spanning the various mediums of contemporary art. From a deep interest in the symbolic and the mythological, Tunga’s complex installation-making grew to encompass sculptural investigations into the energetic relationships between materials. Presented in Paris, Steel Pod (2011) comprises glass forms filled with a tinted liquid, encompassed and suspended alongside rock-like pieces of resin by steel cables. A major solo exhibition of Tunga’s work is currently on view at Château La Coste in Aix-en-Provence through 5 January, while the artist’s first solo exhibition with Lisson Gallery will be held in London in Spring 2025.

Also featured in Lisson’s presentation at Art Basel Paris is the 2013 acrylic on canvas Untitled by Carmen Herrera. A master of crisp lines and contrasting chromatic planes, Herrera created symmetry, asymmetry and an infinite variety of movement, rhythm and spatial tension across her canvases with the most unobtrusive application of paint. This large-scale work exemplifies her approach through a rare combination of colours, with a dark, rich blue offset by a vibrant, primary red rectangle.

Further painting on the booth includes Untitled (2022) in oil and sand on linen by Rodney Graham; a selection of intimately-scaled 1950s gouache on cardboard works by Hélio Oiticica; Richard Long’s Untitled (2023), in which China clay has been applied with the artist’s hands; and Oliver Lee Jackson’s No. 12, 2017 (10.28.17) (2017).

Otobong Nkanga’s Silent Anchor (2024) forms part of the artist’s ongoing series of hand-braided rope sculptures. Hung or laid across the floor, the works act as talismans or spatial cleansers for certain bodily or worldly ailments. Here, the rope cascades down to a pair of ceramic and glass forms, a small repository in the glass filled with inky blue chamomile oil. Also this year, The Museum of Modern Art presents 'Otobong Nkanga: Cadence', a new, site-specific commission by the Nigerian-Belgian artist opening in the Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium on October 10, 2024.

Additionally on the booth, Tony Cragg’s Stages (2023) sees a composite organic form rise in highly-polished stainless steel, while Anish Kapoor’s Clear to Laser Red Mix (2023) presents a work from the artist’s series of concave mirrored sculptures with a gradient, from reflective steel to a rich cherry red. Kelly Akashi’s Cultivator (Regeneration) (2024) combines the recurring motif of the artist’s own hands cast in wax with a trail of delicate glass flowers, while the oil on linen Y (2024) by Van Hanos depicts a bountiful fruit bowl, its stand formed from intricately drafted letters of the alphabet. Fusion (2024) by Hugh Hayden continues the artist’s investigations into ubiquitous cookware, here presenting a ‘family’ of skillets in cast aluminium, with faces inspired by West-African masks that jostle for space on a found steel rack.

Shown here: Tunga, Untitled (Steel Pod Series), 2011, Iron, carbon steel and colored water, glass, epoxy, steel rigging, 122 x 85 x 45 cm, 48 x 33 1/2 x 17 3/4 in © Tunga, courtesy Lisson Gallery