Tour 1 offers an enjoyable and thought-provoking introduction to the diversity of the contemporary art represented in this group exhibition. A tour for anyone who wants to know more about time-based media and the implications of the title OUT OF THE BOX.

In Tour 2, we explore the immersive situation created in installations by such artists as Jane & Louis Wilson, Gary Hill, Fischli/Weiss, or Anri Sala. We discover how their treatment of light and dark, of sound and image stimulate sense perception. How are we affected by the situations they conjure inside the box? How do they influence our imagination and perception as we move around inside the space? How do we respond to this immersive experience?

Tour 3 takes a closer look at the materials and media that artists choose to work with. Some practitioners use easily accessible materials such as cardboard, chalk, clothing, carpets, chocolate, and even their own bodies. Others construct complex scenarios using modern technologies, for instance, lightboxes, computers, or video. We study the way in which artists – Klara Lidén, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Peter Fischli, Gina Fischli, Dieter Roth, David Claerbout, and others – exploit various materials and media, and discover how they enable us to see the world in a different light.

In Tour 4, we explore how artists like Thomas Demand, Robert Gober, Peter Fischli, and others deceive us, how their art transforms reality and, in so doing, how they open up unexpected ways of perceiving the world around us. What strategies do they use to create their illusions? What is fictional and where is the truth? What do we actually see when we look at those objects and pictures?

A woman climbs out of a refrigerator. Questions, at times mundane, at times profound, appear on a wall and disappear again. Odd traffic signs transmit cryptic signals. An idyllic forest suddenly bursts into flame. We come across a gloomy, oppressive bunker. Works that artists make respond and react specifically to the world in which they – and we – live. In Tour 5, we take a closer look at various scenarios to find out what the works tell us, what they show (and sometimes hide).

A visit to Selbstturm; Löwenturm can be booked on request. Dieter Roth (1930-1998) built the two tall towers containing figures cast in chocolate and sugar as a work in progress. The Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation acquired this monumental, but fragile work in 1989. Since 1990, it has been housed in a room opposite the Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart, which the artist also used as his studio.

For inquiries, please contact: kunstvermittlung@schaulager.org