Corona Call
A Visarte Schweiz project

at Projektraum M54, Basel, Switzerland

’Sorry we are closed until further notice’

Curated by Chantal Molleur

Opening: Friday September 3rd, 2021, 18:30
Performance night: September 10th, 2021, 19:00 (with Parvez and Ronja Römmelt)
Finissage: September 19th, 2021, 14:00 – 18:00

Artists:
Rosanna Monteleone
Parvez 
Anne-Chantal Pitteloud
Ronja Römmelt 
Denis Roueche
Jana Vanecek 
Gregor Vogel 
Astrid Welburn

Visarte Switzerland launched during the lockdown an open call to all Swiss artists with the following premises: 'The coronavirus, or rather the political, social, economic and cultural restrictions it imposes is disrupting our lives in ways that were unimaginable not long ago. It is not clear when it will end, and even if there is an end to the crisis, the world will not be the same afterwards. What about art in all of this? ́

Around seven hundred projects were submitted, from which the jury – Tobia Bezzola, Christoph Doswald (chair), Peter Fischer, Antonia Nessi, Maya Rochat and Una Szeemann – retained thirty-nine.

The Corona Call exhibitions are now taking place in all linguistic regions of Switzerland. I was invited to curate the Basel exhibition of the Corona Call project hosted by the Projektraum M54 which is run by Visarte Region Basel. Eight artists were chosen for the Basel exhibition. These eight art practitioners brought their ongoing artistic research to a standstill looking directly at how the pandemic is impacting their present and future.

Anne-Chantal Pitteloud dreams of a new geographical European territory. Gregor Vogel gazes towards a post-pandemic reality collecting and archiving notes of a past to be explained. Astrid Welburn engages in introspection drawing out the restrictive challenges of our everyday lives. Denis Roueche gives more meanings to objects to counter some obstacles of the pandemic affecting our body and movement. Rosanna Monteleone manipulates the symbolism of an object, transforms it into a utilitarian, multi-functional and humorous full result. Jana Vanecek addresses the entanglement of which is widespread in popular scientific representations of viruses: the metaphor of war and the visibility of microbiological entities through visualization technologies in molecular biology and medicine in her series of images. Parvez gives a response to the emerging socio-political side effects of Covid-19 infection reflecting upon identity politics and racial discrimination with his video performance and drawings. Ronja Römmelt question the impact of our new rules of physical distance and how has our personal approach to interpersonal space changed in public places with her performers and us the public.

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