The exhibition Of my life at Kunsthalle Basel brings collectively the American artist and activist Ser Serpas’s multifaceted follow as a curator, painter, sculptor and performer. Serpas is greatest recognized for her assemblages created fully from discovered and discarded supplies, a recent transforming of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades attuned to the situations of late-stage capitalism. Whereas Serpas is scouring the kerbs of Basel for jettisoned objects, Of my life places new emphasis on her work with a paintbrush. Embodying the artwork critic Harold Rosenberg’s dictum that the canvas is “an enviornment wherein to behave”, her work index actions as they unfolded within the studio and can do double obligation as props and backdrops in her on-site collaboration with the Margo Korableva Efficiency Theatre.
Talking from Basel, Serpas tells The Artwork Newspaper concerning the inspirations guiding her sourcing course of, her historical past of inventive partnerships and the paradox of inventive worth throughout a month largely outlined by industrial artwork gala’s in a Swiss metropolis stuffed with hallowed establishments.
An untitled work from the artist’s new collection of work, which she creates alongside her sculptures Courtesy of the artist and Maxwell Graham, New York
The Artwork Newspaper: Your Basel exhibition features a collaboration with the Margo Korableva Efficiency Theatre from Tbilisi, Georgia. What’s the background of this partnership?
Ser Serpas: I’m working with a director named David Chikhladze, who based the Margo Theatre. David was one of many first artists who caught my consideration once I was curating the Oxygen Biennial in Tbilisi in 2021. After that, I wished to do a present the place I might create a set for a few of David’s unique items and recontextualise them with my work.
David and I are very like-minded in our sensibilities. His movies from the 90s are my favorite kind of video work: they appear to be music movies. I at all times say that my favorite art work is the choice trailer for Concord Korine’s 1997 movie Gummo. However David’s work nonetheless feels ultra-contemporary and, hopefully, the present will generate extra curiosity in Georgian efficiency artwork, which responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union in a wild and multifaceted manner.
You beforehand described searching for a “palette” when sourcing supplies. How has that course of performed out in Basel?
In Basel I’m seeing a whole lot of pale whites, mild browns and a few blues, which is the palette I had in my first present in Zurich at Luma Westbau in 2018. The present in Basel may have 4 performances: the primary within the museum foyer and the subsequent three within the innermost galleries. I’m displaying work at a fairly large scale, however I’ve additionally constructed levels for the performances, together with lighting design and sculptures which can be quasi-props for use by the performers. So they’re going to function a bit in a different way than my standard sculptures, however they’ll nonetheless have the same consideration to palette.
The work on this exhibition appear to be an extension of your sculptural follow. Might you describe the method and context of making them?
They’re all scaled up—most of them begin at ten toes lengthy. I had the same course of with a chunk referred to as Studio Get together that was on the 2024 Whitney Biennial, basically a document on a plastic tarp of issues that had been taking place on the studio ground whereas I used to be making sculptures. There are additionally different backdrop works that document the whole lot that occurs on my studio partitions, just like the outlines of various work or paint scraped from the palette.
I’ve been doing this in a smaller format for a number of years now, however I made a decision to up the size and say, “OK, if I put on it down the proper manner, it may be a backdrop, a prop or a ground for one thing.”
Untitled (2025), which is able to function in Serpas’s present on the Kunsthalle, together with sculptures and performances Courtesy of the artist and Maxwell Graham, New York
One benefit of your strategy is that you do not want to ship your completed works. As extra artists discover native manufacturing or different transport, how do you see your follow aligning with broader climate-conscious efforts within the arts?
It was a response to my very own limitations and financial circumstances, like not having the ability to afford a studio the place I might work at scale. I set a listing of guidelines for the way I work, and it seems like the right approach to work at this second in time.
It’s additionally a little bit of tourism. In attending to know the set up workforce at these locations, I at all times get a fairly good learn on wherever I’m like, “Oh yeah, I do know this space. Let’s go eat right here and I can let you know concerning the time that I discovered a loopy mattress body over there, after which nearly acquired right into a combat with any person who was making an attempt to assert it earlier than me.” It’s one thing I need to proceed to do so long as I can bodily elevate, like, a giant fucked-up desk over a fridge.
My sculptures are troublesome to take care of for a lot of collectors and establishments, and I do want extra individuals had them of their properties
Ser Serpas
Your work typically examines building of worth by reworking discarded supplies into short-term installations, then jettisoning them again into public circulation. How do you see that strategy working within the context of Basel’s art-fair season?
Completely different aspects of my follow fall into completely different locations with this challenge. For the primary time, I’m displaying work in a fairly conventional manner, and I do know that’s going to ask so much from people who find themselves conversant in my sculptural follow. The sculptures are troublesome to take care of for a lot of collectors and establishments, and I do want extra individuals had them of their properties. Some individuals do, however not as many because the work, drawings and even a few of the sound-based multimedia items I’ve made.
I used to stay in Switzerland, and my buddies work each a part of the honest, so I do know I’m going to have the very best time. However I’m additionally hoping I can add a little bit of what I believe is a wholesome dose of unease—“Oh, this isn’t actually catered to me proper now”—and having one thing that’s possibly going to odor unhealthy and make the day extra fascinating for the hordes of art-world individuals right here.
• Ser Serpas: Of my life, Kunsthalle Basel, till 21 September
