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 identified for her assemblages created solely 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 area through which to behave”, her work index actions as they unfolded within the studio and can do double responsibility 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 creative partnerships and the paradox of creative worth throughout a month largely outlined by industrial artwork gala’s in a Swiss metropolis filled with hallowed establishments.
An untitled work from the artist’s new sequence 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 may 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 like music movies. I at all times say that my favorite paintings 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 quite a lot of pale whites, gentle 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 can have 4 performances: the primary within the museum foyer and the following three within the innermost galleries. I’m exhibiting work at a pretty big 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 regular 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 known as Studio Social gathering that was on the 2024 Whitney Biennial, basically a report on a plastic tarp of issues that have been occurring on the studio flooring whereas I used to be making sculptures. There are additionally different backdrop works that report every little thing 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 couple of years now, however I made a decision to up the dimensions and say, “OK, if I put on it down the appropriate manner, it may be a backdrop, a prop or a flooring for one thing.”
Untitled (2025), which can characteristic 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 don’t 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 with the ability to afford a studio the place I may work at scale. I set a listing of guidelines for the way I work, and it seems like the right solution 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 reasonably 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 virtually received right into a struggle with any individual who was making an attempt to say it earlier than me.” It’s one thing I wish to proceed to do so long as I can bodily raise, like, a giant fucked-up desk over a fridge.
My sculptures are tough to cope with for a lot of collectors and establishments, and I do want extra folks had them of their properties
Ser Serpas
Your work typically examines development of worth by remodeling 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 totally different locations with this concern. For the primary time, I’m exhibiting work in a reasonably conventional manner, and I do know that’s going to ask so much from people who find themselves aware of my sculptural follow. The sculptures are tough to cope with for a lot of collectors and establishments, and I do want extra folks had them of their properties. Some folks 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 mates work each a part of the honest, so I do know I’m going to have the perfect time. However I’m additionally hoping I can add a little bit of what I feel 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 folks right here.
• Ser Serpas: Of my life, Kunsthalle Basel, till 21 September
