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In a time when museums are often seen as churches, the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, takes art off its pedestal and offers an unusual look at the museum’s top-class collection. For the unique experimental group exhibition “Dance with Daemons,” running until August 11, 2024, for the first time in its more than 25-year history, the entire museum and surrounding park have been transformed into a surreal, immersive presentation of contemporary art. Curated by seven visionaries—Sam Keller, Mouna Mekouar, Isabela Mora, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno, and Tino Sehgal—this group exhibition has been making waves in the art world for its innovative approach.
The summer show was conceived as a “living organism” that changes and transforms throughout its duration, aiming to stimulate artistic freedom, interdisciplinary exchange, and collective responsibility. The exhibition combines contemporary artworks with Beyeler’s permanent collection in unique and interactive ways. This time, the well-known pieces from the museum’s collection do not have permanent places but instead change positions over the course of the exhibition. The usual shine of masterpieces placed in the spotlight is missing. This also applies to the name of the exhibition, which is fluid and has varied from “Dance with Daemons” to “Cloud Chronicles” and “Echoes Unbound,” among others. The secret of this lively exhibition seems to lie in the fact that many different people have worked on it collaboratively, providing new impulses. The exhibition is a living, breathing entity that promises a new experience with every visit, making it a must-see for art enthusiasts and collectors.
Nearly everything here challenges the audience to inhabit the museum in a fresh way, engaging all their senses. As you approach the Fondation Beyeler, you’ll be greeted by Precious Okoyomon’s greenhouse installation, complete with an animatronic bear and enchanting butterflies fluttering over poisonous flowers. The outdoor space is filled with interactive installations, such as Philippe Parreno’s techno-mythological tower pulsating with lights and movement on the lawn and Fujiko Nakaya’s mist sculptures that engulf the surrounding landscape.
Step inside the museum, and you’ll find that art greets you immediately in the cloakroom, where American artist Dozie Kanu (born 1993), who lives in Portugal, presents his perfectly formed small sculptures in a few small boxes. You enter the museum’s entrance hall through a colorful curtain made of glass beads, a work from 2002 by American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996).
Tino Sehgal’s curated section creates a dynamic space that challenges traditional viewing experiences. Sehgal juxtaposes highlights in uncomfortably intimate proximity, creating a unique artistic performance through curation that challenges conventional display methods. Rather than simply reflecting the artists’ original visions, the works are positioned to create playful connections between them. For example, a Francis Bacon triptych, “In Memory of George Dyer,” has been torn apart with the individual parts spread over three walls. A life-sized figure by Alberto Giacometti stands close in front of one of the parts—so close that it appears to gaze into it as if it wants to look Bacon’s friend sharply in the eyes. On the left, a large painting with a conceptual background by Rudolf Stingel (*1956), a South Tyrolean living in the USA, follows seamlessly.
Sehgal has turned his art curating into a performance: The installation is being remixed and rehung constantly so that you feel as if you are always in a show that is midway through being installed. You’ll see art handlers moving paintings often.
Experimental flourishes are evident throughout the exhibition. One landscape painting by van Gogh hangs next to another. This is followed by lake and mountain paintings by Hodler, and Mondrian is also shown mixed with Kandinsky. Picasso’s “Head of a Woman (Dora)” and Alberto Giacometti’s “Monumental Head” look deep into each other’s eyes. Giacometti’s bronze sculpture of the seated Eli Lotar is placed in front of Constantin Brancusi’s sculpture “Mademoiselle Pogany” as if the French photographer were worshipping the Hungarian artist. In front of Max Ernst’s horned chess king, a female torso by Hans Arp poses in a lascivious manner. Art has rarely been seen like this before.
The selected works are linked together to suggest the potential for unexpected experiences and encounters, from Arthur Jafa’s abstract film “LOML (2023),” a tribute to music critic Greg Tate, and Ian Cheng’s evolving AI-generated video of a turtle to Adrián Villar Rojas’s striking sculptures incorporating a washing machine and refrigerator. The objects “The end of Imagination VI” and “VII” by Rojas combine household appliances with sculptures that could be props from a science fiction film. In one of the works, a running washing machine is attacked by a ceiling-high monster that looks like a terrifying alien. On the other, a microwave, a television, and a freezer stacked on top of each other form the backbone of a creature with bony wings.
Elsewhere in the museum, Rirkrit Tiravanija offers the terrace as a space for cookouts, while Carsten Höller invites visitors to book a gallery for psychedelic sleepovers featuring holographic flying mushrooms. When you enter the “Dream Hotel Room 1,” designed by Höller in collaboration with sleep researcher Adam Haar, you see the “Dream Bed” that moves while you sleep, and a red-lit mushroom rotates above it. Sensors in the mattress can register your dreams using your heart rate, breathing, and movement, as the museum explains.
The exhibition features contributions by Michael Armitage, Anne Boyer, Federico Campagna, Ian Cheng, Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, Marlene Dumas, Frida Escobedo, Peter Fischli, Cyprien Gaillard with Victor Man, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Wade Guyton, Carsten Höller with Adam Haar, Pierre Huyghe, Arthur Jafa, Koo Jeong A, Dozie Kanu, Cildo Meireles, Jota Mombaça, Fujiko Nakaya, Alice Notley, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno, Rachel Rose, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Adrián Villar Rojas.
The summer exhibition at Fondation Beyeler, curated in partnership with the LUMA Foundation, boldly explores new ways for visitors to engage with art. It combines advanced technology with artistic expression across various mediums and themes, offering a refreshing take on art that challenges traditional boundaries and norms prevalent in today’s art world. Fondation Beyeler reminds us that artworks are not meant to be untouchable idols but are fundamentally created to resonate with people and bring them pleasure. The exhibition aims to bring art down from its high pedestal.
