Judy Chicago
‘Humankind is represented by mankind … Fake news!’, says Judy Chicago, laughing. Most of the artist’s forty-year-long career has been spent debunking that myth.
For the Birth Project (1980-85), Chicago turned her eye to what she saw as a major blind spot in art history: the representation of childbirth. Working with 150 volunteer needleworkers spread around the United States, she produced 85 needlepoint and textile works picturing women pregnant or in labor, caught between joy and excruciating pain. In this exclusive interview, Chicago revisits a body of work that, three decades later, has lost nothing of its urgency.
Director: Simon Ramseier
Interview: Coline Milliard
Production: Coline Milliard and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat for Art Basel
Miriam Cahn
'Anger is a very good motor for art,' says Miriam Cahn. At 70, the Basel-born artist has lost nothing of her fire. In Cahn's paintings, brutal sex and mutilated bodies coexist with animals and flowers. And while her message is never obvious, the political content is always palpable. Cahn's oeuvre is an invitation to never give up the fight.
Director: Luke Casey
Director of photography: Tom Hall
Interview: Coline Milliard
Production: Coline Milliard and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat for Art Basel
Christo
In 1980, Christo and his wife and long-standing collaborator Jeanne-Claude embarked on a project that many thought would never see the light of day. For Surrounded Islands, the couple set out to ring 11 human-made islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with 6.5 million square feet of floating, bright pink woven polypropylene fabric. After an arduous preparation phase – and thanks to the efforts of a 430-strong task force – the installation was finally completed on May 7, 1983. Surrounded Islands lasted only two weeks, but it has had a sustainable impact on the city’s cultural history, and is considered by many as a milestone in Miami’s renaissance.
Thirty-five years later, Art Basel met Christo at Pelican Harbor Marina, the site of Surrounded Islands’ former HQ. In this exclusive interview, the artist revisits the three-year-long process that landed him in court – and led to Florida’s most celebrated art installation.
Director: Simon Ramseier
Interview: Coline Milliard
Production: Coline Milliard and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat for Art Basel