Flx Week ｜ Artist-Ivana Bašić：Exploring vulnerability between the body and human matter

Ivana Bašić’s work has always evoked a sense of singularity and natural identification, exploring the vulnerability of the body and human matter in a way that is deeply in line with my curatorial themes.

Ivana Bašić，《I too had thousands of blinking cilia, while my belly, new and made for the ground was being reborn | Position III》，2020，Forms of Flight exhibition Location, 2022, François Ghebaly Gallery, New York

2024 saw the first institutional exhibition of Ivana Bašić’s work at the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, entitled Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics. ‘ (Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics), his first institutional exhibition. A rough piece of snowflake plaster was embedded in the centre of a circular steel frame, as if fixed to a cross suffering from the rhythmic hammering and beating of small metal nails around it, debris accumulating at the base of the sculpture. The presence installation is modelled on the 17th-century depiction of the Sacred Heart of Mary, with pneumatic pulsations synchronised with the artist’s breathing. Ivana Bašić’s use of the body as a dense and limited confined space, fusing synthetic materials such as silicone with biomaterials such as wax and paint, in the liminal space between life and death, these sculptural forms test the boundaries of ‘human minimalism’ and the composition of the notion of ‘wholeness’. The sculptural forms test the boundaries of ‘human minimalism’ while examining the notion of what constitutes ‘wholeness’.

The Greek etymology of pneumatics, meaning ‘spirit’ and ‘breath’, catalyses the unfolding dehumanising metamorphosis of the exhibition. A giant mutant spider installation, reminiscent of Louise Bourgeois, stands on four metal legs with joints encased in fuzzy cartilage in the dimly lit main room. Its body consists of wax nodules, a veiled semblance of a torso on the front, and a good-looking cyst-like glass bubble sprouting from the back. Various tangible and intangible forces-air, breath, pressure, dust-filled these various bodies.

Ivana Bašić, Metabolism, 2020-2024, exhibition view of Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, 2024; photographs by Stefan Korte, courtesy of the artist and Schinkel Pavillon. Korte, images courtesy of the artist and Schinkel Pavillon, with thanks to Galerie Albion Jeune.

A focus on the anatomy and physiology of the body informs much of Bašić’s work, which spans a variety of media, including video, stone, stainless steel, silicone, blown glass, and sculpture in wax. Basich’s work brings with it a sense of reincarnation and possibility that has been long overdue, one that is attuned to biological mechanisms rather than future technology. At the same time, the works embody a disconcerting sense of distance, raw and subtle. For the viewer, Ivana Bašić’s work evokes both a sense of repulsion and the beauty inherent in intangible pain and vulnerability. Through the duality of her practice, Ivana Bašić challenges the complex conditions of mortality and speculates on situations other than death and singularity.Ivana Bašić’s work is heavily influenced by her childhood experiences of war, violence, and brutality during the breakup of Yugoslavia. The young artist’s work delves into pressing existential questions: the fragility of the human condition, the collapse of the self and the other, the re-imagining of life and death, and the quest for immortality.

References：

1.Schinkel Pavillon (2024), Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics. Available at: https://www.schinkelpavillon.de/exhibition/metempsychosis-the-passion-of-pneumatics (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

2.Bašić, I. (2024), Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics. Available at: https://www.ivanabasic.com/ (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

3.Flash Art (2024), ‘Ivana Bašić: Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics’, Flash Art, August. Available at: https://flash—art.com/2024/08/ivana-basic/ (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

4.Artnet News (2024), ‘Ivana Bašić’s Newest Sculpture Is an Astounding Feat’, Artnet News, August. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ivana-basic-schinkel-pavillon-2520549 (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

5.Designboom (2024), ‘Alienesque Animatronic Sculptures Land at Ivana Bašić’s Schinkel Pavillon Exhibition in Berlin’, Designboom, 16 July. Available at: https://www.designboom.com/art/animatronic-alienesque-sculptures-ivana-basic-metempsychosis-show-schinkel-pavillon-berlin-07-16-2024/ (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

6.Marlborough New York (n.d.), ‘Ivana Bašić’, Marlborough New York. Available at: https://www.marlboroughnewyork.com/artists/ivana-basic (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

7.Galerie du Monde (2022), ‘Group Exhibition ‘Against the Shape’, Galerie du Monde. Available at: https://galeriedumonde.com/zh/exhibitions/75-retrograde-group-exhibition-curated-by-cusson-cheng/overview/ (Accessed: 10 February 2025).