Fondation Beyeler, Art Basel and Theater Basel join together to announce ’14 Rooms’, a major live-art exhibition to be staged in Basel from June 14 to 23, 2014.

Curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition will feature performative works by 14 artists.

Curators Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, have invited 14 international artists to each activate a room, exploring the relationship between space, time and physicality with an artwork whose ‘material’ is a human being. Giving visitors an insight into a more performative and interactive practice, visitors will encounter a new situation within each of the 14 rooms, engaging in a diverse series of immersive and intimate experiences.

Conceived specifically for Basel, Ed Atkins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Otobong Nkanga will create new works for the show. Alongside these world premieres, historical and rarely seen works by acclaimed artists from around the world will be brought to Basel.
’14 Rooms’ will include Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s ‘Revolving Door’ (2011), in which a group of dancers spontaneously form a line and begin to rotate around the room in a circular motion, sweeping up visitors as they move around the space.
In his exploration of social boundaries and socio-cultural inequalities, Santiago Sierra places a succession of war veterans, from varied past conflicts, standing facing one corner of a 5-5-meter room and instructed to only move from their post once solemnly replaced by another veteran mimicking the changing of the guard. Damien Hirst’s largely unkown early work ‘Hans, Georg’ (1992), consisting of a rotating cast of identical twins sitting below two of his own identical dot paintings, will be restaged at the show. Marina Abramović’s ‘Luminosity’ (1997) places a performer on a bicycle seat fixed onto a wall bathed in harsh light, exploring themes of loneliness and spiritual elevation.

• Artists:
  Marina AbramovićAllora and CalzadillaEd AtkinsDominique Gonzalez FoersterDamien HirstOtobong NkangaRoman OndákSantiago SierraXu Zhen
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• Open:
  Saturday, 14 June 2014
• Close:
  Sunday, 22 June 2014
• Address:
  Hall 3 of Messe Basel, walking distance from Messeplatz.
• Web:
  Art Basel
• Opening hour:
  Daily 10am – 7pm; June 15, 2014, 10am – 5pm
• Admission:
  Day Ticket (return entry): CHF 18; Reduced Day Ticket for Students/Seniors: CHF 12; Combination Ticket (available to purchase onsite only): CHF 55; Groups of 10 people or more: CHF 15 per person; Admission is free for guided school classes and for children up to 16, when accompanied by a parent. Tickets to 14 Rooms can be purchased at the show venue or through 14rooms.net starting from end of April.
• Photo credits:
  Allora & Calzadilla, Revolving Door, 2011,Photo credit Howard Barlow; Damien Hirst, Marian and Julian, 1992, Courtesy Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2012; Marina Abramović, Luminosity, courtesy Manchester City Galleries; Roman Ondák, Swap, 2011, courtesy Manchester City Galleries; Xu Zhen, In Just the Blink of an Eye, 2005, courtesy Manchester City Galleries