Art Basel has been described as the 'Olympics of the art world.' Approximately 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa show the work of more than 4,000 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern Art to the latest generation of emerging stars. The show's individual sectors represent every artistic medium: paintings, sculpture, installations, videos, multiples, prints, photography, and performance. Each day offers a full program of events, including symposiums, films, and artist talks. Further afield, exhibitions and events are offered by cultural institutions in Basel and the surrounding area, creating an exciting, region-wide art week.

Fergus McCaffrey, New York / St. Barth is pleased to announce its participation in the 2015 edition of Art Basel and in Unlimited.

In keeping with the gallery’s advocacy of Post-War Japanese art, Fergus McCaffrey will present a selection of masterworks dated from the 1950s through to the 1970s, juxtaposed with important works by Italian avant-garde from the same period. The booth will serve to underscore the thematic affinities and conceptual strategies of the diverse artists on view.

The aesthetic revolution that occurred in both Italy and Japan in the aftermath of World War II played itself out in painting, sculpture, photography, and film. As totalitarian regimes were swept away, traditional cultural assumptions were challenged and overturned to unleash a torrent of creative innovation. A diverse body of work resulted, which responded radically to the metaphysical and corporeal scars of the war, the new-found freedom of expression, the advent of consumer culture, industrial re-development, and social alienation.

This presentation will highlight and examine the affinities between some of the most prominent artists from Japan and Italy, including Kazuo Shiraga, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Yayoi Kusama, Jiro Takamatsu and Mario Schifano.

On a formal level, the juxtaposition of Jiro Takamatsu’s (1936-1998) Shadow painting from 1997 and Michelangelo Pistoletto’s (b. 1933) Dono di Mercurio allo Specchio, 1971–92 is indicative of parallel dialogues being engaged in both Japan and Italy during the 1960s and 1970s. Postminimalism often implicates the body of the spectator in the work in a debate about absence and presence. Contrasting approaches are played out in Pistoletto’s mirrored works in which a reflection of the viewer is present and in Takamatsu’s shadows paintings where the shadow of the spectator appears, but the source of the painted shadow does not. The differing psychological, mythical, and material implications of shadows and reflections are well-known.

Moving away from formalism, we find Pop Art and politics contrasted in two works from 1967; Mario Schifano’s (1934–1998) Coca-Cola and Tatsuo Ikeda’s (b.1928) Toy World. One would be hard pressed to find such contrasting figures as Ikeda, the surviving Kamikaze pilot, and Schifano, the glamorous Italian playboy, yet their works reveal a common tension and uneasy acceptance of American popular culture. Ikeda’s drawing is characteristically surrealist involving a furry American style car that has forced colorful amoeba-like forms to the side of the road. Schifano’s drippy rendition of the Coca-Cola logo has a hand-painted warmth that stands in contrast to the mechanized American variants of Pop Art. His work appears less of an embrace and more of a political protest in the form of a defaced sign from a political demonstration.