Art Basel Parcours 2019

Mathis Altmann presents a new installation at the Deutschordenskapelle on Rittergasse 26. Investigating the rapidly changing terms of creative labor in our hyperdrive milieu, Altmann’s sculpture and installation practice taps into accelerationist urban culture, where working, living, and leisure blend seamlessly and precariousness is rebranded into opportunity. 

The Deutschordenskapelle, a former chapel, was transformed into a three-story architecture office in the late 20th century. The architectural intervention into this once sacred place, to transfer it into a space of labor, serves as Altmann’s point of departure. On each floor, Altmann has installed a single LED pharmacy-cross programmed a unique loop of moving images. Here Altmann uses the medical cross as potent reference to consider strategies of remedy and an escape from the cult of work.

Fusing the three crosses installed on each of the three floors, is a sound piece. Forms a unified soundscape, the piece blends musical and pop-cultural identities that persist in Gen-X culture on one hand and in millennial thinking on the other. In joining these juxtaposed cultural forces, with a signifier of healing, Altmann asks us to question what this transformation means for the future of critical thinking.