A vacuum is a result of the absence of matter in an airless space. But a vacuum may also be felt, for example in situations in which our accustomed scope for action is lacking. Titled Picture a Vacuum! the Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt Annual Exhibition 2021 reflects on the many different strategies that artists adopt to record or reconstruct vacuum-like states in the present. Eight positions will be on show, all of which the Kunstkredit Commission singled out for one of its 2020 grants. The works are about acoustic silence and resonance, landscapes and urban spaces devoid of humans, gaps in our own powers of perception, omissions in the historical record, and the lack of diversity in gender roles on the web. So unexpected and abundant are the approaches showcased here that suction becomes productive.

With Pável Aguilar, Franziska Baumgartner, Franziska Furter, Chantal Küng, Barbara Maria Meyer, Katrin Niedermeier, Emanuel Rossetti and Manuel Scheiwiller

The metaphor of the perforated house symbolises the dissolving separation between exterior and interior, private and public, and analogue and digital life brought about by new forms of communication and mobility. This contemporary homelessness is touched upon in many ways in the works oft he artists; whether in the ephemerality of the media and materials used, the atmospheric presentation or in addressing topics such as hospitality, patterns of migration and the global consumption of resources.

This sculptural expansion was developed for the small art space sic! Elephanthouse in Lucerne, a small concrete shed located in a lively neighborhood by the railroad tracks. Rising skyward from the exterior facade, the white wooden structure appears to be sprouting from the small gray building like a geometrically reduced construct. The installation is visible from afar, contrasts in its whiteness with the surroundings and changes its aspect depending on the perspective of the viewer from towerlike to signlike. The installation was conceived for a duration of 4 years.