Regionale 26. Phantoms

With: Mariam Abashidze, Angela Anzi, Selina Baumann, Hélène Bleys, Elie Bouisson, Selina Camenzind, Mattia Comuzzi, Walter Derungs, Ramon Feller, Danae
Hoffmann, Maya Hottarek, Nolan Lucidi, Alizé Rose-May, Natascha Moschini (Performance), Barbara Signer, Olivia Vidovic, Lorenz Walter Wernli

Curated by Simone Neuenschwander and Matthias Liechti

Phantoms are unreal appearances, sensory illusions or physical imaginations. The term comes from the French and means something like "ghost" or "illusion". In various cultures, the phantom has developed into a symbol for the unknown and mysterious. Since the 20th century, "phantom" has also stood for replicas of a body part or organ for educational purposes. In medicine, there is "phantom pain", which describes the sensation of pain in a limb that no longer exists.

The Phantoms exhibition brings together positions that bring the past into the present in various ways and work with sometimes ghostly representations. Be it mysterious ornaments, body prints, clothing covers or historical finds. Time inscribes itself into the material, our thoughts and our bodies. By looking into the past, a future can be imagined in the present that defies conventional notions of normality and progress. The reference to the human body appears again and again, whereby these are phantasmagorical substitutes and materialized appearances.

Contemporary art has the power to create works that undergo a physical or mental animation when viewed and develop multiple illusions of reality. What all the exhibited works have in common is that they do not create static and rigid moments and ways of looking at things, but remain flexible, temporary and unpredictable. Welcome to the exhibition!

Regionale 26
Regionale is an annual group exhibition developed in the context of a cross-border cooperation of 20 institutions in Germany, France and Switzerland with a focus on local, contemporary art production in the three-country region around Basel. www.regionale.org