One Fine Show: ‘I Can’t Tell If This Longing Is My Own’ at the Fondation Beyeler

Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum outside of New York City—a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention.

This iteration of One Fine Show is a special one because it’s the first to feature a museum outside of the United States. While in Basel for the town’s storied art fair, I took a detour to the Fondation Beyeler to take in “I Can’t Tell If This Longing Is My Own,” the first time in the institution’s twenty-five-year history that the entire museum and its surrounding park have been “transformed into the site of an experimental presentation of contemporary art.”

The thirty participants are an absolute murderer’s row, among them Ian Cheng, Marlene Dumas, Peter Fischli, Cyprien Gaillard with Victor Man, Wade Guyton, Carsten Höller with Adam Haar, Pierre Huyghe, Arthur Jafa, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno, Rachel Rose, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Adrián Villar Rojas, with the concept for the show no less ambitious, having originated with  Sam Keller, Mouna Mekouar, Isabela Mora, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Okoyomon, Parreno and Sehgal in close collaboration with the participants. To add one more name to the list: the show is presented in partnership with the LUMA Foundation.

This is one of the finest surveys of the contemporary scene in recent memory—even if it feels a little unfair to say this, with all those big names involved. We may also just be a little deprived for such a survey: the Venice Biennale this year and recent Whitney Biennials have neglected this role for their shows in favor of strong political theses. But whatever the reason, this one is a hit.

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It begins at the entrance, where Guyton has arranged for two art handles to continually shuffle a pile of paintings as if to brag about how easy these are to crank out. In the next room, he is paired with Henri Mattise. Around the corner, Gerhard Richter’s skies are paired with a Claude Monet cathedral. Few labels appear anywhere throughout the show, but these early efforts are the first hint that you’re in for something bold: the idea that much of the history of image-making has been misguided

This idea continues with non-collection works, like Gaillard’s movie Retinal Rivalry, a 3-D film made with computer graphics that looks real and impossible at the same time, unpacking the arrogance with which Caspar David Friedrich sought to project his melodrama onto nature while creating his own false, sweeping vistas. To get to the bulk of the show, most visitors will have to walk through clouds of fog courtesy of Okoyomon, who also offers real butterflies and a cute little robot taking a nap in a sweltering greenhouse.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? A wall by Duane Hanson seems to have painted the actual walls in the room that might be called the nexus of the show, where a series of sculptures stare at each other Alberto Giacometti going toe to toe, like a quarterback, with Jacques Lipchitz. Here we have probably Jeff Koons’ greatest sculpture ever Pink Panther (1988), in which a real woman hugs the cartoon character. In the background of this room, you may hear a piece by Sehgal where two people scat together, as Richter’s great gray enamels make it all an imperfect mirror.

If you find yourself in Switzerland, run don’t walk. Or hike, as the case may be.

“I Can’t Tell If This Longing Is My Own” is on view at the Fondation Beyeler through August 11.