Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 6 p.m.– 8 p.m.
Kunstmuseum Basel | Hauptbau
Participation free of charge. Tickets via link

Artist Cassidy Toner in conversation with art critic Krzysztof Kościuczuk on the occasion of the exhibition Cassidy Toner. Besides the Point, presented for the Manor Art Prize 2025. The conversation will be moderated by Alice Wilke, research assistant for art after 1960/contemporary art at the Kunstmuseum Basel and curator of the exhibition.

The Kunstmuseum Basel is showing new works by Cassidy Toner (born in 1992 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, lives and works in Basel) in the exhibition Besides the Point. Toner was awarded the Manor Art Prize 2025. For the exhibition associated with the prize, she created two dozen ceramic sculptures, a large-format wall drawing, a video and an installation with cast objects made of synthetic resin and tin.

Witty, sly and full of surprises – in her works, Toner takes an ironic and critical look at the mechanisms of the art world, the prevailing expectations and values within it. A large dose of humour and a great deal of self-irony serve as her strategy for countering the supposed logic of the art world. The title Besides the Point is a combination of the English idiom ‘beside the point’ and the word ‘besides’. Toner deliberately focuses on the supposedly incidental, the casual – and develops this into the overarching theme of her presentation.

This and other topics related to her artistic practice will be explored in depth in a conversation with the artist, providing insights into the production of her exhibition and the accompanying publication HANDS ON. The volume features a series of photographs taken by Toner with her smartphone between 2014 and 2024. In the images, Toner's hand interacts with people or objects on poster prints in public spaces. Her actions nuance the original messages and play with the intentions of the advertising industry.