Open Relationship

How can we understand the complexities of our present through the art of the recent past? In its Gegenwart building, Kunstmuseum Basel presents artworks from its spectacular contemporary collection as well as the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation and Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt collections. Some of these works were created specifically for the building, which was opened in 1980 as one of the world’s first contemporary art museums. The art on display reflects today’s most urgent questions in a polyphonic and critical, and sometimes even playful manner.

Pieces by artists from Basel, Berlin, Cape Town, Mexico City, New Delhi, and beyond invite visitors to reflect on their personal, societal, and ecological living and working conditions. These artworks explore how we construct our realities and form our narratives, consider the connections between individuals and communities, examine the role of images in everyday life, and discover means of sensory perception beyond the visual.

Both the exhibition itself and the accompanying events program in the recently opened Studio Gegenwart create a space for visitors to engage with the collection’s mechanisms, gaps, and latent possibilities.