Review
Ser Serpas: Of My Life
June 13 – September 21, 2025
Kunsthalle Basel
Walking over the canvas.
Ser Serpas presents paintings and four installations at Kunsthalle Basel. It is her largest institutional exhibition in Switzerland up to date. There is pain, audio and visual. Naked bodies in positions of suffering or dissolution.
The paintings recall Käthe Kollwitz, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch; Daniel Spivakov. They manifest an interesting approach to material: very free, but not spontaneous; deliberate. Raw but not repulsive, flat versions of Jean Dubuffet.
Ser Serpas paints by placing two images on top of each other when the paint is still wet. The image escapes, becomes fleeting. These are negatives, imprints of a past sensibility. Untitled (2025, “s” in the exhibition booklet) shows a body painted on plastic foil: a construction site tarpaulin, a corpse blanket, a preparatory sketch, a cave painting.
All paintings are hung in double wooden panels, emphasizing an element of the ephemeral. And always these footsteps (on the canvas): Art and life are a journey, in circles, take it as you go.
These paintings are naked; hanging there without any support or stretching. Do I feel naked in front of them? Disquiet, haunted, by times run over. The works are utterly beautiful: large but intimate, raw yet fragile. Naked but refined. Contemporary remains.
The installations inside the exhibition restage historical sets from the Margo Korableva Performance Theatre in Tbilisi. Occupying the second, third, and fourth room, they create a suite: an abandoned stage; a ghost train, a grave yard, a lovers’ room; a kitchen battlefield. Something is missing / what am I looking for?
The exhibition is a drama, not a tragedy, it offers a strange sense of relief: these figures are soft and fragile, assassinated but no assassins.
What is the intent and purpose of these paintings and stagings? Ser Serpas calls it a “healthy dose of unease”[1], disrupting the everyday and undermining expectations. They bring us back to raw sensibility. Perception before understanding; sensing.
Looking at the bigger picture: There is so much art around because the technological condition does not satisfy us. Because the digital lacks the archaic experience.
Pt. I
The series ‘The Purpose of Contemporary Art’ investigates dynamics in and intentions of contemporary art works and practices. Amidst an unprecedented surge in global art production, it aims to understand the reasons behind the growing need for art, as expressed by both creators and audiences.
[1] J. Cabelle Ahn “Artist Interview: Ser Serpas” The Art Newspaper, June 19, 2025, 15-16.