VOLTA13 Announces Exhibitors

VOLTA — Basel’s art fair for new international positions — returns to Markthalle from June 12 – 17, 2017, concurrent with Art Basel Week and occurring within the current art season’s Grand Tour of documenta 14 (Athens/Kassel), the 57th Venice Biennale (Venice), and the fifth Skulptur Projekte Münster. Dubbed the “Lucky 13” edition by the VOLTA team, VOLTA13 underscores its mission as a globally conscious fair for artistic discovery by welcoming 70 galleries from four continents and 43 cities to Markthalle, together mounting compelling projects by artists from over 50 nations.

“My birthday is on the 13th, as is my husband’s, so it’s always been a lucky number for us,” notes VOLTA Artistic Director Amanda Coulson of the fortuitous number. “I’m looking forward to our 13th edition with the same anticipation as any significant birthday and am really excited to see the incarnation of all the proposals we received. The range is really extraordinary — from Biennale participating artists to new faces — so my feeling is the fair will be both quite energizing and educational — even a bit challenging, just like most teenagers!”

Solo presentations and dual-artist “dialogues” remain the foundation of VOLTA’s focused commentary, with 19 galleries electing to spotlight a single artist from their roster and another 21 mounting two artists in conversation. Highlights for 2017 include recent bamboo grid reliefs and sculptures by Sopheap Pich (Cambodian), presented at the fair by longtime VOLTA exhibitor Tyler Rollins Fine Art (New York) and featured concurrently in Viva Arte Viva, the Central Exhibition curated by Christine Macel for this year’s Venice Biennale; a calming confessional “safe space” constructed by preeminent contemporary ink artist Peng Wei (Chinese, presented by Galerie Ora- Ora, Hong Kong), featured in the 2014 Shenzhen International Ink Biennale and a solo I Thought of You at Suzhou Museum last year; and a valiant mixed-media array by Robert Hodge (American, presented by Freight + Volume, New York), whose vivid recovery and representation of past cultural and political heroes earned him multiple solo exhibitions in his native Texas, including Destroy and Rebuild at Contemporary Art Museum Houston and Between the Devil and the Deep, which opened last month at Artspace (San Antonio). Dual-artist dialogues run the gamut from serene to visually assertive, including: emotive figurative photography and large-scale drawings, respectively, by Anastasia Khoroshilova (Russian), whose major project Starie Novosti/Old News) was a 54th Venice Biennale Official Collateral Exhibition before traveling through Switzerland, France, and elsewhere), and young Erasmus scholar Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed (Egyptian- Austrian), together presented by HilgerBrotkunsthalle (Vienna); plus an open-ended, installation- style query on the fate of globalism considered by ART FRONT GALLERY’s (Tokyo) two Japanese artists, Shinji Ohmaki — featured in the recent Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and developing currently a site-specific project with Dutch curators for the 2017 Capital City Project — and creator- philosopher TODO, whose tutelage under Daniel Buren at Düsseldorf’s Akademie der Bildenden Künste has led to exhibitions across Europe as well as his native Japan.

Thematic group presentations elicit a fine opportunity for galleries to engage the creative prowess indicative of their “home bases” throughout the world. Such projects at VOLTA13 include: a swan- dive into figurative surrealism by VOLTA stalwart Galerie Dukan (Paris/Leipzig), featuring several statement King Henry VIII armored bronzes by Folkert de Jong (Dutch), which were first exhibited in The Holy Land at The Hepworth Wakefeld (Wakefield, UK), as well as new metaphysical paintings by Karine Rougier (Maltese), who garnered a sold out booth with the gallery at VOLTA NY 2016 and is co-representing Malta in Homo Melitensis – An Incomplete Inventory in 19 Chapters, co- curated by Raphael Vella and Bettina Hutschek for the 57th Venice Biennale. RoFa Projects (Potomac) articulates sociopolitical concerns via four artists from the gallery’s Latin America focused program: Mauricio Esquivel (El Salvadorian), who was recently inducted into the World Bank Collection, Lester Rodríguez (Honduran), fresh off his solo installation at VOLTA NY 2017, plus Erika Harrsch (Mexican) and Santiago Vélez (Colombian). Meanwhile, Kristin Hjellegjerde (London) unveils a portraiture salon featuring new works from the gallery’s international roster, including Dawit Abebe (Ethiopian), who enjoyed a major reception at VOLTA NY 2016, Juliette Mahieux Bartoli (French-Italian), Martine Poppe (Norwegian), featured in last year’s Nordic Light International Festival of Photography and subject of an upcoming residency at CCA Andratx (Mallorca), and Soheila Sokhanvari (Iranian), subject of a solo exhibition Paradise Lost at Jerwood Project Space (London) and the traveling all-female artists group show I AM, which premieres at Jordan’s National Gallery of Fine Arts (Amman) this May.

Twelve first-time VOLTA exhibitors inject fresh life-blood to the fair’s international contemporary purview. Highlights for the 2017 edition include: Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea (Lisbon), channeling its photography-focused program into three artists illustrating an active landscape: Cuban-American great Anthony Goicolea plus Portuguese artists Mónica de Miranda, featured in last year’s DAK-ART Biennale and in a 2017 solo Daqui pro frente at CAIXA Cultural (Rio de Janeiro), a n d Carla Cabanas; Galleria Bianconi (Milan) presents Hold It Against Me, a video and photography project by dynamic Chicago artist Cheryl Pope (American) based on her performance at the gallery; Galerie T&L (Paris) spotlights two of their top emerging artists, François Malingrëy’s (French) wildly detailed and Freudian illustrative practice and Tindar (Italian), whose Migrations Project collaborates with refugees in a Calais (FR) makeshift camp; and C&K Galerie (Berlin) presents Mon(t) Liban, Said Baalbaki’s (Lebanese) interdisciplinary approach to depicting traumas and beauty of his birthplace against his present homeland of Berlin.

VOLTA13 at Markthalle is accessible by direct shuttle bus to and from Art Basel. The fair is located steps from Basel’s main train station SBB and is fve tram stops from Art Basel (Line 2, direction Binningen). Additionally, several underground public car parks are located in close proximity to Markthalle. All travel information may be found on our website.
VOLTA was co-founded in 2005 by three dealers, Kavi Gupta (Chicago), Friedrich Loock (Berlin), and Ulrich Voges (Frankfurt am Main), and art critic Amanda Coulson.

                                                        ###

ADN Galeria Barcelona

AKINCI Amsterdam

ART FRONT GALLERY Tokyo

Martin Asbæk Gallery Copenhagen

Galería Ángeles Baños Badajoz

Galleria Bianconi Milan

Rutger Brandt Gallery Amsterdam

C&K Galerie Berlin

CARLOS CARVALHO ARTE CONTEMPORÂNEA Lisbon

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON London

Galerie Charlot Paris

Coates & Scarry London

Ethan Cohen Gallery New York

COHJU contemporary art Kyoto

CONRADS Düsseldorf

Davidson Contemporary New York

dc3 Art Projects Edmonton

Galerie Dukan Paris / Leipzig

the flat – massimo carasi Milan

frosch&portmann New York

Galerie Thomas Fuchs Stuttgart

Galleria Doris Ghetta Ortisei

Green On Red Gallery Dublin

Galeria Enrique Guerrero Mexico City

Patrick Heide Contemporary Art London

HilgerBrotkunsthalle Vienna

Kristin Hjellegjerde London

The Hole, New York

Gabinete de Arte k2o Brasilia

Roger Katwijk Amsterdam

Kleindienst Leipzig

Knight Webb Gallery London

GALLERYKOGURE Tokyo / New York

Richard Koh Fine Art Kuala Lumpur

Galerie Kornfeld Berlin

Krupic Kersting II KUK Cologne

Martin Kudlek Cologne

George Lawson Gallery San Francisco

Litvak Contemporary Tel Aviv

LMAKgallery New York

Magic Beans Berlin

galerie bruno massa, Paris / New York

Massimodeluca Venice

Maus Contemporary Birmingham, AL

PATRICK MIKHAIL GALLERY Montreal / Ottawa

GALLERY MoMo Tokyo

Montoro12 Contemporary Art Rome

GALERIE ERIC MOUCHET Paris

NUNU Fine Art Taipei

Galerie Ora-Ora Hong Kong

P74 Gallery Ljubljana

Pablo's Birthday New York

Anca Poterasu Gallery Bucharest

PRIVATEVIEW Torino

Galerie Ramakers The Hague

Galerie Richard Paris / New York

Robert Henry Contemporary Brooklyn

ROCKELMANN & Berlin

RoFa projects Potomac

Tyler Rollins Fine Art New York

Sapar Contemporary New York

SARDAC, London

SODA gallery Bratislava

Galerie Heike Strelow Frankfurt am Main

Galerie T&L Paris

Ten Haaf Projects Amsterdam

TEZUKAYAMA GALLERY Osaka

V1 Gallery Copenhagen

YOD Gallery Osaka

ZieherSmith New York

Zilberman Gallery Istanbul / Berlin