No One Told the Cows Not to Lick the Artwork

On Sunday morning, Roman Mathis, a farmer on the outskirts of the bucolic Swiss city of Basel, noted with concern that one of his cows was standing in a small wading pool filled with beans that had recently been installed next to his barn.

It wasn’t wholly unexpected: Mathis had allowed gallerists and artists to use his property as part of a freewheeling art event called the Basel Social Club. As he stared at the pool, he couldn’t tell if it was it was an artwork or a random piece of detritus, and if he should shoo the animal away.

“Some of this art speaks to me, though at a certain point it passes a threshold,” Mathis said, gesturing to black inflatable tubes that had been affixed to his barn’s facade. “But it’s been interesting to go along with it.”

The pool was indeed an installation, by Alondra Juárez Ramirez. But the Basel Social Club — a combination of art fair, party and public exhibition that will run through Sunday on farms and public land in the city — is meant to blur the boundaries between the art world and everyday life. The annual event, which changes locations every year, has become compelling counterprogramming to Art Basel, the world’s largest art fair, which takes place this week in the nearby convention center.

Most of the work is for sale, and for galleries and artists, the event is an opportunity to show and sell their works in a setting less dominated by the art market’s commercial concerns. “I really believe an artwork sticks in your mind more if you form an emotional relationship with it, and you cannot do that in a fair booth,” said Victoria Dejaco, a participating gallerist from Vienna. At an event like Art Basel, she said, “it all blends together.”