Basel Social Club 2024

Kogo Gallery participates for the first year at Basel Social Club, presenting two recent textile works, Kassia I and Kassia II by Estonian artist Laura Põld. Laura’s works are shown on Mathis-Hof’s farm.

THE WORKS

In homage to my grandmother’s hands, weathered by both soil and thread, I weave stories of resilience and connection. Kassia I and Kassia II, my tufted pieces, bear witness to the labour of generations of women.

My grandmother toiled in her sun-drenched garden, unrooting trees, wrestling berry bushes, and digging deep holes to remove the lifeless remnants of once-mighty trunks. Her hands, calloused and knowing, moved seamlessly between soil and fabric. At nights she settled by the flickering TV. There, on the edge of newspapers and scraps of paper, she doodled a secret language of roots, plant parts, sometimes faces. These quiet sketches, born from her joy and longing, left a strong memory of her restless mind. At the heart of Kassia I and Kassia II lie patterns of gooseberry bush roots and pear tree roots, traced from memory. And along the edges, a nod to the checkered notebooks that held her markings.

Kassia I and Kassia II were part of Laura Põld’s solo exhibition Translating and Co-labouring that took place in January 2023 at AV17 Gallery in Vilnius. 

Keiu Krikmann: “In the two-part series Kassia, Põld makes visible the process of making and unmaking. Combining and unravelling threads, she also endows the viewer with a two-fold vision. Despite the unfinished parts and loose threads, the viewer is compelled to construct an image, a whole, to finish it in their mind’s eye. At the same time, looking at the unravelling pieces, the image disintegrates into material, drawing the viewer’s attention to the source, the components.”

THE ARTIST

Laura Põld’s practice combines interdisciplinary and traditional craft skills with sculpture-based mediums. Through these lenses, she examines posthuman and more-than-human ways of being, caring, community building, and sheltering. She creates large-scale assemblages, constructions and installations from these sources, which playfully disrupt and subvert the typical understanding of art venues.

Laura Põld (b. 1984 in Tallinn, Estonia) is an Estonian artist living in Tallinn and Vienna. Her formal education includes the study of ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA), painting at the University of Tartu (MA) and sculptural conceptions and ceramics at the University of Art and Design, Linz (MA). She is a Visiting Associate Professor of installation and sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), Tallinn, Estonia.
Her recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Translating and Co-labouring, (AV17) Gallery, Vilnius, LT (2023); Fibers in the Cave, solo presentation at Art Brussels with Kogo Gallery, BE (2023), Common Threads, Polar Bear and Elephant with Andres Tolts, Kogo Gallery, Tartu, EE (2022); Doing What They Do Best, Kunstraum Memphis, Linz, AU (2021). Recent group exhibitions include: Down the Rabbit Hole, MO museum, Vilnius, LT (2024), Emotional Landscapes, Arka Gallery, Vilnius, LT (2023); shelter – sanctuary, The Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Tallinn, EE (2023); Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, EE (2023); (INTIMITÄT) Feelings are Facts, Kunstverein Eisenstadt, AU (2023).
Her works are in collections of Art Museum Bayreuth, DE, European Central Bank Art Collection, Frankfurt, DE, Art Museum of Estonia, EE, Tartu Art Museum, EE, Zuzāns Collection, LV, Gmundner Keramik Collection, AU and Mark Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, LV.

THE EVENT

Basel Social Club is a non-profit organisation founded in spring 2022 by a collective of artists, gallerists and curators with the intention of creating social spaces for art.

Sprawled throughout the 50 hectares of farmed land between a forest and the border of the city, Basel Social Club 2024 will bring together an all-encompassing exhibition of artworks by a diverse list of local and international artists. Adapted to the environment and respectful of the local activities, Basel Social Club 2024 is accompanied by a dynamic music and performance program, an outdoor cinema, and exclusive culinary offerings. The landscape, agriculture, and farm animals will be integrated into the project, with our host farmers as active participants. Artistic interventions will be positioned throughout the properties, presented on the fields, in the barns, amongst the trees, and responding to the ecological scope of this year’s project, while merging with the agricultural landscape.

Basel Social Club is accessible to all and is free of charge.