BASEL, SWITZERLAND.- Kunstmuseum Basel presents Manuel Hoffmann Foundation. Work Groups and Installations, on view through September 3, 2006. Integrated into the holdings of the museum, the works of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation are presented at both the Museum für Gegenwartskunst and the Kunstmuseum Basel. Those that are not on view have been stored at the Schaulager since 2003.

For years, the Foundation has consistently acquired major works or entire groups of work by international artists, some of which will now be on view for the first time at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst. The representative selection of pieces highlights installations, video projections and photographed work. The presentation at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst explores the way in which artistic approaches that have been pursued for several decades relate to recent acquisitions. For instance, the video installation Correction, 2004, by the Indonesian-born and Amsterdam-based artist Fiona Tan (*1966), a compelling multiple portrait of prisoners and their guards, will be on display alongside British artist Mark Wallinger's (*1959) installation The Importance of Being Earnest in Esperanto, and paintings by the American artist Elizabeth Peyton (*1965). The latest photographic and sculptural works by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss (*1952/*1946) will be contrasted with photographs of meticulously reconstructed and rephotographed media images by the German artist Thomas Demand (*1964) as well as his animated film Trick, 2004. The work of the American artist Richard Artschwager (*1923), two extensive groups of work by Andrea Zittel (*1965) that reflect the conditions of our everyday lives and works by the conceptual artist John Baldessari (*1931) demonstrate the long-term vision of the acquisitions policy pursued by the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation. The Foundation began collecting the work of John Baldessari already in the seventies and completed the important work group over 20 years later.