Messe Basel
Art Basel Unlimited: Francesco Clemente
Part of Unlimited (Booth U59), Francesco Clemente’s The Senses (Sight, Taste and Hearing) (2000) is a monumental woven triptych that results from a decade-long collaboration with billboard painters in Chennai. Sight, taste, and hearing are represented by incongruously scaled human figures engaged in sensuous, fantastical activities: a caressing couple reclines in a large eye, a pregnant woman is wedged in an ear, and a comically small head protrudes from the tip of a tongue. The tapestry displays Clemente’s unique ability to use images to form unorthodox mythologies, ceremoniously open to interpretation.
