'DETERIORATION, THEY SAID' AT MIGROS, ZURICH
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A new show of video and installation works by American artists Cory Arcangel, Jessica Ciocci & Jacob Ciocci / Paper Rad, Shana Moulton and Ryan Trecartin & Lizzie Fitch opens at the Migros today.
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CHRIS MOORE'S TOP 10 ARTSTS AT ART BASEL, VOLTA AND SCOPE
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If you want a whirlwind education about where international art is at, whether the good, the bad, the ugly, the surpising, the shocking, the new, the old, the repulsive and the seductive, then there is really nothing to compare with Basel in early June. Here is my Top 10. In no way is it definitive but then arguing about who should or shouldn't be included is half the fun. All I will say though is that Volta was easily the best of ArtBasel's sister-shows and that ArtUnlimited, as usual, gave the trade fair its intellectual punch.
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BETINNA VON HASE ON THE VENICE BIENNALE AND ART BASEL
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Highlights from the Venice Biennale including François Pinault's Punta della Dogana (below) and Teresa Margolles at the Mexican Pavilion; plus a report on the stand-out works at ArtBasel and Volta such as Franz Burkhardt's series of drawings at Schuebbe Projects, and Brigida Baltar's poignant installation at Nara Roesler. 
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REBECCA GELDARD ON ART BASEL'S ART UNLIMITED
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I doubt any visitor in their right mind was expecting flags and whistles at this year's Art Basel given the current economic climate. And I guess one should perhaps salute the organisers' sensitivity in not crowing about the original art fair's significant milestones reached - the 40th anniversary of the event itself and the 10th year of Art Unlimited - in light of the number of gallery comrades who have fallen in recent times. But really, the low-lit wholesale outlet atmosphere of the Messe's main hall this week does little to put a "twist in my [or anyone's] sobriety". 
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KARLA BLACK AND CHRISTOPH RUCKERBERLE AT MIGROS MUSEUM, ZURICH
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Plaster, chalk dust and Vaseline, or substances such as face powder, lipstick and nail varnish make up the raw materials used by Scottish artist Karla Black, while the visual world of the painter Christoph Ruckhäberle is peopled by odd hard-edged figures, standing in front of coloured rhythmic backgrounds. Both their work is on view at the Migros Museum until 16 August.
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PAUL MCCARTHY AND JOAN MITCHELL AT HAUSER & WIRTH, ZURICH
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Captain Ballsack, Bush, pigs, piracy, Hummels and a plethoric variety of materials all feature in Paul McCarthy's new sculptures and drawings, while Joan Mitchell show her Sunflower works in her first show in Switzerland since 1962.
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IL TEMPO DEL POSTINO AT ART BASEL, BASEL
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One of the most spectacular events during Art 40 Basel will be the presentation of "Il Tempo del Postino". Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno, "the world's first visual arts opera" was premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2007, for which a group of the world's leading visual artists created a major experimental presentation.
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LAST CHANCE: ENRICO DAVID AT KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL
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The sculptures, gouaches, embroideries, photographs and installations by Enrico David, shortlisted for this year's Turner Prize, feature a broad spectrum of cultural references including Arte Povera, assemblage, set design and graphic art motifs from the 1920s and 30s, as well as numerous literary sources and elements from craft tradition. 
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TRACEY EMIN, KUNSTHAUS, BERN
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Tracey Emin is one of the most celebrated and influential artists of her generation and also one of the most controversial. This exhibition charts the artist's career from the late 1980s to the present day, presenting the full range of her work in an exceptionally wide range of media - from her appliquéd blankets to video; from neons and installation to her intensely personal paintings and 
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JAMIE SHOVLIN AT HAUNCH OF VENISON, ZURICH
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With the solo exhibition 'The Evening Redness in the West' at Haunch of Venison Zürich British artist Jamie Shovlin concludes a trilogy that began with 'A Dream Deferred', shown at Haunch of Venison London in 2007, and continued with 'The Ties that Bind', exhibited at Unosunove in Rome in 2008. As with these previous incarnations, a wide variety of interrelated works form a cohesive body of
work woven around the disparity between reality and idealism whilst exploring the narratives and fictions that a nation projects into the world. 
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HANKANG HUANG AT GALERIE BERTRAND GRUNER, GENEVA
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Hankang Huang's work, deeply rooted in traditional Chinese painting, bears within it the tensions and questions facing modern China, a country torn between a history going back thousands of years, a teeming contemporary culture and aggressive economic development.
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OMER FAST AT KUNSTHAUS BASELLAND, BASEL
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Omer Fast's film 'Take a Deep Breath', on view in this show, focuses on an eyewitness testimonial of a suicide bomb attack. The story is told by a doctor who went to the explosion site to see if he could provide medical help. There he found a man who had lost both legs and an arm. When his attempt at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation fails, the doctor leaves the site and it quickly becomes obvious that the man he'd tried to save was the suicide bomber, which confronts him with a moral dilemma. 
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DAWN MELLOR AT MIRGOS MUSEUM, ZURICH
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Relentlessly satirising pop stars and movie icons, Mellor's riotous, irreverent and often obscene images subvert the accepted purity of the stars' invented or imagined personae, revealing the dark underside of the cult of celebrity as it is transformed by the forces of individual desire. In her first museum show in Switzerland she is showing a series of 120 portraits called 'Vile Affections' which she discusses in an interview with Ana Finel Honigman on Saatchi Online's magazine - click here to read the interview. 
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ALEC SOTH AT FOTOMUSEUM WINTERTHUR
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Alec Soth's photography is firmly rooted in the tradition of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. His depiction of the everyday confronts the ideals romanticized by American society - independence, freedom, religious devotion and individual expression. Through his 8 x 10 camera lens, Soth captures the extraordinary by exposing and utilizing the vernacular of the ordinary. This exhibition features a selection from Alec Soth's two acclaimed bodies of work, 'Sleeping by the Mississippi' and 'Niagara', along with a selection of images from the series 'Dog Days, Bogotá', and his ongoing project, 'Portraits'.
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON LUKAS WASSMAN AT BLOTELANG GALLERY, ZURICH
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This exhibition unites for the first time the collection of images the young Swiss artist Lukas Wassmann has made with his muse Eva Maria Küpfer. A question lingers over this show, whether it is the work of two extroverts or whether happenstance brought together two creative minds that together could make these pictures. But whatever the answer, when a woman in the frame gets a chance to be expressive, she can do it with attitude.
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FILMS: AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON VANESSA BEECROFT'S SUDANESE TWINS AND ICH IMMENDORF
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Aoife Rosenmeyer reports on two films about artists shown at the recent Zurich Film Festival - Ich.Immendorff, a portrait of the German artist in his own words and those of friends and family, outlining the experiences and times that informed his art, and his determination to work as he lived in the knowledge that death was not far off; and The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins which follows Vanessa Beecroft's attempt to adopt twins from the Sudan.
To watch a clip from 'The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins', directed by Pietra Brettkelly, click here. 
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ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST ON ART MASTERS, ST MORITZ
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'Five huge heads by Ugo Rondinone stood outside Badrutt's Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. They are fabricated from aluminum varnished to the colour of peanut butter and look like the friendly monsters you might see in a children's book. Beside them was a white AMG parked on a low platform. A sign noted that the car was from an "edition." A guard explained that, yes, it comes in an edition of 200 and that each costs 170,000 Euros.' Anthony Haden-Guest reports from Art Masters, an annual summer event at which Robert Indiana (below) was given a lifetime achievement award. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER'S TOP 10 SHOWS IN ZURICH
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After the summer doldrums, Zürich's art scene gets back in action with renewed vigour. Though the city is relatively small it is the intersection of many cultural circuits, be they big money streams or philosophers' ways. Arnold Odermatt shows his photographs of Swiss traffic accidents; vibrant painterly carpets by Caro Niederer; a mini retrospective for Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor who died in 1990; installation and paintings by Indian artist T V Santhosh; and a chance to see the latest video of Swiss rising star Elodie Pong (below). 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON MIND THE GAP AT KUNSTHAUS GLARUS
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Glarus is a small town set snugly in a densely forested valley, about an hour from the nearest city. It is not an environment where the phrase Mind the Gap seems relevant. But the phrase long ago left London and travelled the world on the tongues of former passengers, and its disembodied meaning is the catalyst for this exhibition. 
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DANIELE BUETTI AT HAUNCH OF VENISON, ZURICH
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For many years an important contributor to Swiss art, Daniele Buetti's work explores the quest for personal identity in a weary world dominated by oppressive media machinery and consumer passions. Buetti, well known for his lightboxes, photographs and installations featuring defaced top models with artificial ballpoint pen scarifications, has lately concentrated on grotesque elements of his artistic topoi. Intricate installations trigger archetypal fears of the abnormal and evoke associations of violence and devastation.
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON TEEN CITY AT THE MUSEE DE L'ELYSEE, LAUSANNE
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This summer Bill Henson's work has been ruffling feathers in his native Australia, but the inclusion of his work in 'Teen City' hasn't provoked many viewers. It is probably because the first work they come across elicits a stronger reaction: Anoush Abrar's video '50 Cent Fan' follows a skinny girl in her early teens who takes up position in front of the camera before bumping and grinding her way through an American rap song, midriff exposed, hair twirling and holding intense eye contact.
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'SHIFTING IDENTITIES' AT KUNSTHAUS, ZURICH
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'Shifting Identities - [Swiss] Art Now', an exhibition exploring the state of contemporary Swiss art, will be on show 31 at the Kunsthaus Zürich until 31 August, with satellites such as Zürich Airport and downtown Zürich.
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON DAVID CLAERBOUT AT KUNSTMUSEUM ST GALLEN
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David Claerbout's art considers how time changes events. Sometimes he pauses moments to elaborate and consider the actions they contain; other times he replays an action before a changing backdrop of light and hour to note the influence of locating that action then. In this exhibition the visitor walks into a football game, played in Algiers' on a small pitch between buildings. The projection appears on a screen, but also floods the room. Ambient sounds fit the image but do not specify a moment, rather allow the images to further hover in an uncertain passage of time, like the gulls that catch the wind and float in the work. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON UGO RONDINONE AT EVA PRESENHUBER, ZURICH
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Ugo Rondinone has had great success and visibility in recent years, but his work is still like quicksilver: one moment seemingly solid and quantifiable, then eliding one's grasp. So if you were expecting neon, think again. Nor are clowns to be found here. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON HITO STEYERL AT THE KUNSTHALLE WINTERTHUR
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Although Hito Steyerl had works at Manifesta 5 in 2004, at Documenta last year and other major exhibitions, her work remains better known in the field of film than in contemporary art. Her work is informed by film history, and she teaches film courses, but she uses the platform of art to put the structure of film-making itself under a magnifying lens.
To watch an interview with Hito Steyerl on Saatchi Online TV click here. 
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SERGEY BRATKOV AT FOTOMUSEUM, WINTERTHUR
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Five years on from its retrospective exhibition of Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov, the Fotomuseum Winterthur is showing the work of another leading Russian-Ukrainian artist of the next generation, Sergey Bratkov (born 1960). The exhibition includes over 130 works, giving a deep insight into Bratkov's photographic oeuvre since 1990. Socially critical, politically motivated and yet with a lyrical edge, his photographs are a direct and at times unsparing portrayal of everyday life since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON ERICA EYRES AT HAAS & FISCHER, ZURICH
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A glimpse of Erica Eyres' work was on show at the recent Volta art fair in Basel, but Haas & Fischer's exhibition offered a more detailed look at two bodies of work by the Canadian artist: ball point pen portraits on paper and video works starring Eyres in every role. 
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JOHN CHANNER ON DUBAI NEXT AND FIVE ARTISTS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
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Disappointed by a recent show supposedly presenting the most exciting emerging art from Dubai, John Channer offers an alternative selection of five artists from the Middle East whose work would have made for a much more vibrant and representative exhibition. 
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JORGE MACCHI AT PETER KILCHMANN, ZURICH
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The Argentinean artist Jorge Macchi presents an installation of works which take over the entire gallery. In the works on view - a floor sculpture, several works on paper and photographs - the artist questions issues and objects from everyday life, and searches for the blurred, marginal and accidental aspects of them. He creates works of art that hold their own poetry and attracts the viewer's attention by placing objects in unusual contexts. 
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ANA FINEL HONIGMAN ON ARTBASEL 39'S ART UNLIMITED
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Although notably fewer American collectors were seen walking around the booths at Art Basel this year, the state of the United States was a theme that ran through Art Unlimited and Art Statements. The sixty artists from twenty-three countries presented in the 20,000 square foot space devoted to Unlimited and the solo shows run by thirty galleries in Statements grappled with a broad range of subjects and mediums. But examining and sometimes taunting America for its new role as a fading beacon on the world's stage was a common posture for politically engaged and conceptually engaging work in both sections. 
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KENNY SCHACHTER ON DESIGN MIAMI/BASEL
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I was standing in my booth at last week's design fair in Basel in the sweltering heat chatting up some collectors when I felt what seemed like a black box of concrete making its way from the back of my head towards the front. The day before, I had competing zillionaires on my stand dancing around each other like cocky swordsmen with blades drawn, shortly followed by an A-list actor all actively considering major undertakings. The next day I was on my back at hospital, with sensors suctioned to all corners of my body in the midst of an electrocardiogram to determine if I had suffered a heart attack. I hadn't. They chalked it up to dehydration and stress - monumental stress from trying to extract a few quid from those with mountains of money. 
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SAATCHI ONLINE ARTISTS AT SCOPE BASEL 2008
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Congratulations to all the artists registered on Saatchi Online who exhibited their work at SCOPE Basel last week. The Saatchi Online stand was a huge success - 25 works were sold at the fair on a non-commission basis and there has been an overwhelming level of interest from collectors, gallerists, dealers and other people visiting the stand. The artists who sold work are: Lena Sadziak, Maurizio Anzeri, Jaap de Vries, Marco Salvetti, Teiji Hayama, Aleksandra Radonich, Angelika J Trojnarski and Giacomo Brunelli. Read on to see the work of all the artists who exhibited their work at SCOPE. 
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ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST'S ART BASEL DIARY
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At the main fair it was all 'happy, happy, entertainment', with Brad Pitt (below) and Roman Abramovich spotted browsing along the aisles. Houses look set to become the New Collectibles, collectors of Old Masters are moving into Contemporary art and, in case you thought art fairs had stripped art of any chance of being a meditative experience, the Beyeler Foundation have created a small private chapel for the contemplation of works by Rothko and Giacometti. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON SUSAN PHILIPSZ AND MONIKA SOSNOWSKI AT ALTE FABRIK, RAPPERSWIL
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Based in a former factory for the production of cisterns, the Alte Fabrik opened in 2000 as a centre for local arts organisations and artists. In 2006 its focus and ambitions were extended with the Kurator programme, which gives a curator the Alte Fabrik gallery as a blank canvas for a year's exhibition programme, after which they hand the reins to a successor. Christiane Rekade, the first person to fill the post, is realising a series of shows inspired by Bruno Taut's work 'Alpine Architecture', a utopian alternative environment of glass mountain buildings imagined and visualised by the architect. Rekade has invited Monika Sosnowska and Susan Philipsz to the Alte Fabrik in light of their exploration of space, both demarcating volumes and blurring the edges its perception. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON DO YOU HAVE EXPECTATIONS? AT WARTESAAL, ZURICH
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It may be coincidence, but it fits neatly that an exhibition about expectations takes place under the banner of a gallery called waiting room. The Zürich-based curator Cynthia Krell has invited international artists to the gallery to examine this concept in different contexts, and in turn to query how this relates to looking at and appreciating art. More than just the expectations that arise as one waits nervously, these artists are looking at preconceived notions, suspicious objects, curious incidents and foregone conclusions. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON GABRIELA FRIDRIKSDOTTIR AT GALERIE BOB VAN ORSOUW, ZURICH
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Having seen this exhibition, it's hard to shake the idea that Iceland is the home of determined hoydens whose relationship with their environment is visceral and passionate. Björk embodies this free spirit, and Gabríela Fridriksdóttir is a chip off the same block. Indeed the pair sometimes collaborates, Fridriksdóttir creating the album for Björk's 2002 greatest hits, while Björk was involved in Fridriksdóttir's film shown in the Icelandic pavilion in Venice in 2005. Since then, Fridriksdóttir has shown an installation in Zürich's Migros Museum, and this is her first solo show with Bob van Orsouw. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON EUROPOP AT THE KUNSTHAUS ZURICH
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This exhibition aims to set the story straight - Pop art was not a US invention. The narrative presented here is that due to World War II, the collaboration of western nations either side of the Atlantic and the cultural propaganda produced in America, the same mass-produced images became ubiquitous. These became the fodder of Pop artists, but the artists who started the trend were European. Which is a moot chicken and egg point. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON ERWIN WURM AT THE KUNSTMUSEUM ST GALLEN
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There could hardly be a better introduction to the works of Erwin Wurm than this extensive exhibition produced in collaboration with MUMOK in Vienna, the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and Lyon's Musée d'Art Contemporain. Ascending the staircase of the museum to its formal gallery, the visitor meets several of Wurm's 'Mind Bubbles', vast rotund blobs of Styrofoam sitting gravely on the landing, each snugly encased in a made-to-measure cotton cardigan. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON ANGELA BULLOCH AT GALERIE EVA PRESENHUBER, ZURICH
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In her latest exhibition Angela Bulloch has a laugh at the expense of Dan Graham, cocks a snook at modernism, and yet celebrates the visual qualities of her materials; she doesn't need to be po-faced to create a work of value. Indeed, in the dim light that allows the luminous lines to be seen, the shadowy structure offers magical potential; here one waits with optimism. 
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON STEFAN BRUGGEMAN AT THE KUNSTHALLE BERN
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"It's conceptual art" explained the gallery assistant as he finished outlining the works to be seen in Stefan Brüggeman's solo exhibition; perhaps he feared I'd ask for my money back had I done a round of the gallery in 30 seconds. Conceptual, and spare, this show certainly is. The exhibition orbits the Black Box of the title, a labyrinthine space of darkness, flashes of light and recorded white noise which in its insistent being envelops and blocks out all other sensation, the opposite of an astronomical void. 
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CONTROVERSIES AT MUSEE DE L'ELYSEE, LAUSANNE
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This exhibition brings together 80 photographs, most of which are very well-known, that have provoked legal proceedings or controversy, from Andres Serrano's 'Piss Christ' to Garry Gross's photograph of Brooke Shields naked at the age of 10 (below). 
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JAN VERWOERT ON NINA POHL AT SPRUETH MAGERS, ZURICH
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The continuous dialogue between fiction and reality in photography is the subject of Nina Pohl's work. Monumental scenes from nature are presented in oversized vertical formats: "These are images that do not operate as pictures based on their motifs but reveal something about the effect the image has and its inherent reality. The provocation of these images lies in ruthlessly taking advantage of photography's power to freeze brief moments in a lasting frame, while simultaneously questioning the inner logic of prevalent conventions of image composition, which traditionally define the representation of such moments." 
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LAST CHANCE: AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON WILLIAM HUNT AT ROTWAND GALLERY, ZURICH
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William Hunt made a big - forgive the pun - splash when he appeared at Art Unlimited, Basel last summer. His performance 'Put Your Foot Down', a song from inside a BMW filled to the brim with water (Hunt entered and exited via the sunroof), caught the attention of jaded fair visitors who didn't get to witness many death-defying feats as they prowled around the aisles. Although the artist only graduated from Goldsmith's College in 2005, curators have been keen to show his work across Europe at galleries including the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Witte de With in Rotterdam and Milton Keynes Gallery. On the opening night of his show in Zürich visitors packed the interior space and stood three deep outside the windows of Rotwand Gallery to catch a glimpse of Hunt's performance 'Even As You See Me Now'. To watch it on video now click here. 
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PEDRO CABRITA REIS AT KUNSTHAUS GRAZ
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Pedro Cabrita Reis is a master of cohabitation: his impressive œuvre consists of architectural, sculptural and painterly body of work, woven from the fabric of the everyday life, commonplace surroundings, construction materials and architectural semantic appropriated from an existing reality and miraculously transformed into altars of an almost spiritual experience. Practising his alchemy of the everyday, he turns the familiar into sublime, the trivial into a precious. 
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AVNER BEN-GAL AT THE KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL
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Austere landscapes with burning houses and isolated figures appear in the paintings and drawings by Israeli artist Avner Ben-Gal whose work is now the focus of a new book published by Hatje Kantz and an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel. 
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