The new Liste Expedition is index and virtual exhibition space at the same time

In the last two years, art fairs have mostly taken place as a hybrid between virtual and physical fair or purely digital. The Joinery association and Liste now present a project that complements and develops virtual fairs: Liste Expedition is a comprehensive platform that embodies both index and exhibition space. Since December 2021 the free site can be visited. Around 200 artists who have exhibited on Liste Showtime, the digital edition of the Liste Art Fair, since 2020 are listed there so far, and new ones are added every year. This creates an archive of the most important positions in contemporary art, which is available here.

List Expedition also offers the possibility of exchanging information about works of art with other users, creating a kind of personal collection of favorites thanks to the My Expedition collection of favorites, and reading new monthly essays that deal intensively with individual works of individual works of art. In addition, new web exhibitions are presented on a weekly basis, which deal artistically and experimentally with sound.

We spoke with Joanna Kamm, Director of Liste Art Fair Basel, about the new platform:

Ms. Kamm, with the new research forum, Liste is entering new territory. What goals do you want to achieve with it?

JK: For 26 years, once a year the Liste has provided a selected overview of the latest developments and trends in contemporary, international art. The artistic works presented in the global art discourse not only shape our present, but also help to create it − and it is precisely these artistic positions that Liste Expedition aims to give a permanent platform that goes beyond a temporary trade fair presence.

Liste Expedition thus promotes the discovery and exploration of young artists within the contemporary art debate, with the aim of making this information available, communicating it and securing it for a national as well as international audience, regardless of time and place. In the long run, Liste Expedition Online offers not only dedicated information on artists, but also a historical overview of artistic developments and documents the changes over time.

The site is very extensive in parts. Where does the content that is presented there come from?

JK: The core of Liste Expedition is the "Artist Index", which is an overview of all artists who have participated in Liste Art Fair Basel and/or the online fair Liste Showtime since 2020. It will continue to grow with all future fair editions. The principle is simple: on Liste Showtime, exhibitors present an artist with images, interviews, texts, videos and many other media, as it is only possible digitally. By designing their page themselves, they decide how the artistic practice and the latest works of the selected artists can best be experienced in virtual space. These contributions will be transferred to Liste Expedition after the fair and thus made permanently available to those interested in art.

For the »Monthly Picks«, a cooperation with Spike Art Magazine, international authors are invited to pick an artistic position and write about this work in depth. A new Monthly Pick is published every month, which is also available on a permanent basis. List Expedition is the opposite of the short-term, temporary fair formats, there one can take one's time, dive deeper and the Monthly Picks promote this additionally.

Is it possible at some point that visitors will be able to purchase artworks directly via the forum?

JK: This is not possible with Liste Expedition, unlike Liste Art Fair Basel and Liste Showtime. It is a non-commercial research forum that provides information and was realized by the association Joinery.

The new research forum is designed as an archive for contemporary art and will grow over time with the artists who will be represented at the fair. Is it conceivable that the forum will become even more independent and develop into a comprehensive archive detached from the fair?

JK: With any archive, a decisive criterion is the aspect under which the archived material was selected. The annual selection made by the galleries exhibiting at Liste Art Fair Basel and Liste Showtime guarantees high quality. It activates the very current present every year, with the galleries presenting the latest voices in contemporary art. This is something special, and we are concerned precisely with making this selection of outstanding artists of a younger generation permanently visible. Detaching it from the fair would contradict this and would not make sense at this point in time. However, since we have learned in the last two years that many things can change in a short time, I would not rule out anything forever. But it is not planned.

At the same time as the My Expedition and Pool sections, the forum has a social media-like structure so that users can exchange information about the artworks all year round. What made you decide to go this route?

JK: My Expedition is for private storage of individual research of artistic works, texts, videos and much more. This is especially important for a professional audience, so that they can easily access it for professional research. But of course, we'd love for anyone interested in art to use it for themselves.

Pool is actually somewhat based on social media, in that every visitor can share images in the pool. The most recent images also appear as blurred backgrounds on the homepage, which means that the visitor even helps to shape Liste Expedition a bit. For us, it is crucial that Liste Expedition is also fun and is understood as a living virtual platform.

That's why we've also given a group of artists carte blanche for a year to have an exhibition page on Liste Showtime. This is supposed to function like a project space in an institution, and the operators are free to decide what they do there and who they show. »as we leave the window open« is the name of the project for the first year and was initiated and is curated by Mohamed Almusibli, Gerome Gadient, Jazmina Figueroa, Tobias Koch and Hannah Weinberger. With a weekly ongoing program totaling 52 contributions, the focus is on sound as a medium for experimentation and transmission, and is tailored to the digital space.

What other measures will there be to draw attention to the forum and attract attract visitors?

JK: The beauty of List Expedition is that it is permanent and does not have a limited runtime. So it doesn't have to be discovered today because it won't be seen tomorrow, but can become established over the years. But we are still active, we send out monthly newsletters highlighting the new »Monthly Pick« and the new posts from »as we leave the window open« and we integrate it into all the communication of the list. On Instagram, for example, we will keep featuring artists of the Artist Index in the coming weeks.

Thank you very much for the interview.