ABSTRACT
In June 2013, Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata built eighteen crudely constructed huts in the style of a favela as part of an installation commissioned by Art Basel, one of the most important contemporary art fairs in the world. The public sculpture functioned as a café and, upon completion of the fair, was supposed to become the property of the city of Basel to continue as a catering area. However, it soon attracted controversy and was eventually cleared by Swiss police. The artist stated that his main interest was design and structure: “I am not concerned with poor people’s way of life, but with material, size, arrangement.”1 Already during the opening, images of decadent art lovers enjoying champagne in a fake favela in one of the richest countries of the world drew critical comments. Within a few hours, posters showing starving ‘Third World’ children were pinned to the huts. Activists of the group Basel wird besetzt (Basel is being occupied), which is part of the “right to the city” movement, demanded “Respect favelas”, added a few somewhat less artistic shanty shacks to the ensemble and called for an evening protest street party on the site of the fair.2 Initially, the fair organizers tolerated these activities but threatened anyone with criminal charges who failed to clear the area by 8 pm. The event ended in a bloody confrontation between protesters and police who used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.3 A lucid comment compared the event with “real squatting”: “It’s built on public land, gets inhabited by people who don’t have legal permission to be there, who are tolerated or ignored for a while, and who then get attacked and dispersed by riot police when someone with power decides it’s time for them to go.”4
