Ghislaine Leung

Commitments

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Ghislaine Leung, Four Years in Ten Years in Twenty Years, 2024, detail, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A three-tier anniversary cake to mark four years of being a mother, ten years of being an artist, and twenty years with her partner.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Leave, 2024, detail, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A wall is equivalent to all the days in a year. The 118 days between one exhibition by the artist and the next are shown as a tomato rectangle. The 37 days the artist was on unpaid sick leave in this period due to surgery are shown inset as a tangerine square.

Ghislaine Leung, Care, 2024, detail, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A wall is equivalent to all the days in a year. The 2016 child care hours the artist would need to cover working full time are shown as a banana rectangle. The 1140 free childcare hours supported by the UK government are shown inset as a cobalt square.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, One Hundred Seventy-Five, 2024, installation view, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A large black inflatable of the number of days the artist would work for her exhibition fee of 3.000,00 CHF according to Industria and a-n The Artists Information Company’s reported median wage in “Structurally F–cked” of 1.88 GBP per hour for an artist’s production of artworks and exhibition-making. The inflatable may be inflated for eight working hours daily, for a total of 175 days from the start of each exhibition period.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Jobs, 2024, installation view, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A list of jobs held by the artist.

Ghislaine Leung, Surgery, 2024, without image, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024. Score: The portion of the artist’s body mass removed via hysterectomy as a portion of a room made unavailable. No reproductions may be made of this artwork.

Ghislaine Leung, Holdings, 2024, installation view, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: An object that is no longer an artwork.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Leave, 2024, detail, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A wall is equivalent to all the days in a year. The 118 days between one exhibition by the artist and the next are shown as a tomato rectangle. The 37 days the artist was on unpaid sick leave in this period due to surgery are shown inset as a tangerine square.

Ghislaine Leung, Care, 2024, detail, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A wall is equivalent to all the days in a year. The 2016 child care hours the artist would need to cover working full time are shown as a banana rectangle. The 1140 free childcare hours supported by the UK government are shown inset as a cobalt square.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Ghislaine Leung, Jobs, 2024, installation view, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: A list of jobs held by the artist.

Ghislaine Leung, Holdings, 2024, installation view, in: Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel. Score: An object that is no longer an artwork.

Ghislaine Leung, Commitments, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2024, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

➔ Exhibition text (PDF)

For her first institutional exhibition in Switzerland, the British artist Ghislaine Leung (*1980) presents a new series of score based works. Leung’s artistic practice is characterized by a rigorous, conceptual, and personal, approach that often traces physical and economic circuits as much as institutional and societal mechanisms. The result are artworks that emerge from her interest in the various structures underlying commodities, sites, and human relations.

Press clippingsl:
Zahlen, bitte: Diese Kunst nagt am Hungertuch, bz Basel (05/2024)
Score (Anweisung): Eine Wand entspricht allen Tagen eines Jahres, Radio X (05/2024)
La critica istituzionale di Ghislaine Leung in mostra a Basilea, Artribune (05/2024)