Rooms Look Back – is the book published in conjunction with the group exhibition of the same title at Kunsthalle Basel (21.09. – 16.11.2008) which addressed the idea that rooms are able to look back. The centre stage were rooms as places in which alternative or fictive narrations can be constructed. The artists Rosa Barba, Ursula Mayer and Margaret Salmon were concerned with different representations of theatrical, real or fictional concepts of space in the medium of film and presented their works each in one of the rooms on the ground floor of Kunsthalle Basel. Furthermore alternating projects under the title Inserts took place, each during two to three weeks in the two central spaces on the ground floor. “Inserted” one after the other, the works by Manuela Leinhoß, Swantje Hielscher and Davide Cascio extended and contrasted with the exhibition’s theme using sculpture, object, drawing, and collage: Thereby they included further artistic strategies that are dealing with different references to architecture and (utopian) concepts of space.
The texts by Annette Amberg and Simone Neuenschwander embrace the exhibition and the different viewing directions into and at spaces as well as the newly produced works by the artists. In his essay the film historian, independent curator and art critic Marc Glöde is engaged with the ongoing art historical discourse of film, cinema and film installations in the museum.
Rooms Look Back was curated by Simone Neuenschwander, curator at Kunsthalle Basel. The Inserts were co-curated with Annette Amberg, curatorial assistant at Kunsthalle Basel.