Site Specific Works Drawn in duct tape directly on the wall, Tirtzah Bassel’s site specific installations turn a material of quick fixes and temporary solutions into a painterly language. Beginning with the airport in Airport In Security and continuing at the art fair in Duct Tape Miami, these works explore spaces of transience, and the permeable borders between public and private, intimacy and exposure.
Home Land Security brought eighteen international artists into the historic military structures of Fort Winfield Scott, overlooking San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, to reflect on the human dimensions of national security. Bassel’s installation, Concourse, took on the airport after 9/11, where freedom and global connection have become increasingly entangled with surveillance and fugitivity: the security pat down, the postures of waiting, the no man’s land of the transit lounge. Drawn in a temporary material on the walls of a structure built for permanent defense, the images and the site read against each other, each unsettling what the other seems to promise. Curated by Cheryl Haines and Jackie von Treskow of the For-Site Foundation, alongside artists including Do Ho Suh, Trevor Paglen and Bill Viola.
Concourse, 2016, duct tape on wall, dimensions variable. Site-specific installation at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco
Concourse (detail)
Concourse (detail)
Concourse (detail)
Concourse (detail)
Concourse (detail)
Concourse, (detail)
Airport In Security, 2012, duct tape, gaffer tape on wall, approximately 10 ' x 40'. Site-specific installation at Chashama 461 Gallery, New York City
Airport In Security, (detail)
Airport In Security, (detail)
Airport In Security, (detail)
Airport In Security, (detail)
Airport In Security, (detail)
Airport In Security, (detail)
Adhere, 2015, duct tape, gaffer tape, painters tape, masking tape, and artists tape on wall, dimensions variable. Site-specific installation at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit
Adhere, (detail)
Subway, 2013, duct tape on wall, approximately 8' x 16'. Site-specific installation at ROOMS, Gitler&____ pop-up, New York City
Subway, (detail)
Subway, (detail)
Duct Tape Miami: A Durational Performance Installation in Response to Art Basel Miami Beach, variable dimensions, duct tape on wall, 2013
Duct Tape Miami, (detail)
Duct Tape Miami, (detail)
Duct Tape Miami, (detail)
Duct Tape Miami, (detail)
Duct Tape Miami, (detail)
Frieze, Home Land Security, Rob Marks, October 24th, 2016
KQED , Homeland Security Installation Comes to San Francisco’s Presidio Barracks,”Michael Krasny, September 12, 2016
Hyperallergic, Stories of War and Survival Unfold in San Francisco’s Presidio, Thia Quiray Tagle, November 16th, 2016
The Art Newspaper, Political Art That Packs a Punch, Jori Finkel September 9th, 2016
S/FAQ Home Land Security at the Presidio, Garbielle Gopinath, December 15th, 2016 September 13, 2016
New York Times, A ‘Home Land Security’ Art Show, at the Foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, Jori Finkel, June 23rd, 2016
SF Weekly, For-site is 20/20, Jonathan Curiel, September 22, 2016
San Francisco Chronicle, Foundation Puts Ballistics Test Inside Mothballed Presidio Bunker, Sam Whiting, September 7, 2016
Al Jazeera English, Artists Exhibit Work in Historic Bunkers, Allen Schauffler , September 29, 2016
Hyperallergic, The Miami Art Fairs, Rendered in Duct Tape, Jillian Steinhauer, December 5th, 2013