Dora Budor

I am Gong

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Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Year without a Summer (Klug’s Field), detail, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Year without a Summer (Klug’s Field), detail, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Solo for 1876, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Devil, Probably, 2019 (front), and Solo for 1939, 2019 (back). Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, f.l.t.r. view on Origin III (Snow Storm), Origin I (A Stag Drinking), Origin II (Burning of the Houses), all 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, f.l.t.r. view on Origin III (Snow Storm), 2019, and Origin II (Burning of the Houses), 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin II (Burning of the Houses), 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin III (Snow Storm), 2019. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin II (Burning of the Houses), 2019 (detail). Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Preserving Machine, 2018-19. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Preserving Machine, 2018-19. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Preserving Machine, detail, 2018-19. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Preserving Machine, detail, 2018-19. Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Year without a Summer (Klug’s Field), detail, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on The Year without a Summer (Klug’s Field), detail, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin III (Snow Storm), 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin III (Snow Storm), detail, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin II (Burning of the Houses), 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor, installation view, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019, view on Origin II (Burning of the Houses), detail, 2019. Photo: Gina Folly / Kunsthalle Basel

Dora Budor’s research materials: photograph of Johann Jakob Stehlin’s Musiksaal in Stadtcasino Basel, built 1874–1876. Condition after 1905. Courtesy: Archiv Kantonale Denkmalpflege Basel-Stadt

Dora Budor, poster for the exhibition, I am Gong, Kunsthalle Basel, 2019. Design: Ronnie Fueglister

➔ Exhibition text and related events (PDF)
➔ Press images (ZIP)

For her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, Dora Budor (* 1984) investigates the architectural history of Kunsthalle Basel and its surroundings in order to use sound, dust, and environmental data from dissonant temporalities to create an evolving “score” for her exhibition. Inspired in equal measure by science fiction, cinematic staging, and the overwhelming hybridization of nature with the human-made, the Croatian-born artist turns the exhibition into a reactive machine. The result is a disquieting exhibition experience, with artworks whose unfolding forms are modulated by invisible forces.

Press clippings:
On Being a “Deviation Amplifying” System, Flash Art (06/2019)
Unpredictable external forces and ashes rain in Dora Budor’s work, Domus (08/2019)
Dora Budor on Sonic Control and Unruly Environments, Frieze (06/2019)
Dora Budor captures the ghosts of J.M.W. Turner and Basel’s music hall, Art Basel (06/2019)
Dora Budor on the libidinal language of architecture, Artforum (02/2019)
Dora Budor: Breathes the future, CURA. Magazine (2/2019)

Here you can listen to an excerpt from the work The Sound-Sweep, 2019, by Dora Budor, that was recorded on June 14, 2019. The work was made with composer Celia Hollander.

Installation views alone cannot capture the experience of the ever-mutating exhibition I am Gong by Dora Budor, with floors that slowly build up layers of falling ash, walls that pulsate with sound, and a biomimetic bird that flies, all according to enigmatic impulses and an unseen musical score. So we asked the creative duo Adam Csoka Keller and Evelyn Bencicova to take inspiration from it and portray its atmosphere in the exhibition trailer you can see here.