Vincent Fecteau

You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, view on Untitled, 2015, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Buchholz, Köln; greengrassi, London; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, view on Untitled, 2015, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Buchholz, Köln; greengrassi, London; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, view on Untitled, 2015, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Buchholz, Köln; greengrassi, London; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, installation view, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Vincent Fecteau, poster for the exhibition, You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Design: Stoecklin

Exhibition text (PDF)

Vincent Fecteau (b. 1969) has, over the last two decades, forged a singular aesthetic that mixes homespun materials (popsicle sticks, champagne corks, string, and the like), meticulous craft work, and a curious formal grammar. By turns wonky, erotic, extraterrestrial, or baroque—and sometimes all of these at once—his sculptures are built from small, slow accumulations in which layering, texture, and the work of the hand are all visible. You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In, the San Francisco–based artist’s largest exhibition to date and his first solo show in Switzerland, is a selection of sculptures spanning from 2000 to the present plus the premiere of a large new body of work. Comprised of images culled from magazines and other ready-made elements (shoeboxes, jewelry boxes, wicker baskets, and other lo-fi containers, all painted the matte-est of blacks), these wall sculptures manifest both a return to his origins (collage) and a significant new direction.