In his piercing editorial for La Stampa, Mario Calabresi pinpoints the urgency of a situation
that is paralyzing Europe, as well as the easily overlooked accessibility of change, and the
power of a single photograph on the collective consciousness of an entire continent. With his
project
The Gift, Alfredo Jaar follows Calabresi’s lead and invites people to remember that there
are both moral needs and simple ways to address this situation and, in doing so, to exist outside
of one's self. The public intervention consists of volunteers distributing blue cardboard boxes
and offering them as gifts. Instructions ask to open and re-fold each box inside out, turning
them into donation-boxes. A gift invites another; and in this instance, all donations will go
directly to the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a charity dedicated to saving lives at
sea by providing professional search and rescue to people in distress.
ABOUT MOAS:
Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) is a Non-Governmental Organisation that believes that
no one deserves to die at sea.
In the past two decades’ tens of thousands of men, women and children, mostly refugees
escaping violence, persecution and hardship, have lost their lives at sea while searching for
a better life.
We are proud to have rescued nearly 12,000 of these from the world’s deadliest maritime
migration routes and we are passionate about the plight of those who are desperate enough
to put themselves and their families in danger.
Established in response to a humanitarian disaster in October 2013 in which some 400 men,
women and children drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa, it has grown rapidly to
include experienced maritime officers, medical staff, rescue swimmers and international
humanitarians using innovative technology in cooperation with the coastal authorities to
provide professional search and rescue to help mitigate loss of life at sea.
No one deserves
to die at sea.
https://www.moas.eu/
ABOUT THE PROJECT
“The Gift” was first created in 1998 as a response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down
above Kigali, Rwanda. Their deaths sparked widespread massacres that lasted one hundred
days. In face of the criminal indifference of the international community, the Rwandan
genocide killed one million people and displaced four million.
Alfredo Jaar visited Rwanda in August 1994 and dedicated six years of work to the subject. In
1998, invited to create a project for Stockholm European Capital of Culture, he created The
Gift to collect funds for Doctors Without Borders.
In this first implementation of the public intervention, volunteers distributed red cardboard
boxes offering them as gifts, which, in turn, turned into donation boxes. The Gift generated
more than $200,000 to assist the Genocide survivors.
Today, the artist has recreated the project to assist the victims of a different disaster: the so-
called migrant crisis in Europe.
ABOUT ART | BASEL: PARCOURS:
The Parcours sector engages the public and fairgoers by placing site-specific sculptures,
interventions, and performances in the city's neighborhoods. In 2015, artworks by both
renowned established artists and emerging talents were selected and sited by curator
Florence Derieux. Parcours is open to the public and will be curated for the first time by
Samuel Leuenberger in 2016.
Opening Hours:
Monday, June 13 – 7pm to 10pm
Tuesday, June 14 – 11am to 9pm
Wednesday, June 15 – 11am to 9pm
Thursday, June 16 – 11am to 9pm
Friday, June 17 – 11am to 9pm
Saturday, June 18 – 11am to 9pm
Sunday, June 19 – 11am to 7pm
Parcours Night:
Saturday, June 18 – 7pm – Midnight
https://www.artbasel.com/basel/the-show
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York City. He
was born in Santiago de Chile.
Jaar’s work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the
Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010) as well as
Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002). Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum
of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitechapel, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. A major
retrospective of his work took place in summer 2012 at three institutions in Berlin:
Berlinische Galerie, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V. and Alte Nationalgalerie. In
2014 the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki hosted the most extensive
retrospective of his career.
Jaar has realized more than sixty public interventions around the world.
More than fifty monographic publications have been published about his work.
He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.
His work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim
Museum, New York, the MCA in Chicago, MOCA and LACMA in Los Angeles, the Tate in
London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Centro Reina Sofia in Madrid, the
Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlaebeck and
dozens of other institutions and private collections worldwide.
Alfredo Jaar is represented by the following galleries at Art | Basel:
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg / Cape Town
kamel mennour, Paris
Galerie Lelong, New York
Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan / Naples
Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin
www.alfredojaar.net
HOW TO VOLUNTEER
The artist is looking for volunteers to assist with the distribution of boxes during Art Basel
and in the context of their public program Parcours. Volunteers may be available during any
or all of the Art | Basel: Parcours days (June 13-19) as well as on June 11, 12 and outside of
Parcours hours in order to assist with the assembling of the boxes.
All and any languages and backgrounds are both welcome and encouraged.
All volunteers will be given an entry ticket to the fair.
Please contact the artist studio for details and to register:
Capucine Gros: capucine@alfredojaar.net
IMAGES:
ALFREDO JAAR
THE GIFT, 2016
Public intervention
Art | Basel: Parcours
June 13 – 19, 2016
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This is the beach where Alan Kurdi’s body was found.1 Day after
day, more bodies washed ashore. “The beach where Europe dies,” wrote
Mario Calabresi. “Can we publish the photograph of a dead child on the
front page of a newspaper?” he asked in an editorial for La Stampa.2
After an initial negative answer, Calabresi changed his mind and explained:
“This photograph demands that each and every one of us should stop for
a moment and face what is happening on the beaches where we spent our
vacations. We cannot procrastinate; dodge between our fears and
impulses of compassion. This is the last chance for Europe’s leaders to live
up to the challenge of History. And it is the chance for every one of us
to take stock in the ultimate meaning of existence.”
1. Alan, intially misreported as Aylan, had his family name, Shenu, changed to Kurdi
upon moving to Turkey
2. Mario Calabresi, “La spiaggia su cui muore l’Europa,” La Stampa, September 3, 2015
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