Michael Vessa: DWI (Drawing While Infirmed)
Every time I go to a gallery or museum, I try to learn something.
One of the things I think about when making a piece is: what will people get out of it?
How much we understand depends on our vocabulary, and everyone possesses a certain unique vocabulary — not only through text, but also visually. Ninety percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text.
Trying to second-guess what people see (looking is not seeing) is futile. Outside influences have a lot to do with understanding. Respect everyone’s vocabulary.
I don’t think of my work in traditional sculptural terms; I think of it more in terms of architecture (architectonic). A kind of useless (conceptual) architecture, because it has more to do with architecture than sculpture, without actually being an architectural project.
Hermeneutics as a framework (an outline) for understanding:
The hermeneutical circle describes the circular process of interpretation in which one’s understanding of a whole text is built from its individual parts, and conversely, the understanding of each part is informed by the understanding of the whole. It is a concept that describes the non-linear, repetitive process of understanding, in which one’s comprehension of a text, phenomenon, or situation as a whole is dependent on the understanding of its individual parts, and vice versa. One part influences another. It is not finite — as things outside our influence change, so does our understanding.
Michael Vesse
Exhibition Opening Hours
3 June – 31 October 2026
FOR ART, Rittergasse 21, 4051 Basel
Free admission during the opening hours of the FOR ART Café-Bar (entrance)
Tue and Wed, 10 am – 7 pm
Thu to Sat, 10 am – 8 pm
Sun, 10 am – 6 pm
During Art Basel
14–21 June 2026, daily, 10 am – 10 pm
Summer break:19 July – 3 August 2026
more about FOR ART – A Temporary Art Intervention by Littmann Kulturprojekte. Basel 2025–2028
