On a Bit of Earth Which Had No Name
532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel Presents “On a Bit of Earth Which Had No Name”
Group Exhibition of Seven Young Emerging International Artists During Kunsttage Basel 2026
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – July 2026 — 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel is pleased to present On a Bit of Earth Which Had No Name, a group exhibition of seven young emerging international artists whose works examine memory, place, and heritage through material transformation and cultural satire. The exhibition coincides with Kunsttage Basel 2026 (28–30 August) and continues through 17 October, offering a timely reflection on hybrid identities and obscured legacies in an era of global flux.
In a fluid world of shifting identities—echoing the satirical displacements in Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories of Partition and migration—these artists uncover suppressed narratives, blending introspection with sharp critique to reframe cultural inheritance. Working across painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation, they treat form itself as a site of transformation, where personal and collective memory is carried, folded, eroded, or playfully subverted.
The participating artists include:
Alberto Alejandro Rodríguez (b. 1995, Havana) reconstructs fragmented interiors from architectural remnants. In works such as Destruktion III, he suspends partial interiors salvaged from ruined buildings, turning erosion into a physical archive of time and memory.
Z.T. Nguyễn (they/he, b. 1997, Vietnamese-American; Yale MFA 2025) probes the charged space between stasis and rupture through nocturnal, pseudo-mythological drawings on folded 8.5×11” sheets. These portable works become carriers of migrant and queer thresholds, transforming everyday material into vessels of suspended potential and desire.
Morgan Ogilvie (MFA CalArts 2020) paints unreliable female narrators drawn from Western iconography. Her works, including the Obstinate Toy Soldiers series and Lady Liberty, evoke the psychological unease of a cultural moment in which icons begin to consume their own ideals.
Shuto Mizukami (b. 2001, Tokyo; recent Tokyo University of the Arts) creates tactile, myth-infused sculptures. In Cat House Chain and Cat Egg Chain, domestic forms contain intimate oil paintings of cats, framing the home as a site of nourishment and obscured legacies.
Koji Nakamura (b. 2001, Nagano Prefecture; Tokyo University of the Arts 2025) invokes animistic entities in kinetic sculptures. His Metamorphose guitar series and relational Can I make 100 Friends? puppets bridge traditional Japanese spiritual reverence for objects with contemporary satire and human-nature connections.
Michael Wang (b. New York) finds wry humor in hybrid identities and global stereotypes. In The Last Emperor (2025), imperial robes against a cosmic field playfully reframe heritage and power.
Selin Nisa Açıkel, a Turkish artist and material-led architectural designer based in London, explores partial cultural transmission in her Veil series of charcoal drawings. Rooted in Circassian-Turkish diaspora history, the works treat portraiture as a temporal, fragmented condition shaped by erasure and return alongside atmospheric evocations of landscape.
Exhibition Dates: 28 August – 17 October 2026
Vernissage / Public Reception: Friday, 28 August 2026, 5:00–8:00 PM
Location: Hammerstrasse 121, 4057 Basel, Switzerland
During Kunsttage Basel (28–30 August): Extended viewing hours aligned with the official festival schedule (Friday from 13:00, Saturday & Sunday from 11:00). Guided tour on Sunday, 30 August at 2:00 PM.
Regular gallery hours: Tuesday–Friday 2:00–6:00 PM, Saturday 11:00 AM–5:00 PM, or by appointment. Collector previews and private appointments welcome throughout the run.
High-resolution images and additional information upon request: info@532gallery.com | www.532gallery.com
