The sacred meets the popular: Francis Alÿs in Basel

Basel’s Schaulager museum, housed in the impressively bourgeois Haus zum Kirschgarten, hosts a unique collection of around 370 amateur reproductions of Jean-Jacques Henner’s 1885 portrait of Saint Fabiola. The collection is the culmination of some 20 years of flea market searching, junk store rummaging and antique shop scouring by renowned Belgian-born, Mexican-based artist Francis Alÿs.

At first glance these portraits all seem similar; in each one the sitter – Saint Fabiola, a popular representative of Catholicism – is in profile, turned to the right, wearing her crimson veil. Yet closer scrutiny reveals a degree of variation between each one, and it is such interesting details that make the collection so captivating when exhibited in its entirety.

In the 19th century Saint Fabiola’s representation enjoyed great popularity, resulting in the enormous infiltration of her representation into popular culture. The result, effortlessly demonstrated in Alÿs’ collection, is an interesting dialogue between the sacred and the popular, the iconic and the everyday. In a way that recalls the dissemination of Andy Warhol’s pop culture images, Alÿs’ Fabiola series accounts for the passage of an iconic portrait into popular culture, where it eventually gains iconic value once again.

Follow the link to the Schaulager to watch a video interview between Francis Alÿs and the exhibition's curator Lynne Cooke, and other videos relating to the exhibition.