Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics

Ivana Bašić was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1986), and she lives and works in New York, United States.

Ivana Bašić’s sculptures consider the ways subjectivity can transform into otherness: from human to non-human; from organic to inorganic; from matter into pure idealism. Her sculptures are all metamorphic, in states of shifting their bodily and metaphysical identities. Each sculpture combines specific materials—glass, wax, bronze, stone, stainless steel, oil paint—in a symbolic material language that is consistent across the artist’s practice. Charged by her early vantage point of violence and brutality brought on by the collapse of Yugoslavia, the work explores metamorphosis as a substitute for physical flight when there is nowhere left to retreat or hide. Bašić’s practice levies a posthumanist lens to investigate our ontological fixations: the fragility of the human condition; the breakdown of self and other; a reimagination of life and death; and a quest for immortality.

Ivana Basic’s recent exhibitions include: New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (upcoming 2026); 14th Taipei Biennial (2025); MoCAB, Belgrade (2025); MO.CO Contemporain, Montpellier (2025), Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2024 and 2023); Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2023); National Gallery, Prague (2021); Museum of Art+Design, Miami (2020); Het HEM, Amsterdam (2020); Contemporary Art Museum Estonia, Talinn (2019); Kumu Art Museum, Talinn (2019); NRW Forum, Düsseldorf (2019); Athens Biennial (2018); Belgrade Biennial (2018); Künstlerhaus, Graz (2018); MO.CO Panacée, Montpellier (2018); Hessel Museum of Art (2017); Kunstverein Freiburg (2017); and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2016). Bašić’s work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum. She was born and raised in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and has lived and worked in New York City since 2010.