Basel Social Club
June 15 – 21, 2025 | Basel, Switzerland
Post-American Fine Arts presents three American voices at Basel Social Club, inhabiting a townhouse and former private bank on one of Grossbasel's oldest streets - a site cultivated for over two millennia, from Celtic fortifications to the political epicenter shaped by nobility, church, and patricians, functioning as a private banking institution until recently and opening to international public for the first time. Across 70 rooms spanning nearly 3,000 square meters, we've curated artists whose practices don't merely respond to this accumulation of power but excavate it: each voice selected operates from positions of cultural necessity that most institutions avoid, using the architectural palimpsest of financial and political control as both subject and collaborator in work that reveals how capital shapes consciousness, resistance, and the possibilities for transformation that emerge when authentic investigation meets spaces that have never before allowed such scrutiny.
The convergence of David Wojnarowicz's rarely seen Earth & Wind, Fire & Water - a work that foregrounds the political realities of queer existence during systemic abandonment with Brochevski's visceral meditations constructed from deconstructed U.S. currency and Eric Wesley's Bank of Timbuctoo, which exposes the aesthetics of financial absurdity, creates a temporal dialogue spanning four decades of American artists who refuse to separate formal innovation from political necessity.
These aren't three separate exhibitions sharing space but a single investigation into how power operates through value systems, presented by artists whose practices emerged from direct confrontation with institutional forces that would prefer their voices silenced Wojnarowicz's battle against censorship during the culture wars, Brochevski's transformation of currency into meditation on material mythology, and Wesley's systematic disruption of ideological frameworks that spans major institutional presentations yet retains its subversive edge.
Post-American Fine Arts
operates from the belief that the most transformative art emerges when diverse global communities gather to celebrate the artist's mind and vision. We work with artists whose practices emerge from urgent personal and cultural circumstances, seeking out work that hasn't been shaped by institutional expectations art made by necessity rather than opportunity.
Our approach is research-intensive and deeply collaborative. We spend significant time in communities where compelling work is being made, from Navajo reservations to Sydney's industrial areas, developing genuine relationships with artists whose practices may not have institutional visibility. We enter studios not as distant curators but as partners, working together on shared cultural investigations.
We present work that maintains its original intensity. When we show at Basel or similar contexts, we bring pieces that haven't been modified for broader palatability - work that carries the full weight of its origins and addresses what matters most to human experience.
Founded by Bobby Jesus and Ting Feng 冯婷, we operate from the principle that art should build bridges for cross-cultural dialogue, creating spaces where voices from different parts of the globe can engage regardless of class or institutional affiliation. The "Post-American" vision reflects our commitment to the belief that we share more commonalities than differences.
Our focus extends beyond current market patterns toward supporting artists who address fundamental questions they cannot avoid. We provide these practitioners with resources and platforms to develop their work without compromising its core investigations, understanding that the most significant contemporary art comes from artists who have no choice but to create.
Supporting Post-American Fine Arts means engaging with art that fosters genuine human connection and lasting cultural dialogue.
Curatorial Direction
Bobby Jesus (Principal) developed his curatorial practice through direct artist engagement rather than institutional structures. A Los Angeles native of Mexican and Native American heritage, his approach emerged from a fundamental belief in art as global celebration the gathering of diverse communities to honor the artist's mind and vision over shared meals and genuine connection.
Jesus's formation occurred through extended engagement with USC's Roski School community, collaborating with Frances Stark and Sharon Lockhart on critical research including Stark's Hammer Museum retrospective. He maintains active relationships with artists including Henry Taylor and Jason Meadows, learning from gallerists Marc Foxx, Robbie Fitzpatrick, Cornelia Grassi, and Drew Hammond while developing his own unconventional methodology.
Operating from the perspective of someone who "crashed the party but wasn't invited," Jesus found his place in the art world through authentic connection rather than institutional access. His deep collaborative relationships with artists extend into their studios, working together on shared causes and cultural investigations. This hands-on approach challenges traditional curatorial distance, prioritizing genuine partnership over professional boundaries.
The "Post-American" vision reflects his commitment to building bridges for cross-cultural dialogue, creating spaces where artists from different parts of the globe can engage regardless of class or institutional affiliation. His curatorial philosophy centers on the belief that we share more commonalities than differences, treating art selection as cultural research that illuminates our shared human condition while anticipating transformative developments in contemporary practice.
Ting Feng 冯婷 (Partner & Director) combines technological innovation with deep cultural anthropological knowledge. Born under China's one-child policy and raised by her grandparents in mountainside China within a minority ethnic tradition her great-grandfather a Taoist priest who maintained spiritual practices through the Mao revolution - she learned Chinese calligraphy and ancestral customs of using plants as medicine and natural dyes, guided by the principle of wu wei (無為).
Her journey spans developing IBM-backed agricultural technology, operating an AI growth studio in Sydney, and formal studies in anthropology and business at University of Sydney. A transformative 2003 trip to Egypt, where she travel and worked as a documentary photographer, deepened her understanding of how cultural knowledge transmits through daily practice rather than institutional frameworks.
Migrating as a child from rural China to Australia and eventually to Los Angeles to expand her tech and creative ventures, her cross-cultural perspective shaped by constant movement and intimate understanding of displacement, tradition, and transformation guides Post-American Fine Arts' ability to recognize and support artists working from positions of cultural necessity rather than institutional opportunity.
Her synthesis of technological expertise, ancestral wisdom, and anthropological insight positions the gallery to identify essential voices operating outside traditional art world structures, understanding that the most transformative work often emerges from artists who have no choice but to create.
Cultural Practice
Post-American Fine Arts operates as a nomadic program, identifying essential work at its source rather than through institutional mediation. We embed directly in artist communities from reservation studios to international workshops - spending weeks or months in collaborative development with practitioners whose investigations require sustained engagement rather than curatorial distance.
Foundational Work Our early contributions included major museum presentations like Frances Stark's UH-OH! Retroactive at the Hammer Museum, where we participated in curatorial development alongside the head curator, positioning Frances Stark, Sharon Lockhart, Laura Owens, Henry Taylor, and Eric Wesley in prescient dialogue. Bobby's extended collaboration with Frances Stark, involving deep exchanges of ideas and concepts over time, exemplified the kind of sustained artistic partnership that would become central to our practice - celebrating the collective mind of the creative community over shared cultural investigation.
Relationships with and mentorship from gallerists Marc Foxx, Robbie Fitzpatrick, Cornelia Grassi, and Drew Hammond provided crucial insight into conventional gallery structures while highlighting the limitations of traditional curatorial distance. This led us toward our current methodology of sustained artist collaboration, entering studios as partners rather than observers, working together on shared causes and cultural questions.
These foundational experiences shaped our understanding that the most meaningful curatorial work happens through deep relationship-building and genuine cultural exchange, informing our commitment to creating bridges between artists from different communities and backgrounds who share more commonalities than differences.
Current & Upcoming Presentations
Basel Social Club (2025) - David Wojnarowicz, Brochevski, Eric Wesley
Los Angeles (2025) - In development
Australia (2026) - In development
China (2026) - In development
Recognition New York Times T Magazine, Artforum, Cultured Magazine
Network We operate within networks built through direct cultural engagement: artists whose practices emerge from necessity, museum professionals who understand transformative work often requires unconventional support, and collectors willing to invest in essential voices before institutional validation arrives.
In-to the Studio
We document working artists in their actual creative environments - unedited studio time, extended conversations about process, and communities where work develops outside gallery timelines.
Our focus: artists like Eric Wesley whose practices operate from cultural necessity rather than market opportunity. We spend extended time in studios, capturing the real conditions under which significant work emerges - the research, experimentation, and investigation that happens between exhibitions.
This isn't promotional content or institutional documentation. We're interested in artists engaged in serious investigation, whether that's on Navajo reservations, in LA warehouse studios, or international workshops where essential work is being made.
Follow us (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok) for access to creative processes as they actually occur - unguarded, unedited, and driven by artistic necessity rather than promotional cycles.
Contact us.
Instagram: @PostAmericanFineArts
Youtube: @Post-AmericanFineArts
Email: Bobby@postamericanfinearts.com