by Lars Holdgate // Jan. 13, 2026
This article is part of our feature topic Wellness.
Alexander Basil has created a cosmos. The instantly recognizable style and established color palette of his paintings implicate the subject matter in a process of calm and sure scrutiny. Central to this cage is the familiar figure that reappears, on a quest through daily life. The protagonist is both the subject and object of reflection that morphs in and with his surroundings, travelling worlds beyond the room he finds himself in.
Alexander Basil: ‘Error 404,’ 2025, installation view at Galerie Judin // Courtesy of Galerie Judin, photo by Trevor Good
As the title ‘Error 404’ suggests, (digital) screens feature prominently in the works on show at Galerie Judin. Screens are able to transport the viewer into different, image-based worlds…or maybe not? Page not found. The screen turns into a signifier, representing the possible meaning of any possible image that could possibly be generated. The screen and what it represents, the image, are integrated into the works productively. Text, maybe for its meaninglessness or unreliability, is censored. Images matter.
Alexander Basil: ‘Error 404,’ 2025, installation view at Galerie Judin // Courtesy of Galerie Judin, photo by Trevor Good
The body takes up a central role in Basil’s work, too. But beside simply being laid bare, it is the way versions of the same body are entangled with and mediated by other components, like physical spaces and media, that is interesting. How do screens and bodies relate? In this show, they have an intimate relationship: they are literally in bed together, (de)humanizing one another. VR-worlds entertain, articles on sexual health educate. On the one hand, screens offer a form of escapism from daily life. On the other, their content often allows us to make sense of the world we live in. They help us understand our bodies, who we are as people and what meaning that has to others. We might be tempted into thinking that they provide solutions to the problems they create, though the view of this in Basil’s work does not feel pessimistic—more, meh. Distantly close or unemotionally emotional.
Alexander Basil: ‘Untitled,’ 2025, oil on canvas, 55 × 60 cm // Copyright the artist, photo by Trevor Good, courtesy of Galerie Judin, Berlin
Basil places himself at the center of the cosmos he creates. In our neoliberal society, “wellness” is often dependent on an individual’s focus on themselves, on their body. But wellness also names the opportunity for the individual to tap out for a while—to remove themselves from a situation, from watching things, consuming things or communicating with people. There is a fraught duality to this marketed “wellness”—used to sell us trackers, tonics, creams and meditation apps—and the calm that placing oneself at the center of a cosmos might bring.
Despite what commodified quantifying apps might tell us, it’s difficult to measure wellness. It is, ultimately, what your body tells you is right. At times, it might be about breaking out of particular habits, abstaining from one thing or doing another. Working on that screen time. Removing yourself from social interactions. Basil’s work here positions wellness as a question of space. Mindspace. Feeling trapped. Being in a good space. How does the individual relate to their environment? It can be necessary to enter or leave particular spaces in order to feel “good”: yoga studios, spas, airports. What are safe(r) spaces? Your body decides.
Alexander Basil: ‘Untitled,’ 2025, oil on canvas, 16x14cm // Copyright the artist, photo by Trevor Good, courtesy of Galerie Judin, Berlin
As if stepping into a mirror maze, different realities and images conflate into one in Basil’s work, not as layers but as concurrent experiences that can’t really be separated from one another. This rings true for the exhibition as a whole: it is composed of narrative structures that exist within each individual work, but also the series they come together in. The exhibition is the sum of its parts, comprising repeated reproduction and internal references. There is a boundlessness to the works as they spill from canvas to canvas, taken up here and continued there. Domestic settings dominate with beds and baths seemingly the sets of choice for the protagonist, whose cinéma vérité unfolds before us.
Alexander Basil: ‘Error 404,’ 2025, installation view at Galerie Judin // Courtesy of Galerie Judin, photo by Trevor Good
Take, for example, the scene in the artist’s studio. In it, standing against the wall, is a canvas, depicting another of Basil’s works shown in the exhibition, similarly titled ‘Untitled’: six bed scenes next to one another. First the protagonist is alone, then having sex in four different positions and finally, the bed is empty with nobody to be seen. The sense of proximity that these comparative depictions generate suggests a calmly progressive tempo and, ironically, a sense of distance.
In another bed scene that has its own dedicated canvas, a bunch of electronic gadgets are littered perfectly across and beside the bed. Despite the scene’s simplicity and overfamiliarity, it feels completely alien. It goes beyond mere imitation of an image to a reflection on and of a human condition: it is distant.
Alexander Basil: ‘Untitled,’ 2025, oil on canvas, 140x120cm // Copyright the artist, photo by Trevor Good, courtesy of Galerie Judin, Berlin
In ‘Error 404,’ the artist shifts his focus towards different stages of being, denoted by temporal and material differences rather than commonalities between objects and people–but to a similar effect. The emphasis on a chimerical melting that was prominent in earlier works has subsided, giving space to more “realistic” scenes. Reality’s distortion need not depart from what all eyes in the room would confirm as fact, if the world is fanciful enough already. Part of the efficacy in Basil’s distance-making project is the repetition and contrasting of scenes, which is a technique that he draws on throughout. We not only see six beds, but also four VR-worlds, six open books, six rooms and eight baths.
Alexander Basil: ‘Untitled,’ 2025, oil on canvas, 50x70cm // Copyright the artist, photo by Roman März, courtesy of Galerie Judin, Berlin
These eight baths show the process of a body changing. Time goes by. A young child grows into a youth and then into an adult, the baths growing with each phase. The first two baths, showing the younger stages, are different to the other four, most likely signalling a change of residence. The pink knees that emerge from the bathwater stay the same, while breasts change and scars become visible. Body hair becomes longer and swirlier, the hair on the head becomes shorter and thinner. I can’t help but see the bath as a womb, except here the former is transparent and porous in a way that the latter is not. Both are sites of becoming, development, transitioning, warmth, solitude and stoicism. The artist exposes himself, rendering the self bare: nude, sensitive, vulnerable. Eventually, the arms emerge, hanging off the sides, maybe a signal that our protagonist is ready to get out, dry off and cut the cord.
Alexander Basil: ‘Untitled,’ 2025, oil on canvas, 170x220cm // Copyright the artist, photo by Trevor Good, courtesy of Galerie Judin, Berlin
Basil’s representation of the surrounding world is a study of scrupulous distance—an act that can only be achieved by placing yourself at the center of the world from which you also remove yourself. I am fascinated by Basil’s use and depictions of screens: as a symbol that operates in and through the works, they separate and connect, virtually, to different rooms and worlds. Figuratively, the canvases become screens themselves, connecting different parts of the story and depicting data from a set. Physically, they gleam like screens do: the fabric that the works are painted on is so thick that each thread would best be described as a small rope. The rounded surface absorbs light and throws it back at us.
Alexander Basil: ‘Error 404,’ 2025, installation view at Galerie Judin // Courtesy of Galerie Judin, photo by Trevor Good
In their depictions, the works invite you to remove yourself from the situation you might happen to find yourself in. They invite you to lay yourself bare. They invite you to place yourself at the center of the world. The show poses several questions that I take away with me: how do spaces, whether I inhabit them or not, change the way I feel? What is a “good space” and what does it mean to feel well?
Exhibition Info
Galerie Judin
Alexander Basil: ‘Error 404’
Exhibition: Nov. 14, 2025-Jan. 24, 2026
galeriejudin.com
Potsdamer Str. 83 (Hof), 10785 Berlin, click here for map
