Art Basel Unlimited 2026: Alfredo Jaar, The Power of Words

At the 2026 edition of Art Basel Unlimited, Alfredo Jaar presents The Power of Words (1984), a seminal, programmatic early work that introduces these themes and reveals how, at the age of 28, the artist was already confronting the political stakes of images. Created soon after Jaar’s arrival in New York in the early 1980s, the work centers on a photograph of a typewriter whose paper and roller have been removed. Through the empty opening, 16 press photographs of anonymous figures in moments of crisis are projected. By removing the mechanism of writing, Jaar underscores the limits of language and confronts viewers with the ambiguity and ethical weight of images in a media-saturated world.