BASEL.- Kunsthalle Basel presents the first major exhibition of the Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter (*1965, Geel) and Harald Thys ( *1966, Wilrijk) in Switzerland, entitled PROJEKT 13. Collaborating since the end of the 1980s, the artists have developed an intriguing body of work, consisting of films, photographs, drawings and performances. The figures in their films and photographs share a condition of autistic detachment from each other and from their surroundings. Trapped by their actions and acting without empathy, they have reached another level of interaction, one in which spiritual powers prevail. In this parallel world, inside and outside are estranged from one another. In the work of de Gruyter and Thys, the notion of closed systems is made physically explicit. For their exhibition at Le Plateau in Paris, in 2007, the artists had the whole exhibition space painted grey, including the windows, isolating the viewer