BASEL.- The Basel Fasnacht (commonly called
Carnival) in its present form is a development of the past hundred years or so.
Piccolo players, drummers, drum majors, vanguard, outriders, small wagons,
Guggenmusik (often deliberately discordant variations on popular songs played on
brass instruments) and cliques (club-like groups that during Fasnacht dress in
costume on a particular theme and march to drums and piccolos).
Although the individual elements already existed in the nineteenth century,
their present combination and the role of themes in the Fasnacht only
crystallised in the twentieth century – i.e. since the Fasnacht Committee has
existed to provide a certain organisational framework. As a tribute to the
Fasnacht Committee in its centenary year, the Museum Tinguely is staging an
exhibition on “the art” of the Basel Fasnacht.