Interview: Claudia Comte unveils her Circus maximus at Art Basel

The smooth surfaces of Claudia Comtes wooden sculptures bear little trace of her tool of choice: a chainsaw. Sanded and waxed to perfection in her Berlin studio, her abstract forms evoke cartoon cacti as readily as rigorous Brancusi totems. While wood remains an enduring love for the Swiss artist, who grew up in a chalet near a forest and learned her craft from local lumberjacks, she is also making a name for herself with ambitious installations in locations ranging from a mountain ice rink to