The installations, in particular, and most of all the Schaulager's own Untitled (1995-97), are simply wonderful. I actually saw a woman weeping in there. It's a big gallery space, at the back of which a wooden staircase seems to lead up somewhere through the back wall. It's lit from above, and down pours a flood of water. Real water. Real running water. Eat your heart out, Bill Viola. It floods down the staircase and runs into a classic Gober outsize grate in the floor. There are no barriers. You could put your foot in it if you wanted to.

Then, 20 feet forward in the space are three things. To each side there's a slightly oversize suitcase; they are open. And right in the center there's a cast concrete Madonna, which might have been stolen from a local Roman Catholic church, except that through her middle she has a hollow metal pipe, about a foot across. She stands above another oversize grate, which you can stare down into—into where that staircase cascade seems to be flowing. It’s a brightly sunlit rocky pool, maybe a foot deep, and somewhere by the sea. It's sandy on the bottom, with rocks and limpets and mussels and sea urchins. And coins. People have been throwing money in there. Except that the pennies seem to be maybe six inches across. Giants' pennies.

Leaving the Gober, the world seems a different place. You find yourself questioning where reality begins and ends and wondering whether that word "reality" shouldn't always have those quotation marks around it. As I retrieved my bag, I found an old chap very carefully composing a photograph of the security lockers with his camera-phone.

"Everything turns into art," I said, under my breath, speaking to myself as much as anything.

But he turned around, beaming, and in a heavy German accent said, "Yes! Exactly!"

So, if you’re in Basel and want to rediscover why you value art in the first place, three words of advice:

Go see Gober!