Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

(Switzerland),

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

(US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, and works in collaboration with host cities' local institutions to help grow and develop art programs.

History

Art Basel was started in 1970 by Basel gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt. In its inaugural year, the Basel show attracted more than 16,000 visitors who viewed work presented by 90 galleries from ten countries. 30 art publishers also participated. Under the direction of Samuel Keller between 1999 and 2006, Art Basel created Art Unlimited, a section for monumental artworks in the field of sculpture, installations, video art and performances in the newly built Hall 1. The first curators in charge of this very large section were Simon Lamunière (2000–2011), Gianni Jetzer (2012–2019) followed by Giovanni Carmine (since 2021). Art Basel Miami Beach was first introduced in 2002 by the organizers of Art Miami. In 2007, '' Ocean Drive'' launched the ''Art Basel Magazine'' (with

Sarah Harrelson Sarah Harrelson (''née'' Sarah Goldsmith in 1972) is an American magazine editor, founder and editor-in-chief of the arts magazine '' Cultured'' since 2011. She was editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Ocean Drive'' from 2007 to 2011, and launched ...

as editor-in-chief). The same year, fair events in Russian started to appear. In 2008, MCH Group, Angus Montgomery Arts and events organiser Tim Etchells launched Art HK, sparking investor interest in Hong Kong. MCH bought it out in 2013 to create Art Basel Hong Kong, held at the

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) is one of the two major convention and exhibition venues in Hong Kong, along with AsiaWorld–Expo. It is located in Wan Chai North, Hong Kong Island. Built along the Victoria Har ...

. In 2015, Art Basel Hong Kong moved its office to

Shui On Centre Shui On Centre () is a 35-storey Grade A office building in Wan Chai North, Hong Kong. The building was completed in May 1987. In neighbours the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Cent ...

, with their new office designed by OPENUU. In 2011, art collector Adam Lindemann wrote an essay on why he was NOT attending Art Basel that year by describing the excess of VIPs and their lavish events. The 2019 show in Miami Beach saw

Maurizio Cattelan Maurizio Cattelan (; born 21 September 1960) is an Italian visual artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His Satire, satirical approach to art has re ...

's exhibition of the infamous ''

Comedian A comedian (feminine comedienne) or comic is a person who seeks to entertainment, entertain an audience by making them laughter, laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick), or employing prop c ...

'' art piece, a banana duct-taped to a wall and sold $120,000. All the 2020 Art Basel editions (Basel, Miami, Hong Kong) were cancelled. Art Basel's 2022 expansion included Paris+ par Art Basel, replacing the long-standing

FIAC The Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain or FIAC) is a contemporary art event that occurs in Paris. History FIAC was started by gallery owneDaniel Gervistogether with artisBengt Olsonand was usually ...

art fair.

Description

Activities

Art Basel is a group of international annual art fairs focused on contemporary art. The fair is originally organized in Basel, Switzerland, and has been extended to Miami Beach (since 2002), Hong Kong (since 2013), and Paris (since 2022). A committee of four dealers review art dealers' plans and select the winners in a four-day session several months ahead of each fair. As of 2019, the smallest galleries pay CHF 760 per square meter for a booth at Art Basel, and the largest galleries will pay CHF 905 per square meter. Prices rise relative to each additional square meter.

UBS UBS Group AG (stylized simply as UBS) is a multinational investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland, with headquarters in both Zurich and Basel. It holds a strong foothold in all major financial centres as the ...

is the lead partner of the fair in Basel since 1994, the lead partner of Art Basel Miami Beach since its inception in 2002, and the lead partner of Art Basel Hong Kong since its inception in 2013. When compared to the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

, Art Basel was described by Georgina Adam as "less curatorially ambitious, less sprawling, better focused, easier to navigate". The capacity to exhibit many large-scale works also makes Art Basel stand out in the art fair world.

Initiatives

* Art Basel Cities: Art Basel, the city's local art stakeholders and the city's officials sit together to develop an annual program in line with the city's mid- and long-term cultural development goals. This initiative was launched during the 2016 Hong Kong edition of Art Basel. The first partner city was

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. * BMW Art Journey Award: Reward to promising artists from the Discoveries sector in Hong Kong and the Positions sector in Miami Beach. The chosen artist can select the destination and go almost anywhere in the world to explore new ideas, discover new themes, and create new works. It was established by

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

and Art Basel in 2015. * The Crowdfunding Initiative: Partnership between

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

to provide visibility and generate support for projects (artist residencies, education programs, public installations, other innovative artistic projects) from

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

s around the world. * The Art Market: Annual global art

market analysis A market analysis studies the attractiveness and the dynamics of a special market within a special industry. It is part of the industry analysis and thus in turn of the global environmental analysis. Through all of these analyses the strengths, ...

. The first report was published in 2017. * Executive-education program Collecting Contemporary Art in Hong Kong was launched by Art Basel, HKU SPACE Centre for Degree Programmes (CDP) and

Central Saint Martins Central Saint Martins is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of short ...

College of Arts and Design (CSM).

Leadership

* 1991–1999: Lorenzo Rudolf * 2000–2007: Sam Keller * 2007–2008: Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, Annette Schönholzer,

Marc Spiegler Marc Spiegler (born 1968) is a French-American art journalist and columnist who served as global director of Art Basel from 2012 to 2022. He is ranked in ArtReview's Power 100 among the top 25 most influential individuals in the art world. Ear ...

* 2008–2012: Annette Schönholzer, Marc SpieglerAndrew Russeth (21 August 2014)
Art Basel’s Annette Schönholzer Is Stepping Down
''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...

''. * 2012–2022: Marc Spiegler * since 2022: Noah Horowitz

Visits

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Switzerland, Art Art fairs Tourist attractions in Basel Culture in Basel Tourist attractions in Hong Kong Tourist attractions in Miami