About Art Basel 2025
The 2025 edition of Art Basel in Basel will bring together 289 of the world’s leading galleries from 42 countries and territories, showcasing an exceptional range of works across all media–from painting and sculpture to photography and digital art.
As the fair continues to define the highest standard for the global art market, it will offer an unparalleled lineup of artists, spanning early 20th-century pioneers to some of today’s most groundbreaking contemporary voices.
Alongside outstanding presentations in the Galleries, Feature, Statements, and Edition sectors, this year’s show will feature 67 monumental installations and performances in the Unlimited sector, curated by Giovanni Carmine, and 24 curated projects in the Kabinett sector–spotlighting focused presentations within the main booths of participating galleries.
Art Basel 2025 also marks the continuation of Maike Cruse’s leadership as Director of the Basel show, with a dynamic city-wide program and newly launched initiatives such as the Art Basel Awards Summit and a major site-specific commission on Messeplatz by Katharina Grosse, reinforcing the fair’s status as a global cultural force.
Unlimited VIP Opening of the Art Basel
4 pm - 8 pm
Location: Messe Basel, Messeplatz 10, Basel
The VIP opening of Unlimited, presenting monumental works ahead of the public hours.
Welcome Breakfast at Art Basel
9:30 am - 11 am
Location: Messeplatz 10, Basel
A morning gathering for the Art Basel VIP community offering a moment of connection and context.
Brunch at Kunsthaus Baselland
8:30 am - 12 pm
Location: Helsinki-Strasse 5, 4142 Münchenstein
Ines Goldbach, Director Kunsthaus Baselland and Marina Meijer, President Kunstverein Baselland, are pleased to invite you to the annual brunch in honor of the artists, Caroline Bachmann, Johanna Calle, Lena Laguna Diel, Abi Palmer, Nohemí Pérez, Ana Silva, Julia Steiner, Surma, Liu Yujia, among others.
VOLTA Basel VIP Preview
10 am - 8 pm
Location: Hall 4.U, Messeplatz 21, Basel
A meeting point for art collectors seeking fresh and captivating narratives in the emerging contemporary market, VOLTA invites you to discover artistic talent and build meaningful connections with gallerists and artists alike.
Basel Social Club 2025
2 pm - 4 pm
Location: Basel Social Club, Rittergasse 21–25, Basel
A visit to Basel Social Club 2025 - the acclaimed independent, non-profit platform founded in 2022 by a visionary collective of artists, gallerists, and curators - offers exclusive access to one of Basel’s most dynamic art spaces, where experimentation, exchange, and cultural dialogue take center stage.
Vitra Campus Summer Party
7 pm-onwards
Location: Vitra Campus, Charles-Eames-Straße 2, Weil am Rhein
A summer celebration of design and community in the iconic setting of the Vitra Campus.
Art Breakfast at Kunstmuseum Basel
9 am - 11 am
Location: Kunstmuseum, St. Alban-Graben 16, Basel
A quiet start to the day with art, coffee, and dialogue at Kunstmuseum Basel.
Conversations Premiere artist talk: Katharina Grosse and Natalia Grabowska
11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Location: Art Basel, Messeplatz 10, Basel
Katharina Grosse joins curator Natalia Grabowska to discuss her piece for Art Basel’s 2025 Messeplatz project. Together, they’ll explore how co-presence of differences enables us to cooperate and have shaped the project’s development — informing its rhythm, scale, and chromatic intensity.
Art Week Tokyo Cocktail Reception
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Location: Collectors Lounge at the Art Basel, Messeplatz 10, Basel
Art Basel and Art Week Tokyo are delighted to invite you to an afternoon cocktail reception in celebration of the upcoming edition of Art Week Tokyo.
Conversations: Collecting for a purpose: Corporations and cultural institutions
4 pm - 5 pm
Location: Auditorium, Hall 1, Art Basel, Messeplatz 10, Basel
Experts from leading institutional and corporate collections provide valuable insights into the collecting strategies of diverse organizations. They explore the challenges and opportunities in building and maintaining significant art collections, as well as the impact on brand identity and public engagement.
Art Basel Awards Medalist Reception
6 pm - 10 pm
Location: Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben 16, Basel
Noah Horowitz and Vincenzo de Bellis invite you to the inaugural Art Basel Awards Medalist Reception. Launched in partnership with BOSS, the Art Basel Awards celebrate 36 visionary figures across nine categories. This exclusive evening during Art Basel in Basel honors their contributions and brings together artists, collectors, curators, and cultural leaders for a moment of recognition and exchange.
Artist Talk with Urs Fischer at Fondation Beyeler
6 pm - 7 pm
Location: Fondation Beyeler, Baselstrasse 101, 4125 Riehen/Basel
Swiss artist Urs Fischer joins curator Samuel Leuenberger to discuss his practice, marked by themes of impermanence, transformation, and irony. The conversation coincides with Fischer’s public art project on Basel’s Marktplatz and Martinskirchplatz.
Art Basel Exhibitors and Sectors
Art Basel’s show in Basel is divided 9 into sectors. Each sector has a specific focus, from monumental works to solo presentations by emerging artists. Discover the sectors and exhibitors at Art Basel in Basel in 2025.
Preview Days: Monday, June 16 – Wednesday, June 18General Admission Days: Thursday, June 19 – Sunday, June 22
Art Basel Parcours
The 2025 edition of Parcours is curated for the second time by Stefanie Hessler, Director of Swiss Institute New York. Art Basel’s free public sector is conceived as a curated exhibition that unfolds throughout empty stores and operational shops, a hotel, an underpass, an office building, the river front, and other quotidian spaces in Basel.
Hessler’s curatorial concept “Second Nature” focuses on artistic projects that explore the blurry boundaries between nature and artifice, original and repetition, habits and interruptions through the unexpected, including sensory perceptions beyond the visual. Presenting over 20 ambitious, largely new and site-responsive projects by emerging artists alongside influential historic positions, this edition of Parcours is distinctly intergenerational.
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“Second Nature” is a term that refers to deeply engrained habits, customs, and rituals. In Parcours, the expression is explored through multivalent interpretations. Several artists question what is perceived as natural, examining apparently unchangeable patterns as well as the supernatural, artificiality, and subverted expectations.
A selection of projects focuses on the incessantly proliferating loops of images and information as contemporary rituals shaping attitudes and desires. Various artists explore storytelling throughout the ages and media, from analog and animalistic fables to algorithmically powered narratives shaping nature and culture, or what is considered natural and true. Again others engage spaces charged with the interplay of personal memory and historic narratives. Finally, several projects address the valuation of bodies and life between flesh, commodity, and artifact.
Cultural events in Basel
Basel is home to 37 museums, an extraordinary number for a city of its size. Beyond the fair, the city's premier museums and foundations will host a wide range of outstanding exhibitions. Major shows coinciding with Art Basel include:
Art Basel Awards 2025
The Art Basel Awards are the first global honors dedicated to recognizing and advancing excellence across the contemporary art - celebrating visionaries spanning the industry whose work is shaping the next generation of cutting-edge artistry. From a nominee pool of the world’s most influential voices and promising rising talents, an International Jury of experts awards 36 Medalists for their vanguard vision, skill, and impact.
Medalists will be recognized during Art Basel’s historic flagship fair in Switzerland in June and through year-round global campaigns and initiatives. Additionally, on June 20, Medalists will headline the first annual Art Basel Awards Summit — Art Basel’s debut thought leadership conference in business of art, convening the most influential figures in the global art world and creative industries — also held in Basel.
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Path-breaking artists, cross-disciplinary creators in fashion, design, music, and performance; curators; institutions; patrons and foundations; writers and journalists; and the specialists behind the scenes, from studio managers to fabricators, are honored in Art Basel’s debut year of its landmark annual award cycle. Among the honorees are influential figures such as Adrian Piper, Lubaina Himid, and Joan Jonas, as well as rising talents like Meriem Bennani and Pan Daijing. The Interdisciplinary category included designers Grace Wales Bonner and the duo Formafantasma. Institutional awards went to RAW Material Company and Jameel Arts Centre, with curators Candice Hopkins and Shanay Jhaveri also recognized.
Founded on the conviction that the future of art relies not only on artists but also on the ecosystems that sustain them, the Art Basel Awards confer Medals across nine categories – Icon Artists, Established Artists, Emerging Artists, Cross-Disciplinary Creators, Patrons, Institutions, Curators, Allies, and Storytellers – set a new precedent for honoring and strengthening the complex, interwoven networks that power and sustain artistic production today.
The awards emphasize the importance of the full ecosystem that sustains art, not just individual artists. As Vincenzo de Bellis, Chair of the Art Basel Awards, stated: “The Art Basel Awards are not a competition but a beacon – recognizing those working with radical vision and a commitment to building communities of practice and exchange.”
Later this year, Medalists will pilot a peer-driven process, whereby they will vote to select up to 12 Gold Medalists from among themselves — half of them artists — representing the Art Basel Awards' highest honor and a new model of recognition in which future changemakers are uniquely elevated by their peers.
Gold Medals in the artist categories confer immediate, flexible support by distributing a total of nearly USD 300,000 annually in honorariums and philanthropic gifts, as well as global networking, tailored partnerships, and high-profile commissions designed to propel artists’ work onto new global platforms. With a focus on artist recipients in the pilot year, Gold Medalists in the Emerging Artist category will each receive an unrestricted honorarium of USD 50,000; Gold Medalists in the Established Artist category will each be awarded an honorarium of USD 50,000, alongside a large-scale public commission to debut during Art Basel in Basel in June 2026; and for Gold Medalists in the Icon Artist category, a donation of USD 50,000 will be made by Art Basel to an organization of the artist's choosing, in their name.
Gold Medalists will be revealed in December 2025 during the Official Night of the Art Basel Awards in Miami Beach.
The awards are presented in partnership with fashion brand BOSS, reflecting a commitment to fostering dialogue across disciplines, particularly between art and fashion. This initiative reinforces Art Basel’s focus on innovation and amplifying diverse voices within contemporary art.
36 Medalists of Art Basel Awards 2025
David Hammons (b. 1943, USA)
A reclusive conceptual artist known for his profound commentary on race, identity, and power structures through unconventional materials and public installations.
Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar)
A British Black Arts pioneer reshaping the canon, and representing the UK at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Joan Jonas (b. 1936, USA)
A seminal figure in performance and video art, Jonas's work explores themes of gender, identity, and mythology.
Adrian Piper (b. 1948, USA)
A legendary first-generation Conceptual artist challenging race, identity, and power with fearless intellect.
Betye Saar (b. 1926, USA)
An influential artist known for her assemblage works that confront racial stereotypes and explore African American identity.
Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948, Chile)
A poet and multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges Indigenous wisdom, environmental activism, and contemporary sculpture.
Nairy Baghramian (b. 1971, Iran)
A sculptor recognized for her abstract forms that engage with architecture, the body, and notions of functionality.
Tony Cokes (b. 1956, USA)
A trailblazing media artist and 2024 MacArthur Fellow, whose works reframe cultural histories through distinctive visual and sonic means.
Cao Fei (b. 1978, China)
An artist whose groundbreaking work in video, virtual reality, and installation probes the contradictions of the new digital reality.
Ibrahim Mahama (b. 1987, Ghana)
Known for monumental installations addressing histories of labor and migration, utilizing materials like jute sacks to comment on global trade and economic systems.
Delcy Morelos (b. 1967, Colombia)
An artist distinguished for her immersive earthworks that connect traditional knowledge with contemporary material practice.
Ho Tzu Nyen (b. 1976, Singapore)
An artist whose multimedia installations delve into Southeast Asian history, mythology, and philosophy.
Mohammad Alfaraj (b. 1993, Saudi Arabia)
A multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses video, photography, and installation, exploring themes of memory, identity, and the environment.
Meriem Bennani (b. 1988, Morocco)
An artist remixing digital culture, postcolonial critique, and absurdist wit through video and sculpture practice.
Pan Daijing (b. 1991, China)
A sound visionary building raw, immersive worlds across performance and choreography.
Saodat Ismailova (b. 1981, Uzbekistan)
An artist and filmmaker whose evocative films revive the spiritual memory of Central Asia, focusing on women's experiences and cultural heritage.
Lydia Ourahmane (b. 1992, Algeria)
An artist whose conceptual practice addresses themes of displacement, surveillance, and the metaphysical, often drawing from personal and collective histories.
Sofia Salazar Rosales (b. 1996, Ecuador)
An emerging artist whose practice explores themes of identity, migration, and the interplay between personal and collective narratives.
Formafantasma (Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin) (b. 1983 & 1980, Italy)
An Italian design duo captivating the world's leading brands with radical investigations in design thought, focusing on sustainability and material culture.
Saidiya Hartman (b. 1961, USA)
A literary scholar and cultural theorist whose work reshapes narratives of Black life and history, blending archival research with critical theory.
Grace Wales Bonner (b. 1990, UK)
Fashion's rising star fusing style, literature, and diasporic storytelling, exploring the aesthetics of the African diaspora through her eponymous label.
Shane Akeroyd (b. 1960, UK)
A philanthropist and art patron known for his support of contemporary art initiatives and emerging artists globally.
Maja Hoffmann (b. 1956, Switzerland)
Founder of the LUMA Foundation, she has been instrumental in promoting experimental art practices and sustainable cultural development.
Joel Wachs (b. 1939, USA)
President of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, recognized for his leadership in supporting artists and preserving artistic legacies.
ART + PRACTICE (Founded 2014, USA)
A Los Angeles-based nonprofit offering arts education and exhibition space, focusing on supporting foster youth and contemporary artists.
Jameel Arts Centre (Established 2018, UAE)
A contemporary art institution in Dubai that fosters artistic exchange and showcases diverse practices from the Middle East and beyond.
RAW Material Company (Founded 2008, Senegal)
Dakar's experimental art incubator and think tank, established by the late, visionary museum leader, curator, and Art Basel Awards Juror Koyo Kouoh.
Candice Hopkins (b. 1977, Canada)
A trailblazing Carcross/Tagish First Nation curator advancing the art historical narrative through Indigenous leadership and vision.
Shanay Jhaveri (b. 1985, India)
A curator whose work focuses on postcolonial narratives and the promotion of South Asian contemporary art within global contexts.
Eungie Joo (b. 1969, USA)
An American curator known for her commitment to social justice and for organizing exhibitions that highlight underrepresented artists and communities.
Negar Azimi (b. 1974, Iran)
Editor-in-chief of Bidoun, a magazine dedicated to Middle Eastern art and culture, known for its critical and nuanced perspectives.
Barbara Casavecchia (b. 1966, Italy)
A writer and curator whose work explores contemporary art, with a focus on feminist and queer theory, and the intersection of art and ecology.
The Journal of Curatorial Studies (Established 2012, Canada)
An academic publication that advances critical discourse in curatorial practice and theory, fostering scholarly engagement with exhibition-making.
Art Handlxrs* (Founded 2017, USA)
A Bay Area-based support network for Queer, nonbinary, trans people, BIPOC, and womxn working behind the scenes in contemporary art.
Gasworks / Triangle Network (Established 1994, UK)
A London-based organization supporting emerging artists through residencies and exhibitions, with a global network fostering cross-cultural exchange.
Sandra Terdjman (b. 1979, France)
Co-founder of KADIST and AFIELD, she is recognized for her contributions to production, collaboration, and artistic infrastructure.
Jury Members
History of Art Basel
Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Paris, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition.
Art Basel’s engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through new digital platforms and a number of new initiatives such as the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, Intersections: The Art Basel Podcast and the BMW Art Journey. Art Basel's Global Media Partner is The Financial Times.
Location of the event