Key highlights from the Unlimited Sector of the Art Basel 2025.
Mario Merz (1925–2003) was a Milan-born artist and a central figure of the Arte Povera movement, renowned for his integration of natural elements and industrial materials into poetic, politically charged forms.
Evidenza di 987 (1978/2023) is a sculptural installation first created for an exhibition at Tucci Russo in Turin. The work features a 16-segment igloo constructed from a metal framework, irregular panes of glass, and a vivid red car door clamped in place—an emblem of rupture in a post-industrial world. Surrounding the structure, large canvases bear painted silhouettes of trees and are accompanied by curved branches, evoking a convergence between ancient landscapes and modern detritus.
The igloo, a recurring motif in Merz’s practice, functions as both shelter and symbol, here caught in the “prehistoric wind” of decay and transformation. This installation exemplifies Merz’s vision of art as an evolving dialogue between nature, architecture, and political consciousness.
Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) is a Spanish sculptor recognized for his large-scale heads and figures that fuse poetic minimalism with spiritual inquiry.
Forgotten Dreams consists of twenty-one cast aluminum doors, each inscribed with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Installed as a passageway, the doors form two facing walls—one with eleven doors, the other with ten, leaving a final space intentionally empty. This absence becomes a symbol of the future—unfinished, unwritten, and still within reach.
The heavy materiality of the doors contrasts with the lightness of their message, grounding universal ideals in a tactile, architectural form. As in much of Plensa’s work, the installation explores themes of language, memory, and collective identity. By merging text with structure, Forgotten Dreams becomes both a space of reflection and a call to imagine what lies beyond the door.
Heinz Mack (b. 1931) is a German artist and co-founder of the ZERO group, known for his innovative experiments with light, movement, and perception.
This untitled work, likely created during Mack’s prolific period of exploration into light reliefs, features a radiant, metallic surface composed of vertically aligned, rhythmic ridges. Executed in polished aluminum or chrome, the piece captures and refracts ambient light, generating shifting visual effects as the viewer moves. The artwork evokes a serene yet dynamic energy field, where material becomes immaterial through its interaction with light.
As with much of Mack’s oeuvre, the work rejects narrative in favor of optical and spatial experience, aiming to evoke a sense of purity, stillness, and transcendence. Rooted in postwar optimism, this meditative abstraction reflects Mack’s desire to create an art of silence, light, and renewal.
Latifa Echakhch (b. 1974) is a Moroccan-French artist celebrated for her poetic and conceptually driven installations that explore themes of memory, transience, and cultural symbolism.
Entre la nuit et l’aurore (2025) is a sculptural installation composed of 403 nylon threads tipped with multicolored glass beads. Suspended in space, the work forms a shimmering curtain that evokes the ethereal glow of the aurora borealis. The installation’s theatrical yet minimalist presence conjures myths and emotions tied to the liminal moment between night and dawn.
Like much of Echakhch’s practice, the piece transforms ephemeral materials into emotionally charged forms, drawing viewers into a space of quiet wonder. This delicate and immersive work reflects Echakhch’s enduring interest in beauty, impermanence, and the symbolic resonance of the everyday.
Huguette Caland (1931–2019) was a Lebanese artist celebrated for her intricate and intuitive abstractions that often navigate themes of landscape, memory, and desire.
Untitled (2009) is a richly textured canvas composed of microscopic lines, dots, and shapes rendered in a palette of indigo, silver, fuchsia, and black. The work evokes a map-like terrain, simultaneously suggesting urban cartography and imagined topographies. Caland’s hand-drawn precision creates a fabric-like illusion, blurring the boundary between painting and textile.
As with much of her oeuvre, the piece resists singular interpretation, offering a space both external and internal, where cities merge with sensations. This meditative and tactile abstraction reflects Caland’s lifelong engagement with place, identity, and the poetic potential of mark-making.