 | |
| Industry | Art |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1970 in Basel, Switzerland |
| Founder | Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt |
Number of locations | 4 (2024) |
| Products | Art fairs |
Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (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.
Art Basel was started in 1970 by Basel gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt. [1] 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. [2] [3]
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 [4] 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. [5] [6] In 2007, Ocean Drive launched the Art Basel Magazine (with Sarah Harrelson as editor-in-chief). [7] The same year, fair events in Russian started to appear. [8]
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. [9] In 2015, Art Basel Hong Kong moved its office to Shui On Centre, with their new office designed by OPENUU. [10]
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. [11]
The 2019 show in Miami Beach saw Maurizio Cattelan's exhibition of the infamous Comedian art piece, a banana duct-taped to a wall and sold $120,000. [12] All the 2020 Art Basel editions (Basel, [13] Miami, [14] Hong Kong [15] ) were cancelled.
Art Basel's 2022 expansion included Paris+ par Art Basel, replacing the long-standing FIAC art fair. [16] [17] [18]
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. [19] 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. [20]
UBS 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. [21] [22]
When compared to the Venice 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. [23]
| Year | Location | Visitors | Exhibitors | Countries represented |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Basel [2] [3] | 16,000 | 90 | 10 |
| 1975 | Basel | 37,000 | 300 | 21 |
| 2006 | Miami [33] | 180 | ||
| 2019 | Basel [34] | 93,000 | 290 | 35 |
| Miami [35] | 81,000 | 269 | 29 | |
| Hong Kong [36] | 88,000 | 242 | 35 | |
| 2021 | Basel [37] | 273 | ||
| Hong Kong [38] | 104 | |||
| 2022 | Paris [17] | 156 |
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Central, Hong Kong Island; White Cube Paris, at 10 avenue Matignon in Paris; and White Cube West Palm Beach, which opened at 2512 Florida Avenue in 2020 and operates annually in West Palm Beach, Florida, from winter through to spring.
David Maupin is an American art dealer.
The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) is an annual art, antiques, and design fair organized by The European Fine Art Foundation in the MECC in Maastricht, Netherlands. It was first held open in 1988.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is an art gallery founded by Tanya Bonakdar, located in both Chelsea in New York City and Los Angeles. Since its inception in 1994, the gallery has exhibited new work by contemporary artists in all media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. The New York City location is at 521 W. 21st Street and the Los Angeles gallery is located at 1010 N. Highland Avenue.
Perrotin gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded by Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris in the 1990s. It has multiple locations worldwide, including galleries in Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Dubai.
Affordable Art Fair is an international, contemporary art fair held in nine countries around the world. Launched in Battersea Park, London, England, in 1999, Affordable Art Fair is an international event in thirteen cities: London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Stockholm, New York, Austin, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. In 2025, Affordable Art Fair will appear in Vienna, Austria.
Seb Janiak is a French photographer and video director of Polish origin. In 2009, after an international career making music clips and working as a fashion photographer, he turned to artistic and scientific research in the field of art photography.
DE SARTHE is a contemporary art gallery with spaces in Hong Kong and Scottsdale, Arizona. The gallery's contemporary art program exhibits and promotes emerging artists from Asia, and its advisory focuses on 19th and 20th century master paintings and sculptures.
Marc Spiegler 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.
studioMDA is a multidisciplinary design firm, based in New York and founded in 2002 by Markus Dochantschi. studioMDA has worked extensively across the United States, and internationally in countries such as Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Germany, Peru, Chile, Cambodia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Turkey and Malawi.
Noah Horowitz is an American art historian. Based in the US, Horowitz is Director Americas for Art Basel's show in Miami Beach since August 2015. He is a member of Art Basel's executive committee.
Massimo De Carlo is an Italian art dealer, with gallery spaces in Milan, London, Hong Kong and Paris.
STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore is a creative workshop and contemporary art gallery based in Singapore that specialises in artistic experimentation in the medium of print and paper. To date, STPI has collaborated with over 90 artists from all over the world.
Marc Glimcher is an American art dealer who is the President and CEO of Pace Gallery, a modern and contemporary art gallery founded by his father, Arne Glimcher, in Boston in 1960. He and his father were cited among the top 100 most powerful people in the international art world, according to the annual "Power 100" list published by ArtReview. In 2012, Glimcher sold a Gerhard Richter painting for more than $20 million at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland.
ArtPremium is a quarterly magazine specializing in contemporary art.
The Outsider Art Fair or OAF is an international exhibition that features outsider artists who work in a variety of mediums. It is a biannual fair occurring in New York City and Paris, the former taking place in January and the latter in October. Plans were made for a Basel edition in 2018 to run alongside Art Basel, but has since been postponed until further notice.
Markus Dochantschi is a German-born architect based in New York. He is a registered architect in the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as a member of the American Institute of Architects. As the founder and principal of studioMDA, a New York–based, multidisciplinary design firm, Dochantschi has been recognized as one of the world's preeminent designers of art and cultural spaces. Dochantschi and his firm have designed more than thirty galleries, and over 200 international art booths and exhibitions, earning Dochantschi the title of "the Art World's New Go-To Architect” in 2017. The firm has also designed institutional buildings, auction houses, and private residences.
Mai 36 Galerie is an international contemporary art gallery, located in Zürich. The gallery was founded in 1987 by Victor Gisler.
Jennifer Flay is the director of the Fiac.
Kotaro Nukaga is a contemporary art gallery owned by gallerist Kotaro Nukaga. Headquartered in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo, the gallery operates multiple exhibition spaces including at the Terrada Art Complex in Tennōz. Nukaga expressed to The New York Times that one of his primary goals is to "make a stronger market for women artists."
