Charming and quaint, the Swiss city of Basel may be modest in nature, but every June, it becomes the centre of attention for the art world, roaring to life with a sprawling exhibition of works by more than 4,000 artists from five continents, represented by some 290 galleries. A flagship cultural event, Art Basel has been operating for more than five decades, setting the blueprint for sibling fairs elsewhere that now define the art-world calendar. When not fully immersed in the art experience, participating gallerists take advantage of a city defined as much by its medieval heritage and classical modernism as by its contemporary expressions. With Art Basel 2026 taking place 18-21 June, here, five of them share their favourite cafés, bars and restaurants.

Where to eat and drink in Basel, the insiders’ guide

Casey Kaplan

Morning treat at Hotel Märthof Basel

‘I do not drink coffee, just tea, so I like to begin my days in Basel with a hot green tea on the roof of the Hotel Märthof, which looks out on the Marktplatz, where some mornings you have a bird’s-eye view of the fresh fruit vendors. That is the best place to buy strawberries.’

Hotel Märthof Basel is located at Marktgasse 19, 4001 Basel, Switzerland

Wine o’clock at Consum Weinbar

‘A glass or two of rosé from Provence in the afternoon outdoors at Consum Weinbar (across the street from Hotel Krafft) is the best spot for a break with friends and colleagues. It feels local and an escape from the art fair.’

Consum Weinbar is located at Rheingasse 19, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

Dinner at Restaurant Krafft Basel

‘I recommend the river fish en papillote while dining outdoors along the Rhine at Restaurant Krafft. You can hear the rushing river from your table, which is a nice way to unwind after a long day at the art fair.’

Restaurant Krafft Basel is located at Hotel Krafft Basel, Rheingasse 12, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

Galerie nächst St. Stephan

Morning treat at Confiserie Schiesser

‘One of my favourite coffee places is Confiserie Schiesser on the Marktplatz, a very traditional spot. As children, we all loved their famous Schoggi S pastries, and I still love them today – crispy on the outside and soft and slightly creamy on the inside. It was the usual treat that my mother would bring home for my three sisters and me on a Saturday.’

Confiserie Schiesser is located at Marktpl. 19, 4051 Basel, Switzerland

Wine o’clock at Imi Bar

‘For drinks, I recommend the Imi Bar in the Volkshaus Basel. A great place named after German artist Imi Knoebel, who designed the glass windows.’

Imi Bar is located at Rebgasse 12-14, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

Dinner at Rhyschänzli

‘Restaurant Rhyschänzli simply has wonderful cuisine: international with a touch of Swiss and a hint of Italian. During the summer, it’s lovely to sit outside on the sidewalk. Even though it’s usually very busy, the restaurant team has excellent service, and the asparagus is always a great recommendation.’

Rhyschänzli is located at Lichtstrasse 9, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

Lehmann Maupin

Morning treat at Restaurant Beyeler im Park

‘Mornings at Fondation Beyeler are magical. I always get a coffee and a croissant in the garden cafe to spend more time outdoors. When I need to have a quick breakfast meeting near the fair: Fruhling or Bru Speciality Coffee. My go-to breakfast is a flat white with oat milk, avocado and eggs.’

Restaurant Beyeler im Park is located at Fondation Beyeler, Baselstrasse 101, 4125 Riehen, Switzerland

Wine o'clock at Bar Les Trois Rois

‘An aperitivo at Bar Le Trois Rois is a ritual for the art world – a sunset drink overlooking the river, before the evening crowd walks in.’

Bar Les Trois Rois is located at Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, Blumenrain 8, 4001 Basel, Switzerland

Dinner at Zum goldenen Fass

‘Zum goldenen Fass offers a seasonal menu, a good wine list, and a great atmosphere. All within walking distance of the fair. I eat everything, but it’s their vegetables that shine. On the nights I can’t get a last-minute reservation somewhere, Thai food at Thai Family Restaurant is always there for me.’

Zum goldenen Fass is located at Hammerstrasse 108, 4057 Basel, Switzerland

STPI

Morning treat at Confiserie Beschle - Clara

‘On the busier mornings – which are most of them during Basel week – I’ll swing by Confiserie Beschle on Clarastrasse. It’s a short walk from Messe, and there’s something grounding about starting the day with a simple latte and a croissant before the craziness starts. Simple, but it gives you the right fix from the beginning.’

Confiserie Beschle - Clara is located at Clarastrasse 4, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

Wine o’clock at Flore

‘When I need to decompress after a long day at the fair, Flore is where I end up – or simply opening a bottle of beer by the Rhine. No fuss, no scene, just warmth. There’s an ease to it that I really value during a week that can otherwise feel relentless.’

Flore is located at Klybeckstrasse 5, 4057 Basel, Switzerland

Dinner at Alchemist

‘The honest answer is our apartment. Our team normally rents an Airbnb during Basel week, and we cook Asian food for fellow gallerists and friends – we cooked Lu Rou Fan (braised pork rice) last year, for example. Those evenings are often the highlight of my week. That said, if dining out, I’d head to Alchemist for their poulet lollis or spare ribs.’

Alchemist is located at Schifflände 1, 4051 Basel, Switzerland

Xavier Hufkens

Morning treat at Konditorei-Confiserie Gilgen

‘I always enjoy starting the day with a stop at Konditorei-Confiserie Gilgen. There’s something very comforting about sitting down with a coffee and a fresh pastry before the day begins. I usually order coffee with a buttery croissant, and I never leave without taking some traditional Basel Läckerli home with me. They make the perfect gift (or late-night snack).’

Konditorei-Confiserie Gilgen is located at Spalenberg 6, 4051 Basel, Switzerland

Wine o’clock at Bar Les Trois Rois

‘The bar of the Trois Rois is probably my favourite place for a drink in Basel. The terrace overlooking the Rhine is hard to beat, especially at sunset after a long day. I usually go for a glass of wine there, although their cocktails are equally good. It has that rare mix of elegance and ease that makes you want to stay longer than planned.’

Bar Les Trois Rois is located at Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, Blumenrain 8, 4001 Basel, Switzerland

Dinner at Restaurant Chez Donati

‘We traditionally have our team dinner at Chez Donati, which has become a ritual I really look forward to every year. It’s one of those timeless places with impeccable old-school service and a warm, familiar atmosphere. I usually order a classic pasta or a Milanese – simple, comforting, and always perfect.’

Restaurant Chez Donati is located at Hotel Stadthof, Gerbergasse 84, 4001 Basel, Switzerland

In Basel, a city synonymous with contemporary art and architecture, retail takes on a unique form. At least, that is the vision of Tutto Bene, the design firm behind the recently completed fashion and private shopping floors at historic department store Globus Basel – a conception of retail which reimagines shopping so radically that it almost transcends it.

These newly renovated spaces are not simply about selling clothes, they are about creating a space where fashion, art and architecture coexist. Here, the aesthetic qualities of fashion seep into their surroundings, fostering an environment that invites contemplation and interaction rather than just consumption.

‘The fact that Basel is known for its art fair was very important to us. [The city] naturally has an audience with a strong affinity to art, as well as design and architecture,’ says Felizia Berchtold, co-founder of Tutto Bene. ‘Plus, the model of the department store has evolved over the last two decades, and actually resembles more the business model of a fair.’ Just as Art Basel cultivates creative exchange and visibility for artists, Globus Basel acts as a dynamic platform for brands.

The design deliberately avoids the usual retail spectacle – the familiar cluttered displays and overstimulation of typical department stores. Instead, Tutto Bene prioritised clarity and functionality, applying principles borrowed from art curation: ‘a timeless background’ and ‘a system of navigation and hierarchy’, as the studio describes. Fashion is presented as something deserving of time and attention, as one might consider a gallery display. ‘The retail language is defined less by recognisable “design gestures” and more by what is deliberately withheld: overt scenography and trend-driven materials,’ says Oskar Kohnen, Berchtold's co-founder.

Display rails, plinths and mirrors are seamlessly integrated into the light-filled architecture, while concrete floors, continuous surfaces and a minimalist material palette evoke a sense of serenity, allowing the products to shine. The design never detracts from the fashion, with perimeter lighting highlighting and anchoring collections, as well as, says Kohnen, ‘[separating] the interior core from the perimeter facade zone’. This is fabricated in Japanese laminated paper mounted on an aluminium frame; the designers say the effect is ‘simple and light, but at the same time monolithic and present’.

A standout feature is the continuous illuminated wall, conceived as a ‘contemporary viaduct’ that orchestrates the rhythm of the fashion floors. This element echoes the repetition and balance of the building’s historic Art Nouveau façade, originally designed in 1904 by Alfred Romang and Wilhelm Bernoulli and later complemented by sleek modern additions from Miller & Maranta. ‘It was a great opportunity to work with the contrast between old and new, public and private, art and fashion,’ says Kohnen.

In contrast to the open, light-filled shopping floors, the private shopping suite offers an intimate, inward-looking experience. ‘Designed as an imaginary collector’s apartment, it is defined by wood panelling, monochrome blue tones and a residential sense of scale,’ explains Berchtold. The mirrored dressing room acts as an optical installation, with ‘cascading mirrors fragmenting and recomposing the space’, while a custom screen-printed artwork by Tutto Bene, inspired by Swiss designer Trix Haussmann, adds an additional layer of graphic sophistication.

The project reflects a broader trend in luxury retail: stores that transcend the mere presentation of wares to create immersive aesthetic worlds. Says Kohnen: ‘Retail becomes an editorial act rather than a merchandising exercise, positioning the store as a place where fashion, objects and architecture are encountered with intention and depth.’

Globus Basel, Marktpl. 2, 4001 Basel, Switzerland.

globus.ch

‘The phenomenon is that this almost 100-year-old woman who lives in near isolation, apart from a few people in her team and a few friends, manages to communicate through art across all boundaries to people of all ages, all backgrounds and those who are normally are not interested in art. That is really very, very rare,' says Sam Keller, director of Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, where a Yayoi Kusama retrospective runs until 25 January 2026.

On the show's preview day in October, co-hosted by one of the fondation’s key partners, Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille, light is bouncing around Kusama’s mirrored cube Infinity Mirrored Room – Illusion Inside the Heart, a 2025 installation positioned in the garden, while autumn leaves are reflected in the silver balls of Narcissus Garden that float around the lake at the Renzo Piano-designed gallery.

'It really is meditative watching the balls move across the pond,' says Keller of the work that was first shown guerrilla-style at the Venice Biennale in 1966. Back then, Kusama was a plucky underground star working in her adopted home of New York. It was not until 1993 that she represented Japan officially at the biennale: a milestone moment in a career and life that has made her one of the most recognised and oldest living artists in the world.

The Fondation Beyeler show is the first devoted to the artist in Switzerland and the team is expecting over half a million visitors who will marvel at the sheer range of her work, which spans from small delicate watercolours to a fully immersive installation featuring giant inflated black and yellow tentacles, entitled The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019/2024). The dots and mirrors are delightfully discombobulating, like peering into an abyss. That sense of teetering, of reaching into the cosmos, is threaded throughout all Kusama’s unbelievably prolific output.

'I think people sense that there's a lot of integrity, authenticity in her quest. Life and art are not separate. It’s not an artist’s career, it's her life,' says Keller.

What gives this exhibition great energy is the inclusion of 130 previously unseen works in the 300-strong display. Curator Mouna Mekouar worked with the Kusama Foundation to find previously undervalued works such as etchings and a series of small luminescent watercolours featuring landscapes and flowers in bloom.

'When Kusama moved back to Japan in the early 1970s, she didn't have a lot of money and could not afford to buy good paper, so she would work with shikishi, a low-cost calligraphy paper. She did thousands of [such works], and we think it's really striking,' says Mekouar of the curation, which includes a pastel and ballpoint pen Self Portrait 1972 featuring butterflies and botanical motifs collaged into an inky black scape.

Elsewhere, you can track other recurring Kusama motifs, like the Infinity Net abstract works, which she began in New York and has continued throughout her life. Videos of her performance pieces in New York featuring her nude friends painting each other with dots are also on show alongside her fashion creations, such as a 1964 shift dress decorated with macaroni and sprayed gold. This is an artist who does not respect categories but who continually experiments in new mediums, including poetry, sculpture and fashion. Her ambition to cover the world in dots was taken to a new level with her Dots Infinity collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2012 and 2023. (Kusama also covered Wallpaper* in dots, as a guest editor in October 2023.)

On meeting Kusama at her studio in Tokyo in 2012, at the time of her retrospective at Tate Modern, it was clear this artist is obsessed with creating, and takes to her canvases every day. As Mekouar points out, she does not work from sketches or models; her way of creating is intuitive. 'Painting was a fever born of desperation, the only way for me to go on living in this world,' Kusama once said. Viewing this show, one appreciates her vast vision and her lifelong quest to capture the exhilarated act of creation.

Yayoi Kusama at Fondation Beyeler until 25 January 2026, fondationbeyeler.ch

When the eminent fashion historian Caroline Evans writes about the roots of the fashion show in The Mechanical Smile (2013), she leaves us in the year of the Great Crash. By 1930, she suggests, all the conventions were set: ‘Some men and women come into a room, they walk up and down and they exit. Other men and women look at them. This goes on for decades…’ A newly opened exhibition at Vitra Design Museum titled ‘Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show’ guides us from the silent Paris salon right up to the raucous digital spectacle of the present day, offering a view of both permanence and permutation.

Curated by Jochen Eisenbrand and Katharina Krawczyk with Kirsty Hassard and Svetlana Panova of V&A Dundee, ‘Catwalk’ is the first exhibition the museum has ever dedicated to fashion. It opens with the birth of the show around 1900. Photographs, illustrations, films, objects and printed matter reveal the way designers communicated their collections up until the Second World War. A Pathé reel from 1928 offers a glimpse into the vista of the House of Worth: models walk through a succession of doorways inside a hôtel particulier, swinging open their coats for seated, chatting clients. By 1967, a gaggle of jiving models are showing off Mary Quant’s latest designs inside a happening Hamburg art gallery. Nearby, William Klein’s fantastic 1966 parody of a Paris fashion show set inside a sculpted building by André Bloc is blown up on the wall.

‘Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show’ at Vitra Design Museum, Basel

Since the rise of prêt-à-porter in the 1960s, fashion – and all that surrounds it – became defined as a kind of entertainment. ‘Fashion shows are image machines,’ Eisenbrand says. ‘They are important because of the images that they create.’

A section of the exhibition focuses on a predilection for shows on a colossal scale. Spectacles from the early 2000s circulate online today, mediated by a generation of digital archivists captivated by the glittering kinship between art and commerce. Karl Lagerfeld was fearless in this. Throughout his 36-year tenure at Chanel, he tickled at the edges between trade show, pop performance and camp theatre. For A/W 2014, he staged Chanel’s ready-to-wear show inside a giant makeshift supermarket filled with Chanel-branded fabric conditioner, milk and bread. Models vaulted down the aisles filling leather and chain baskets with branded goods. A perfectly rendered architectural model of the scenography – with its miniature checkout tills, gondolas and tiny hams – has been loaned by the Chanel archives and is on display for the very first time.

Co-curator Krawczyk says that ‘Catwalk’ is based on the idea that the fashion show is a multi-disciplinary design concept. As a student living in Paris in the early 2000s she snuck into Alexander McQueen’s S/S 2005 show, which was staged as a giant game of chess. ‘Oh my god, I will not forget that. I got in at the last second after I followed somebody who had an invitation, I was like, “I'm his assistant!” You can see me in the video, sitting on the floor in the first row, super happy with my little camera,’ she says. ‘It was amazing because the show was super simple in the beginning, and with McQueen the finales were always the thing. The models started to walk and then line up in rows. Then all of a sudden, they stopped and started to move as if they were chess pieces playing a game. Everybody got goosebumps. You didn’t know where the drama was going.’

A growing interest in looking beyond the fashion image and exploring the ephemera, magazines, brochures, invitations and flyers is also a red thread in the exhibition. It looks around the clothes. ‘My early memories of fashion have something to do with Cindy Crawford, I’m sure,’ says Eisenbrand. ‘The 1990s was when fashion went into pop culture and even though I was not a passionate follower, my first “show” might have been MTV’s House of Style. It may have also been George Michael’s music video for Freedom. I never followed the shows, but they came through to me on this mediated level.’

The curators all agreed that the final room needed to reflect on the last five years. During the pandemic many hoped that the industry might change the seasonal ritual of in person fashion weeks for good, yet it was business as usual once the restrictions were lifted. The ceremonial 10-minute feast of models walking up and down underneath the bright lights proved all too seductive to forgo altogether. A number of architectural models produced by OMA for Prada over their 25-year collaboration are on display too. For A/W 2021 they created a show-set made up of textured rooms which was live streamed online. ‘It was sensual, even though the viewers could not be present,’ Eisenbrand says.

The conventions of the fashion show, how they operate and what they might feel like to anyone watching hasn’t changed, but the breadth of their audiences has. They now attract people that are drawn to them as events in themselves, people interested in a brief moment in the stories they see played out on the stage.

Projected onto the wall is the model Shalom Harlow sprayed in a jet of black and yellow paint by two curious machines at McQueen’s S/S 1999 show. It still commands – and demands – our attention. More recently Demna’s partnership with the Berlin-based architecture office Sub for Balenciaga has contributed a number of staggeringly affecting shows to the canon of the 21^st century – hundreds of images and minutes of film as layered and as rich as any other theatrical medium. ‘I think it needs to be this today because through these kinds of shows, we learn so much about where we are in society,’ Krawczyk concludes. ‘A jacket doesn't need a fashion show, but the show offers another layer of the story.’

Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show at Vitra Design Museum, 18 October 2025 – 15 February 2026 and opening at V&A Dundee 3 April – 17 January 2027.

In its 45-year history, the Pritzker Prize-winning architecture studio Herzog & de Meuron has undertaken only a handful of hospitality projects. Its portfolio has instead focused on era-defining cultural institutions such as London’s Tate Modern and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. But for Les Trois Rois, arguably Basel’s most storied hotel, the architects made an exception. ‘It’s a very personal project – perhaps even egoistic,’ practice founder Jacques Herzog tells Wallpaper*. ‘I don’t live far from here, so I love to come with my wife and have a drink at the bar.’

Yet long before it became the renowned architect’s local haunt, Les Trois Rois was a city landmark. Originally established in 1681, the hotel has borne witness to centuries of European history. Napoleon rested his head here in the late 18th century. Pablo Picasso, Voltaire, James Joyce – and even Queen Elizabeth II – have all been guests. In a city defined by its confluence of borders and languages, Les Trois Rois stands as a symbol of continuity.

Wallpaper* checks in at Hotel Les Trois Rois, Basel

What’s on your doorstep?

Situated on the banks of the River Rhine – where, in summer, locals can be seen floating downstream with their belongings tucked into inflatable dry bags – Les Trois Rois occupies a privileged position in Basel’s historic centre. Many of the city’s key attractions are just a short walk away: the Messe Basel convention centre (home to Art Basel and Design Miami Basel each June), the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Cultures, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, where visitors can view masterpieces by Holbein, Picasso and Rothko – the last housed in a striking Herzog & de Meuron extension.

Who’s behind the design?

Herzog & de Meuron took a break from masterplanning tech campuses and Olympic stadiums to breathe life into the hotel, located a short stroll from its headquarters. ‘Generally, as an architect, you don’t have the opportunity to develop the whole space, down to the smallest detail,’ explains Herzog, who even handmade the ceramic tiles that clad the fireplace in the ground-floor cigar lounge. ‘But everything here was developed by us in our own workshops. It’s not something you can do all the time – it’s very time-consuming.’

Herzog & de Meuron were tasked with designing the hotel’s expansion into an adjoining former bank (that was later a tourist office) on the Rhine’s left bank. The firm reimagined each of the building’s five floors: a ground-floor restaurant and bar; a first-floor function room with retractable walls capable of producing multiple configurations; two levels of new suites, including the sprawling Les Trois Rois presidential suite; and a decadent rooftop spa.

The room to book

Spanning 240 sq m on the extension’s second floor, the new two-bedroom Les Trois Rois suite is a masterpiece of contemporary luxury. The architects created a fluid space using curtains and sliding doors in place of traditional walls. The bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms – rendered in icy whites and deep reds – radiate from a central, circular living and dining room which, when fully opened, is bathed in light from three sides. ‘We wanted the façade to be free,’ says Herzog, explaining the decision to abandon conventional interior walls. ‘It’s a hybrid between something closed and very open.’

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Herzog and his team configured the ground-floor bar and restaurant to maximise the views of the river. ‘We wanted guests to be immediately connected to the river and the city,’ explains Herzog. ‘This was the driving force.’ To achieve this, the architects raised the tables to window height via a U-shaped stage encircling the restaurant’s perimeter. At the centre, they designed a reflective chrome bar surrounded by stools upholstered in bubblegum-pink velvet.

The river’s presence continues above, where mirrored ceiling panels reflect the Rhine’s blue-green currents between carved geometric mouldings. Hanging over the bar is a vibrant installation by Swiss artists Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger, an eclectic amalgam of found objects – fake flowers, crystals grown in their studio, animal figurines – in a veritable rainbow of colours. ‘It’s a surreal garden,’ says Herzog. ‘I like the combination of a space that’s very French and classic with these Pop Art elements.’

Though the restaurant is set to officially open later this autumn, the hotel already promises a menu of Asian fusion cuisine and an extensive cocktail list. In the meantime, guests can dine on-site at The Brasserie, which serves classic European fare, or at the three-Michelin-starred Cheval Blanc, named the best restaurant in the world in 2024.

Where to switch off

Nestled within the historic building’s mansard roof, Herzog & de Meuron have created an intimate spa inspired by Japanese onsens. ‘The space had these wooden beams, which by themselves were quite ugly,’ Herzog explains of the design. ‘So we thought to add other wooden elements so their presence was blurred. Japanese architecture is very much based on rational construction, so we let the construction become the decoration.’ Between the chocolate-toned rafters, the architects lined the walls with fragrant cedar and adobe-like finishing and designed traditional sliding paper doors for the private treatment rooms. Spanning two levels, the spa includes a sauna, steam room, and icy plunge pool on a rooftop terrace overlooking the river and the historic neighbourhood’s rooftops.

The verdict

As the most storied stay in this small Swiss city, Les Trois Rois was a landmark long before Herzog & de Meuron left their mark. But for admirers of the Swiss duo, the hotel’s new extension offers a rare opportunity to spend the night in a space they helped shape.

Hotel Les Trois Rois is located at Blumenrain 8, 4001 Basel, Switzerland.

'This is because of the Basel collector and the Basel effect,' says Charlotte Ketabi-Lebard, founder and director of Ketabi Bourdet, as well as the instigator of Basel’s new design fair, MAZE Design Basel. Installation had run smoothly enough and expectations were varied inside the Offene Kirche Elisabethen, a Swiss Gothic Revival church in central Basel, as the idea for the fair had come together quickly, and exhibitors weren’t sure if the people who’d come for Art Basel knew this was happening – or if the big-time collectors were even coming to the city this year.

The highlights from MAZE Design Basel

Design Miami cancelled its Basel edition only four months ago. While no official reason has been given by the fair, it boils down to the fact not enough good galleries were applying to show: Some didn’t because of the astronomical booth fees (around six figures), but others stayed away because they didn’t want to associate with those they deemed of lesser quality, whom Design Miami was letting in.

'When we got the call,' Ketabi-Lebard says, 'I was, of course, quite disturbed, as Basel is a very important fair for us.' She started looking for spaces to do a pop-up for her gallery and found out this church, where Perrotin famously used to hold its annual rager (it did not do any large-scale events this year), was available. It is, of course, rather large for a single gallery – well, one that has only been around for a few years — so Ketabi-Lebard and her business partner Paul Bourdet decided to ask a few other galleries (Laffanour Galerie Downton, Jousse Enterprise, and Galerie kreo) they’re close with to see if they’d be interested in doing a collective show. It was on a call with François Laffanour the thought of doing a fair occurred to her.

But organising a fair is not Ketabi-Bourdet’s usual day job. Just before she went to see the MAZE Gstaad art fair, Galerie kreo director Didier Krzentowski – who was already there – suggested she meet with MAZE founder Thomas Hug, and see if he’d help with logistics. Not only was he eager, Hug agreed to let dealers have final approval, and to have the inaugural edition’s participants only pay the cost to put the fair on – around €15,000 each; MAZE would make its money through bringing in sponsors.

The fair itself was intimate inside the church: Booths wrapped themselves around the columns and the pulpit. 'It’s a bit of a do-it-yourself fair,' says Galerie Mitterrand director Sébastien Carvalho. Exhibitors hadn’t realised until the fair opened that they were showing in the same space Design Miami/Basel begun – Krzentowski was there and remembered Pearl Lam effectively closed up her booth back then because she didn’t think it auspicious to sell in a church.

Ketabi-Bourdet brought a Philippe Starck table made for New York’s Royalton hotel, a Garouste & Bonetti chair (with its original silk upholstery) made for French clothing designers Marithé and François Giraud’s New York brownstone, and a Bull Kitchen chair by Tom Dixon – which was sold to a Middle Eastern collection.

While Galerie Mitterrand is more known as an art gallery, Art Basel isn’t open to having designers like Lalanne being shown within its event space, so taking part in MAZE made more sense: It brought a whole flock of Lalanne sheep – some fluffy, some not – and a Roberto Matta bronze throne.

'There are lots of our artists who do design,' Carvalho says. Salon 94 also followed this, bringing a booth full of Urs Fischer objects, from chairs to a tea set to a lamp he patinaed himself (he’ll patina all of them). The gallery didn’t even get to presell any as works weren’t finished until the day before the fair’s opening, yet numerous editions of every piece had sold. 'I was surprised that we sold so much,' says Salon 94 director-at-large Fabienne Stephan.

Collectors came from the usual European suspects – France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, the UK – and even Czechia. But the pleasant surprise were the Americans (whose presence wasn’t a guarantee this year). 'All of us know the collectors,' Krztentowski says, 'they had to spend half an hour in each booth; they couldn’t escape.' Some collectors said they spent the longest they had in Basel there, taking hours to get through the 11 exhibitors. 'In no art fair have I ever seen as many extreme high-quality collectors – super, super, mega blue-chip – in one space' Ketabi-Lebard says.

The art world is descending on Basel once again, and there's lots to see.

Alongside the presentations at the Messeplatz, Art Basel’s new Shop is a destination in itself, featuring a coveted limited edition of 100 porcelain Labubu by artist Kasing Lung, alongside exclusive drops including FC Basel’s artist-designed jersey, a Katharina Grosse capsule collection, Thomas Bayrle’s custom raincoat, a limited edition poster by Sasha Stiles, and rare prints by Daniel Arsham and Amoako Boafo.

Across the city, Jordan Wolfson challenges perception at Fondation Beyeler, while at Kunsthalle Basel, Lebanese-artist Dala Nasser traces the layered history of the Byzantine church of St. Christopher near Kabr Hiram in Qana. At Museum Tinguely, prepare to enter the surreal at Scream Machines, with a ghost train by Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez, created in an anarchic tribute to Jean Tinguely’s Crocrodome, marking the centenary of the artist’s birth. In a modest house at Bannwartweg 39, an ambitious group exhibition titled Maison Clearing, organised by C L E A R I N G (NYC & LA), brings together standout contemporary artists, including Raffaela Naldi Rossano, Nicole Coson, and Supawich Weesapen. For a more contemplative encounter, don’t miss Lenz Geerk’s solo show lautlos at Domushaus, presented by MASSIMODECARLO – a quiet meditation on colour, interiority, and emotional stillness from the Basel-born painter.

12 things to see at Art Basel

Joyce Joumaa – Galerie Eli Kerr, Art Basel Statements

Timed to blink, dim, or fade in and out, the lights in Lebanese-artist Joyce Joumaa mirror’s the rhythm of the power grids — or lack thereof — across cities in Lebanon, where entire cities rely on shared generator schedules, makeshift solar setups, and the collective knowledge of when and where electricity might flow next. She transforms repurposed circuit breaker boxes arranged across the walls, and flickers with light, sometimes dim. Inside each box, hazy inkjet prints on vellum paper flicker in front of LED lights and electronic timers, their soft glow showing intimate glimpses of life — apartment interiors, rooftops, street corners — in Tripoli and Beirut.

The urgency of Joumaa’s work lies in its ability to materialise the invisible: to show us how power shortages don’t just mean living without light, it also reshapes space and autonomy. The installation presented by Eli Kerr at Art Basel Statements builds on themes from Joumaa’s critically acclaimed presentation at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and her inclusion in the 2024 Venice Biennale central exhibition.

Thomas Bayrle – neugerriemschneider, Art Basel Parcours

Known as one of Germany’s most influential pop artists, Thomas Bayrle’s 1960’s installation Coats will take place in the Manor department store in this year's Parcours, curated by Stefanie Hessler, Director at Swiss Institute New York. Using tools like the Jacquard loom and Xerox copier, Bayrle’s six-decade practice has bridged graphic design, mass production, and political critique.

First conceived in 1967–68, Coats brings together transparent raincoats printed with his iconic repeating patterns, displayed against walls wrapped in his signature superform wallpaper.

The Parcours presentation is part of a triple showing of Bayrle’s work across Basel, including a major new tapestry and painting at neugerriemschneider’s Art Basel booth and Chairman (1972) at Basel Social Club. Bayrle’s Parcours project is a rare opportunity to experience one of his earliest experiments with form, fashion, and the politics of production, ahead of his upcoming retrospective at the Kunstahalle Frankfurt in 2026

Alia Farid – Sfeir-Semler, Art Basel Unlimited

Elsewhere, is an urgent, visually stunning act of cultural memory and resistance. Sixteen large-scale embroidered rugs, made in close collaboration with weavers in Samawa, Iraq, maps Palestinian-owned pharmacies, mosques, Arabic menus and signage in Puerto Rico. Drawn from photographs, interviews, and archival research, Farid makes visible the complex networks of migration between the Middle East and Latin America.

The rugs blend flat weaving techniques with region-specific chain stitching. Textiles become an object that document craftsmanship, and resist erasure; telling stories that institutions often fail to hold. The series of rugs are part of a long-term project tracing Arab and South Asian migration across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Known for her cross-disciplinary practice spanning film, sculpture, and textiles, Farid’s work insists on visibility and on remembering what some histories choose to forget, revealing how stories erased by the Global North endure in everyday rituals, architecture, and material culture.

Bijoux Solaires – Suns.works, Basel Social Club

Held, as it usually is, in an unlikely venue, this year's Basel Social Club takes place in a Swiss bank vault on one of the oldest streets in historic Grossbasel. In one of the vaults, Suns.works orchestrates a glittering, transhistorical assembly of artists who have worked with jewellery as a sculptural form. Bijoux Solaires brings together rare pieces by Cinzia Ruggeri, BillyBoy*Zoé Mohm, Meret Oppenheim, and Fausto Melotti, treating jewellery not as adornment but as narrative device, aesthetic experiment, and political metaphor. BillyBoy*’s Surreal Bijoux, once worn by Warhol and embedded with televisual and occult motifs, gleams alongside Ruggeri’s wearable and ornate earrings and necklaces, and Oppenheim’s mytho-feminist objects. By framing these works within the context of postmodernism, esotericism, and countercultural fashion, Suns.works proposes jewellery as a form of micro-sculpture: portable, subversive, and intimate.

Alekos Fassianos – Herald St, Art Basel

Alekos Fassianos’s figures are often likened to demigods, nearly always caught in the banal rituals of urban modernity, his characters wear suits, ride bicycles, and smoke cigarettes with the languor of epic heroes. His paintings bridge ancient iconography and contemporary life, as their flat bodies, delineated by bold lines and patterns, are stylised in a manner that it is clear to see his work from theatre sets and ceramics to furniture and poetry. Painted in vivid blues and bright reds, Fassianos is a seminal figure of postwar Greek modernism. Don't miss his paintings, which will be presented by Herald St in Art Basel, following the 2022 opening of the Alekos Fassianos Museum in Athens - housed in a building the artist designed - and the establishment of his estate, where a significant international reassessment is underway.

Katharina Grosse: CHOIR – Messeplatz Project

It will be impossible to miss the sweeping fields of pink that overtake Basel’s Messeplatz this Art Basel. A bold new commission by Katharina Grosse transforms the spacious area at the heart of what’s known as Kleinbasel in little Basel into an chromatic colour field landscape. Titled CHOIR and curated by Natalia Grabowska, curator at Serpentine in London, the project continues Grosse’s rethinking of scale, gesture, and public space, extending her ambition to, in her own words, 'paint the world.' Her tool of choice is an industrial spray gun that floods colour pigment to architecture, ground, and atmosphere alike. 'Colour becomes anarchic,' she explains. 'It allows me to fight categorisations... to turn reality into something entirely liquid.'

In CHOIR, colour becomes not merely a surface treatment but a performative act: as Grosse’s work positions colour as a carrier of sensory and spiritual intensity. Unlike her artist predecessors such as Rothko, or af Klimt who explored expansive colour fields in their work, Grosse’s colour doesn’t transcend the world, rather it overruns it. Her pink pigment seeps into the architecture of the city, refusing containment and redefining the Messeplatz as a living, liquid space to encounter. In a time when public space is increasingly commodified and surveilled, Grosse’s chromatic intervention stages an abstract but pointed reimagination of the commons, becoming a porous threshold where pigment reclaims territory.

Alexandra Metcalf – Ginny on Frederick, Art Basel Statements

Elif Saydam – Franz Kaka, Art Basel Statements

Opulently decorated doors — two authentic Art Deco toilet stall doors and one illusionistic trompe-l’oeil painting — are central to Elif Saydam’s dissonant installation with Franz Kaka at Art Basel Statements. Drawing from the visual language of Persian miniature painting and referencing texts like Jami’s Haft Awrang, the doors are framed as an allegory of capitalism’s bait-and-switch logic. Aiming to collapse the ornamental with the conceptual, Saydam is interested in Lauren Berlant’s theory of 'cruel optimism' to unmask the toxic allure of the so-called 'good life.' The doors, poised between Camp and devotional craftsmanship, are portals to nowhere, evoking both absurdist game shows and the architecture of gendered categorisation. Exit signs flicker with iconographies, erotic fragments, and veiled citations. Saydam studied at Frankfurt’s Städelschule and Montreal’s Concordia, an artistic education that has informed a practice that is as theoretically robust as it is formally seductive.

Arturo Kameya – GRIMM, Art Basel Statements

Peruvian artist, Arturo Kameya work revolves around the narratives and myths that comprise different versions of socio-political history of Peru, and at Statements, Kameya examines the use of physical education in 20th century Peru as a tool of assimilation and control, designed by elites to instill bourgeois values under the guise of national progress. The walls are painted in institutional greens and dusty ochres, evoking the worn surfaces of mid-century educational buildings. Objects, from bleachers, gym equipment, faded murals, form a kind of theatrical mise-en-scène that draws heavily on the visual codes of state-run schools across Peru: with weathered linoleum floors, peeling paint, didactic posters, and surveillance-like repetition of nationalist motifs.

In Kameya’s richly layered paintings, figures appear spectral, blurred at the edges or flattened into diagrammatic forms, and always on the verge of disappearing. Iconography drawn from personal and public archives sits alongside images of indigenous rituals and colonial allegories.

Evangeline Turner – a.SQUIRE, Liste

One of the most compelling emerging artists in London’s art scene, Evangeline Turner has quickly made a name for herself. Her paintings, presented by a.SQUIRE at Liste, splice the English pictorial tradition with surreal domestic tableaux that bristle with quiet unease. Her canvases fracture space and time; in one painting, dismembered heads hang like pendulums from a door lock. Turner’s paintings call upon a lineage stretching from early 20th-century abstraction to post-Brexit psycho-geography. Referencing Mondrian-like compositional rigidity, her work plays with perspective and moral allegory. Turner’s paintings feel haunted by their own ancestry – entangled in post-imperial disillusionment, droll humour, and theological motifs. A musician as well as a painter, she plays in a rock band, a detail that echoes the performative flair in her work. Her fusion of dandyism, absurdity, and sincerity marks her as a singular voice in the resurgence of figurative oil painting.

Rhea Dillon – Soft Opening, Art Basel Statements

Corroded and fragile, Rhea Dillon’s sculptural installation at Art Basel Statements, presented by Soft Opening, confronts the lingering aftershocks of colonialism through disfigured glassware boxed in sapele mahogany vitrines. The vitrines don’t just frame the objects, they evoke the aesthetics of museum cabinets while destabilising their authority. The result is a powerful meditation on preservation, erasure, and resistance.

Dillon is an artist, poet, and writer and builds upon a language of absence in her practice. Her sculptural forms appear weathered yet beautifully preserved, revered as a semi-reliquary in their cabinets. They are part of a history that refuses to be silenced and settled.

Rooted in Black feminist thought and Caribbean material culture, Dillon’s practice abstracts diasporic histories into minimalist, affective forms. In her acclaimed 2023 solo exhibition at Tate Britain, An Alterable Terrain, she examined how the Black female body has been encoded, commodified, and staged throughout history. In Basel, that inquiry intensified, crystallising around materials loaded with colonial memory, from glass, soil, and molasses, each a residue of trade, extraction, and displacement. Dillon’s work invites a slow, embodied encounter with the objects before you. It’s a study in how violence inscribes itself into the material world, and how that material world might still speak back.

Sacha Kanah – Clima, Liste

In Until Soon, Italian artist Sacha Kanah has created seemingly transparent forms that you might miss on first glance. Looking more closely, these are a living mold from which all life originates. The quietly immersive installation of nearly transparent sculptures that seem to float, flicker, and dissolve into space. Some are suspended mid-air, tracing invisible currents with their weightless forms; others rest on scattered children's toys.

The sculptures are made from kelp membranes shaped by the chemical and physical properties of water. This ongoing project explores how organic matter might evolve and occupy space beyond traditional ideas of permanence.

Presented at the height of their growth process, these delicate forms blur the line between material and immaterial, echoing themes of transformation, memory, and the ephemeral nature of bodies in space. Originally shown at Clima in Milan (2024) for Kanah’s solo exhibition Sleep Starts, the work continues to evolve as a meditation on the origins and future of life itself.

Art Basel runs from 19 - 22 June 2025.

VitraHaus has joined forces with Zurich-based natural skincare brand Soeder to produce its first self-care item: a liquid soap called ‘Ever Green’, which can be used as hand wash or in the bath and shower.

The product pays tribute to the 4,000 square-foot Vitra Campus garden. Containing 30,000 species of plants and flowers, it sits between Álvaro Siza’s production facility and VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron, the company’s flagship store which opened in 2010 as a place to celebrate its home collection.

VitraHaus designs its first skincare product in collaboration with Soeder

Till Weber, Vitra’s creative director of interiors and scenography, worked closely with the Swedish founders of Soeder, Hanna and Johan Olzon Åkerström to bring this project to life.

It began with the trio taking walks together in the Vitra Campus garden, discussing their shared ideas and values. ‘We wanted to capture this moment and experience together,’ says architect Hanna Olzon Åkerström, who founded the company (which recently received investment from Breitling CEO Georges Kern) with her husband in 2013. ‘We gave it a scent, and we put it in a natural soap.’

‘Ever Green’ was formulated in the Zurich-based Soeder laboratories, which uses traditional saponification processes, organic plant-based oils and ingredients such as wheat protein, Swiss honey and shea butter to make the brand’s soaps, shampoos, lotions and deodorants.

Its subtle aroma contains fresh notes of mint, rosemary and citrus, the warmth of patchouli and the heady scent of the evergreen laurel leaf. A linocut illustration of the laurel leaf branch also appears on the front of the bottle.

‘At the VitraHaus we create interiors that inspire and many details are needed,’ says Weber. ‘As we are surrounded by nature we always try to involve it.’

The ‘Ever Green’ soap now brings the essence of Vitra Campus’ gardens directly into the space, as a botanical addition to the architecture, furniture scenarios, shop and café. (It can also be found in Vitra showrooms in major cities around the world).

‘EVER GREEN’ is available at the VitraHaus shop, at Soeder locations and its online store.

vitra.com

soeder.ch

What Dan Flavin did with a simple strip light seems almost a form of magic when we see it today. Instantly recognisable as a unique, conceptual work of art, each piece was constructed from standard lighting tubes, which are available in a very limited number of sizes and colours. By operating within the constraints of his chosen material, Flavin was able to create a lifetime’s body of work.

‘Dedications in Lights’ at Kunstmuseum Basel looks at Flavin’s ‘dedicated’ works. While most of his art was untitled, he would often name works as a dedication to a loved one, a friend, an artist he admired; he even dedicated one work to his dog. 

The show opens with The diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), the yellow almost a buttercup shade as it faces A primary picture, 1964, a fluorescent lights frame sitting at picture height, one side flush to the doorway as is instructed with some of the works.

Flavin rejected the idea that he was a minimalist and refused to participate in minimalist group exhibitions, but the minimalist principles he employed, such as letting the material dictate the work, mean that he is absolutely considered one.

Dan Flavin’s ‘Dedications in Lights’

Josef Helfenstein, the outgoing director of Kunstmuseum Basel, had planned to stage a Flavin exhibition since he took on the role in 2016.

‘I think to use light as a source and a vocabulary is in a way crazy, and to use such a totally banal thing like the fluorescent tube, and to produce so much complexity…’ says Helfenstein. ‘It's unbelievably simple and shockingly reductive to work with this prefabricated stuff that comes in four different sizes and in just six colours, with four different whites, and that's all you have to develop your own work. Just looking at this show, the complexity of what he has produced is impressive.’

While Flavin’s sculpture undoubtedly leans towards genius, he was famous for his idiosyncrasies, and while he would design and instruct all of his work, he didn’t believe in working with his hands. This means that all the wiring and construction was done by his first wife Sonja Severdija, up to 1979 when they divorced.

‘She did everything that's done by hand,’ explains curator Olga Osadtschy. ‘At the beginning, Flavin would construct these icons; you can see them in the Judd Foundation, for example. They are square objects made of wood or linoleum with lamps protruding out of them and she would build those. So everything where you would need a hammer or a screwdriver, that's her.’

The warmth or sentimentality of Flavin’s dedications to friends and colleagues contradict his prickly reputation. He dedicated many works to Russian constructivist Vladimir Tatlin, and the exhibition has a room given over to these works that were made in the early 1980s, in shades of white with occasional accents of red. A series of six complex works made in 1991 are dedicated to German artist John Heartfield, and feature in the final room of the show.

Flavin was also very politically active and anti-war, designing posters and organising rallies for an opponent of President Nixon, ‘artists’ politician’ George McGovern, to whom he dedicated work. He also created a red work shaped like a plane or a crossbow during the war with Vietnam, Monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush (to P. K. who reminded me about death), 1966, for a group show at the Jewish Museum in New York, curated by Kynaston McShine. The work was later installed to light a dancefloor, and mentioned as drenching dancers in blood by singer-songwriter and poet Patti Smith in her memoir Just Kids.

A work dedicated to McGovern is displayed in a room with Flavin’s preparatory drawings, instructions for assembling editions of the work and a collection of drawings by Swiss Renaissance mercenary, goldsmith and artist Urs Graf, by whom Flavin was fascinated and inspired.

We also see Flavin stretch his concept to the limit with his large-scale ‘barrier’ work Untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection), 1973, for the German dealer Heiner Friedrich. It spans an entire room, with fluorescent lights cubes so vivid the colours in the next room are altered. This effect of the light, with the colours depending on what else is in the room, and the colour of the light shifting according to the time of day and the location, is another aspect of the work. Some of the lights produce colour fields, some colours combine and others cast a light that appears to repel those thrown around it.

Perhaps the most famous work in the show is Untitled (to Donald Judd the colorist) 1-5, 1987, five T-shaped lights in combinations of yellow, pink, green, red and blue that turn the room into a hum of anticipation evoking a disco. Flavin and Judd were good friends, and the latter’s son is named Flavin.

Dan Flavin’s work forms a selfie-takers’ paradise, but it also is part of the history of art, a key part of minimalism and highly influential in the history of light art and the use of neons that is now ubiquitous. This show is bathed in American history and allows for the man as well as the work, exploring his affection and attachment to those who surrounded and influenced him, also highlighting the work of his first wife. A fascinating artist who started out in seminary, Flavin’s self-obstructive obsessions have left an oeuvre for us to enjoy.

‘Dedications’ in Lights at Kunstmuseum Basel is on until 18 August 2024

kunstmuseumbasel.ch

Art Basel was founded in 1970 to lure a new wave of collectors and enthusiasts in the postwar consumer society, rich in time, money and new means of global communication. The art mega fair has spent the last 50 years redefining what an art event can be. Beyond a marketplace for the deep-pocketed, a magnet for celebrities, a hotbed for lavish parties and fertile ground for people-watching, Art Basel has become a cultural incubator for some of the most radical moments in the history of contemporary art.

Following an epic Art Basel Miami 2022, we take the opportunity to reflect on the unforgettable moments that have defined the fair’s history, from taped bananas to wealth-ranking ATMs. 

An ATM displayed and ranked visitors’ bank balances

How would you feel to see your bank balance displayed, and ranked, in public? Well, it might depend on how much you had in there. At Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel Miami 2022, American art collective MSCHF debuted ATM Leaderboard, an installation displaying the real-time bank balances of users (with a picture of their faces), and ranking them in order of wealth. 

Monster Chetwynd played ball on Art Basel’s Messeplatz

At Art Basel 2021, British artist Monster Chetwynd made quite the entrance. Taking to the Messeplatz near the fair entry point, performers clad in glamorous, sequin-studded costumes rolled in and danced around giant transparent zorbs directed by the artist’s choreography. This extraterrestrial performance, titled Tears, was inspired by Salvador Dalí’s bejewelled crying eye timepiece and made for a poetic, absurd and jaw-dropping prologue to Art Basel’s 2021 edition. 

Maurizio Cattelan’s duct tape-meets-banana drama 

In 2019, it had been a while since the art world had given its community an electric shock. Just as the dust was settling (in retrospect, the calm before an earth-rattling storm), Maurizio Cattelan took the lull as an opportunity to strike. Created in an edition of three, his Comedian consisted of a fresh – if lightly bruised – solitary banana taped to Perrotin gallery’s booth wall with a piece of metallic duct tape. It was a minimal composition – which later inspired a series of T-shirts – using a classic comedy device to comment on global trade. Or maybe not; as Cattelan put it, ‘The banana is supposed to be a banana’. 

In another dramatic plot twist, Georgian performance artist David Datuna ate the piece, calling his post-sale intervention Hungry Artist. This was not the first time Cattelan had harnessed this lucrative combination of tape, walls and organic matter. Twenty years previously, the artist adhered his gallerist, Massimo de Carlo, to his gallery wall in Milan in a web of electrical tape. De Carlo, like the banana, found himself at the complete mercy of the artist in a piece that gave new meaning to the notion of ‘bonding’. 

Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist got a room, well 14 Rooms 

14 Rooms, to some extent, was what it said on the tin. For the live artwork, curatorial powerhouses Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist invited 14 international artists to each ‘activate’ a room, examining the relationship between space, time, and physicality. But, as one might imagine, there was a twist: each artwork’s ‘material’ was a human being. 

The piece sat somewhere between theatre, sculpture and museum exhibition. The commission was of unprecedented scale for an art fair, running the full duration of Art Basel. This edition of the piece, which first premiered at Manchester International Festival as 11 Rooms, featured works by Marina Abramović, Damien Hirst, Santiago Sierra, Xu Zhen, Ed Atkins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Otobong Nkanga, the latter three debuting new works. Each work took place within its own closed-off room, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron.

Art Basel braved a new virtual reality

Before 2020, the term ‘OVR’ might have sounded more like an obscure business acronym, or possibly an obsolete file format. But when Covid-19 struck, it became a lifeline for the globally art-deprived. OVRs (Online Viewing Rooms), came to the fore following the outbreak of Covid-19. In the year of its 50th anniversary, Art Basel had no option but to cancel the 2020 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. As the first major domino to fall, this sent shockwaves through the art world and left all subsequent in-person events in a frenzy of uncertainty. To keep the momentum alive, Art Basel recalibrated with the first digital-only edition. 

Kader Attia smashed up his Arab Spring installation

It was a 2011 press image of looted glass vitrines in Cairo's Egyptian Museum that inspired Kader Attia’s Arab Spring (2014). For the sculptural installation, staged at Art Basel Unlimited in 2015, Attia re-enacted the moment protesters entered the museum, destroyed its display cases, and robbed their contents during the Arab Revolutions of 2011-12. 

Attia wears a dark hoodie shielding his face as he pelts bricks to shatter the vitrines – a gritty performance, filled with revolt and anger. In Arab Spring, Attia explored the legacy of colonialism, specifically French colonialism, and the contradictory notion of how a country intent on reclaiming its future would destroy what was at last becoming theirs. Attia staged the performance at the preview of Art Basel, the shattered glass and red brick debris forming the final work.

INFORMATION

artbasel.com

In partnership with Switzerland 

From snow-capped mountains to turquoise glaciers and jewel-like lakes, it’s easy to be seduced by the spectacle that is Switzerland’s dazzling natural scenery. But as the saying goes: beauty is more than skin deep. And this adage certainly holds true for the small but perfectly formed country, where an art scene has formed to rival the major ‘conventional’ cultural capitals of the world, and where, as Switzerland Tourism proudly declares, it’s possible to have ‘breakfast in town, lunch at 3,000m above sea level, and visit an art exhibition in the evening’.

Here, we take a tour of an outstanding group of world-class art museums – collectively known as the Art Museums of Switzerland – that are raising the Alpine country’s cultural cachet.

Basel

Basel is a city passionately devoted to art, culture and architecture, packing some 40 museums and numerous buildings designed by star architects into its relatively compact footprint. One example is the Fondation Beyeler, a Renzo Piano creation whose permanent collection spans Josef Albers and Leonor Antunes to Rachel Whiteread and Jordan Wolfson.

Then there’s Mario Botta’s pink-sandstone building for the Museum Tinguely, an interdisciplinary art hub with a comprehensive exhibition programme and which also houses the world’s largest collection of its namesake, Swiss kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely.

Elsewhere at the three locations of Kunstmuseum Basel – which famously sparked a protest in the 1960s among Baseler youth who were emphatic on making a pair of Picassos a permanent acquisition – museum-goers can explore art from as early as the 15th century. 

Where to eat
At Zum Wilde Maa, everything from the furnishings to the regional ingredients and wine list is thoughtfully curated. zumwildemaa.ch

Where to stay
The rooms in the stylish hotel Teufelhof have been conceived as habitable works of art. The hotel boasts its own theatre, brewery, and well-stocked wine cellar.  

Geneva & Lake Geneva Region 

Scenic from every angle, Lake Geneva’s crescent-shaped shoreline – arcing on the Swiss side from Geneva through Lausanne and Montreaux – has become fertile ground for creatives. Situated in a former physics laboratory in Geneva’s Plainpalais neighbourhood, the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain (Mamco) offers a consistently thought-provoking view of art from the 1960s onwards.

On the north bank of Lake Geneva, meanwhile, the budding Plateforme 10 –  a 25,000 sq m arts district taking shape next to Lausanne’s central station – brings together three institutions: the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA), in a concrete monolith designed by Barcelona firm Barozzi Veiga; and the Photo Elysée and Musée Cantonal de Design et d'Arts Appliqués Contemporains (Mudac), both set to open in June 2022 in a new building by Portuguese architects Aires Mateus.

Where to eat
Chef Rafael Rodriguez pulls out all the stops to spoil patrons of the Auberge de l’Abbaye de Montheron, high above Lake Geneva. montheron.ch

Where to stay
In Maison d’Igor, a boutique hotel in Morges, Igor Stravinsky found the calm and inspiration he needed to create his key work The Rite of Spring. maison-igor.ch
Experience contemporary comforts in a superb Art Nouveau setting at the Grand Hôtel du Lac, on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Lugano

With its palm trees, cobblestone streets and Mediterranean climate, there’s little wonder that Lugano is known as Switzerland’s ‘Little Italy’. The largest city in the Italian-speaking Ticino region is also home to the Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana (MASI Lugano). Established in 2015, it offers a diverse programme over its two locations – the LAC cultural centre and the historic Palazzo Reali – with upcoming exhibitions including a retrospective of 19th-century Swiss photography.

Where to eat
Enjoy local culinary specialities such as Luganighe sausage with polenta at the rustic grotto of La Tinèra, in the heart of the city. tineralugano.business.site

Where to stay
The Gabbani family run not only a charming delicatessen in the heart of the old town, but also an ultra-modern boutique hotel a stone’s throw away. gabbani.com

Bern 

The de facto capital of Switzerland, Bern has several cultural claims to fame – among them, it is the site of the first building ever to be wrapped entirely by Christo, while the historic old town with its romantic arcades was deservedly made Switzerland’s first Unesco World Heritage site. And on the city edge in the Berner countryside, visitors can find the most extensive collection of work by Swiss-born German artist Paul Klee, whose fluid style is reflected in the undulating Renzo Piano-designed steel structure of Zentrum Paul Klee.

Where to eat
Promising a cosy atmosphere and boho-style interiors, Provisorium 46 is a gastronomy concept with inclusivity at its heart: it’s staffed by young people with and without disabilities.

Where to stay
The Hotel Innere Enge has its very own jazz room – is there a better way to end your day in Bern?

Zurich

Zurich is Switzerland’s other capital city – of design that is. Divided over two sites (Ausstellungsstrasse and Toni-Areal) as well as the Pavillon Le Corbusier, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich boasts a half million-strong collection focusing on the history of design, architecture and visual communication.

The Kunsthaus Zürich, meanwhile, not only houses one of the largest art collections in Switzerland – with works spanning from the 13th century to the present day – but it is also now the largest art museum in the country courtesy of a recently opened extension by David Chipperfield Architects.

Elsewhere, a short train ride from Zurich’s city centre to Winterthur, the Fotozentrum keeps the world in focus by way of two independent institutions: the Fotostiftung Schweiz (exploring a broad range of artistic and cultural forms of photography) and the Fotomuseum Winterthur (dedicated to the acquisition and preservation of photographic works).  

Where to eat
Zurich’s Kronenhalle is an institution beyond compare, where artists, actors, authors and musicians used to gather (and occasionally used to pay with artworks). The walls at this century-old restaurant are today adorned with works by Chagall, Matisse, Miró and Picasso, as well as letters from Dürrenmatt and Joyce.

Where to stay
The owner of five-star hotel The Dolder Grand has made part of his extensive private art collection open to the public in the hotel. Meanwhile, arty furniture and design-led interiors await guests at the Hotel Greulich in Zurich’s hip Langstrasse district.

Illustrator: Nina Fuga

Getting to Switzerland 

Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss) connects Switzerland to more than 100 destinations in over 50 countries worldwide. The airline – which runs one of the most carbon-efficient aircraft fleets in Europe – is part of the Lufthansa Group and a member of the Star Alliance.

Transport

Another of Switzerland’s crown jewels is its flawlessly integrated rail and public transport network – the most tightly knit in the world and providing sustainable travel options year-round. Travelling from city to city is a seamless experience with the Swiss Travel Pass (available for three, four, six, eight or 15 days). The all-in-one ticket offers non-residents the utmost flexibility and includes unlimited travel across Switzerland by public transport, including train, bus and boat.

Accommodation 

From Alpine chalets to luxury resorts, country inns to grand European hotels, Switzerland’s accommodation offerings are as diverse as its scenery. Looking for a boutique hotel by the lake with a solarium, or a retreat in the mountains with a Roman-Irish bath? Finding the perfect place to stay is simply a click away.

Take a video tour

INFORMATION

For more information, see Art Museums of Switzerland

The idea for an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois’ work curated by Jenny Holzer had been in process for some time before the puzzle pieces came together. But the Kunstmuseum Basel began to work in earnest with Holzer and the Eastern Foundation, Bourgeois’ estate, and at long last, this potent meeting of creative minds is a reality.

In ‘The Violence of Handwriting Across a Page’ Holzer curates selected excerpts of Bourgeois’ notes and writings alongside her artwork in a huge exhibition that spans sculpture, installation, works on paper and textile art. Tying these elements together captures the essence of Bourgeois as an artist, a person deep, forceful, outspoken and uncompromising.

‘I was invited to her house, and I had the luxury of spending an extended period of time with her, where I could look at, for example, a red wax ear of what appeared to be a demon sitting on the table beside us, and to have [an] extended, unselfconscious, absolutely sincere conversation about how to make the colour blue work,’ Holzer recalled of their first meeting.

Holzer, who knew the legendary late French artist when they both lived in New York, always held great respect for her work and achievements. Combining this with an intrinsic boldness and understanding of the impact of language, Holzer brought together the text selected for the exhibition alongside works created throughout Bourgeois’ prolific career. 

‘We went deep into the writing. She worked incessantly on her art, and wrote when she couldn't sleep, so we had a treasure trove,’ said Holzer, who brought in a team of readers to get as deep an understanding as possible of the artist’s notebooks.

Holzer’s clean, precise type only serves to emphasise the visceral fury, blood, sex and humour in Bourgeois’ words and works, in projections that cover the façades of three locations in the city at night – Kunstmuseum Basel, City Hall, and the Old University on the Rheinsprung. Inside the museum, the works tap into Bourgeois’ comfort with extreme thoughts and emotions. Her drawings and textile works bear phrases such as ‘The Rage to Know’ and ‘I am afraid therefore I live’. You can also experience these through an augmented reality app and Instagram filter. 

‘As they say in Brooklyn, she was not playing,’ said Holzer. ‘Although she did have a wonderful sense of humour [and] a sense of adventure, she was utterly serious, dead serious about what she attempted and she would try again, again and again, to get it right. Unlike many artists, she often did.’

In studying Bourgeois’ notes – a task Holzer says she could never have done while Bourgeois was alive – she was able to see where words and ideas translated into sculpture and drawing. Shown in Europe for the first time is the mechanised work Twosome, 1991, which links the old museum, the Hauptbau, to the contemporary wing, the Neubau via an underground passage. This takes you to four works by Bourgeois, in dialogue with the medieval to post-impressionist collection including pieces by Holbein and Cézanne. 

Holzer’s take on Borgouis is a celebration of this inimitable artist. From an air of levity as you hear her singing in the museum lifts and bathrooms to her unwavering fearlessness and ability to confront the most unruly facets of humanity, this work hits you with its complexity in a manner impossible to misinterpret. ‘She was enormously intelligent,’ said Holzer. ‘She was distressed, she was determined, she had incredible range, she was obsessive, she was furious, she would have a giggle from time to time and I will have to resort to the word infinite again. She was infinite.’

INFORMATION

Louise Bourgeois x Jenny Holzer: 'The Violence of Handwriting Across a Page', until 15 May 2022, Kunstmuseum Basel. kunstmuseumbasel.ch

There’s nothing new in a well-known brand using its resources to promote the arts, but few have undertaken that mission with as much dedication as La Prairie. The Swiss luxury skincare brand began its sponsorship of contemporary art at Art Basel and the West Bund Art & Design fairs in 2017. Since then it has funded projects at the Fondation Beyeler museum for modern and contemporary art in Switzerland, supported students at ECAL, and is now set to cement its place as a leading patron of contemporary art with its first appearance at Frieze London this October from 13-17 October.

La Prairie at Frieze London

La Prairie’s debut offering at Frieze London is Sense of Blue, a multisensory immersive installation that plunges the viewer into the depths of the night. The piece is by French digital artist Maotik, best known for using computer-generated algorithms to create reality-shifting environments.

Here, he deploys that same technique, although this time using motion sensors, low-frequency sounds, and shifting blue and black lights to simultaneously distort the viewer’s sense of space and heighten awareness of their immediate surroundings.

‘The idea was to travel through the night through this immersive environment,’ says Maotik, speaking from Sense of Blue’s debut at Art Basel this September. ‘To use these devices to create [the sensation] of travelling not from one distance to another distance, but travelling through time and to use light to change your perception of space.

‘At night, your vision is less clear. You see things with more difficulty, but it also opens up new perspectives; when you see less you maybe open your imagination a bit more.’

The Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil

Maotik’s installation was commissioned by La Prairie to celebrate the launch of its latest product, Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil. Skin Caviar is one of the brand’s most iconic collections, famed for harnessing the reparative powers of caviar and augmenting them with the use of La Prairie’s patented Exclusive Cellular Complex (a formulation so highly protected that its components are produced and blended in three separate labs to ensure the recipe remains a secret). The Nighttime Oil is unique within the Skin Caviar collection as it blends the line’s signature caviar formulation with a new ‘caviar retinol’. 

Speaking about the collection, La Prairie’s global director of strategic innovation, Dr Jacqueline Hill, says: ‘Caviar is, of course, a source of life, and because it’s an egg, it's a very rich source of nutrients. We've got quite a few different forms of caviar, and we've studied their benefits at different levels. What we've seen is that most of the forms of caviar that we've developed have an action on fibroblasts, which boost the formation of collagen.’

She continues, ‘Then what we've seen is that in different forms, the caviar can have different effects. So when we talk about caviar retinol, you get all the benefits of retinol, which are quite well known – it boosts epidermal renewal, and it also acts on collagen formation – together with the ingredients in the Skin Caviar.’

‘All the ingredients in the formula will help with three different things – improving the skin surface as far as deep lines; skin firmness, and there we got really great results; and increasing the barrier function, because your skin barrier gets less efficient at night naturally, but it gets even less efficient with age and we want to compensate for this.’ 

The product is packaged, like all other Skin Caviar creations, in the brand’s striking cobalt blue jars, which pay homage to the late French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who suggested that La Prairie use this distinctive colour. 

Art meets science

‘The link between the house and contemporary art has been there from the very beginning,’ says La Prairie’s global chief marketing officer Greg Prodromides. ‘That's why it feels like it is at the very core of who we are.’ He refers to the establishment of La Prairie clinic, in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1931, which went on to host artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and the fact that its founder Dr Paul Niehans was an art collector himself. 

‘There was always a kind of artistic effervescence in the clinic that actually continued to strengthen with the beginning of [the skincare line] in the 1980s with the encounter with Niki de Saint Phalle,’ Prodromides continues.

‘In recent years, we wanted to be a bit more vocal about this link and to share it with a larger audience. Hence, our decision to collaborate with Art Basel in all its editions, but also other contemporary art fairs.

‘When we choose an artist to work with [on these projects] we are always looking at a couple of things. First, artists with whom we share a common set of values; where we see that they will help us tell the story of the house but via their creative paradigm, via their eyes,’ says Prodromides.

‘And we always try to work with younger artists that are emerging, and often women artists since women are underrepresented in the world of contemporary art.

‘So for this project, we were looking for somebody who could really bring the values of Skin Caviar to life, which are the audacity behind Skin Caviar, the audacity of using [actual] caviar in skincare, and also this fusion of art and science. The choice of digital art became much more evident, for its audacious characteristics and because it was a form of art with which we could push the boundaries of what we’ve already done.’ 

Speaking about the connection between art and science further, Maotik says: ‘When it comes to artists and scientists, we do the same thing. Everything is a series of experimentations that eventually brings together a [beauty] product or an artwork.

‘We move ahead, sometimes into the unknown, developing new techniques. Our work is like that of scientists – we do a lot of tests, creating prototypes and guiding ourselves according to the results. We can come across unpleasant surprises, as well as stunning outcomes.’ 

In the case of the brand’s latest launch and its Frieze debut, from the 13-17 October, the results are certainly a ‘stunning outcome

Information

laprairie.com

Art Basel 2021 will take place in Messe Basel from 24 – 26 September. As is now the status quo for art fairs, the event will embrace a hybrid format, blending physical and digital offerings to engage with a broad international audience. Building on its history as a catalyst for radical contemporary art, this year promises a mix new commissions and iconic works. Also in Messe Basel, Design Miami/ Basel 2021, curated by Aric Chen, will stage its 15th edition. 

Marking Art Basel’s first physical fair since the pandemic began, the line-up will include 272 galleries from 33 countries and territories. We look ahead to highlights at Art Basel 2021.

Art Basel 2021: what to see at the fair 

Unlimited, Art Basel's platform for large-scale projects, is curated for the first time by Giovanni Carmine, director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen. It will feature 62 large-scale projects by renowned and emerging artists including Urs Fischer, Etel Adnan, Frank Bowling, Carrie Mae Weems, Marion Baruch, Elmgreen & Dragset and Ryoji Ikeda. 

UBS, Art Basel’s lead partner, will introduce the hybrid exhibition ‘Reimagining: A Better World’. A selection of works will be shown physically in the UBS Lounge, with a larger version available virtually. Artists such as Richard Mosse and Catherine Opie highlight the consequences of humanity’s exploitation of natural resources.

Rashid Johnson explores anxieties that result from racial discrimination, and compositions by Olafur Eliasson, Jeppe Hein and Tomás Saraceno reflect on the fragility of the physical world. 

Art Basel on the Messeplatz

This year, the Messeplatz – Art Basel’s outdoor incubator for radical art – will host two site-specific interventions selected by the fair's Unlimited and Parcours curators. Monster Chetwynd will develop a large-scale installation and performance, while Parcours curator Samuel Leuenberger will work with Cecilia Bengolea on a video installation and performance staged within the fountain of the Messeplatz.

Art Basel in the city

The 12th edition of Parcours will showcase 20 site-specific artworks across the city of Basel. Responding to the theme, ‘Can We Find Happiness Together Again?’, works include 12 large-scale paintings and performances by Claudia Comte at the Stadtcasino, and a public walk by Hamish Fulton titled ‘Walking in Every Direction’ on Basel's Marktplatz. 

Elsewhere, the city’s leading institutions will host major shows during the Art Basel festivities. At Fondation Beyeler, the group show ‘Close-up’ spotlights the work of key women artists from 1870 to the present day. Focusing on myriad depictions of the human figure, featured artists include Berthe Morisot, Cindy Sherman and Elizabeth Peyton.

Kunstmuseum Basel will show American artist Kara Walker’s long-awaited ‘A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be’. Presenting 600 drawings from her personal archive, alongside new works, Walker’s show brings themes of racism, gender, sexuality, and violence into sharp focus.

INFORMATION

Art Basel (in Basel), 24 September - Sun, 26 Sept 2021. artbasel.com

ADDRESS

Messepl. 10, 4005 Basel

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Renowned Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf has created a lush 4,000 sq m perennial garden for Vitra, bringing a touch of nature to the company's headquarters in the southern German town of Weil am Rhein. Its opening could not be more perfectly timed: having endured long stretches of domestic confinement in the past year, we now crave gardens, fresh air, and horizons afforded by wide open spaces. 

Vitra Campus: a haven of architecture and design in Weil am Rhein

The Vitra Campus is a stone’s throw from the Dreiländereck, where the borders of Germany, France and Switzerland meet. It’s a corner of Europe rich with art and design institutional muscle; Fondation Beyeler, the Museum Tinguely, and Art Basel, when in session, are all less than a 15-minute drive away. Buildings on the campus include a fire station by Zaha Hadid, a Jasper Morrison bus stop, a viewing tower with a slide by Carsten Höller, a petrol station designed by Jean Prouvé, a conference pavilion by Tadao Ando, a geodesic dome by Richard Buckminster Fuller, a small cabin designed by Renzo Piano, and more. VitraHaus – the flagship store that Oudolf’s garden surrounds – was designed and built by Herzog & de Meuron in 2010. The clean, exacting lines and modern fabrications of the architecture both contrast with and complement Oudolf’s landscaping – his complex planting techniques favour texture and structure over frothy blooms, creating year-round ambience so natural as to appear free of human intervention. 

‘As we do not intend to construct new buildings in the foreseeable future, it seemed that a garden would be an interesting expansion of the campus’ concept,’ says Rolf Fehlbaum, Vitra’s chairman emeritus. Fehlbaum had been impressed by Oudolf’s work for the 2010 Venice Biennale and the High Line in New York. ‘I found his approach fabulous, so when the theme of a garden on the Vitra Campus came up, I immediately thought of him.’ 

Integrating nature with architecture

Fehlbaum, who is no gardener and has no plans to become one, still extols the powerful ‘potential of integrating nature in the campus, helping Vitra to go further and develop the whole campus as a cohesive landscape’. He points out that landscaping has incrementally become part of Vitra’s HQ; first when Álvaro Siza designed the factory building and the adjoining parking lot, in 1994, and more importantly with the Álvaro Siza Promenade, in 2014.

Initially, the new garden was to be planted around the Frank Gehry-designed Vitra Design Museum, but Oudolf persuaded Fehlbaum, and his brother Raymond, a director at Vitra, that it would be more captivating set in front of the VitraHaus. ‘They had this place with fruit trees in the front of the restaurant, and I thought it would be great if people coming in and out could see something dynamic with plants and flowers,’ says Oudolf . ‘You immediately take the visitors in.’

Captivating the audience is always Oudolf’s starting point. A composer of sorts, he artfully crafts pathways through bushes of allium and echinacea, fluidly guiding visitors to experience and enjoy every inch of flora. ‘The idea is that people can wander there, sit and spend some time, and experience the plants from all sides. I think that is important, especially in public spaces. You can walk around and lose yourself a little bit, it’s not a straight path,’ he says. 

Piet Oudolf's garden design for Vitra

Oudolf’s planting feels characteristically accidental, but is incredibly precise and intentional. The Vitra Campus garden uses more than 30,000 plants with many species and this takes expert organisation: feathery Asclepias tuberosa; reddish Sporobolus heterolepis; giant daisy-like Echinacea pallida; raspberry-coloured brush heads of Sanguisorba menziesii; violet fuzzy baubles of Echinops ritro; candy floss clouds of Filipendula rubra. 

‘I use many design narratives and concepts in one garden. Part of this garden is wilder with more grasses that are dominant, and there’s an area where the plants are taller and more robust. Around the building we have a different concept, a “matrix” planting. There are many considered things you might not notice individually, but you can feel the ambience when you are in the garden,’ he says. 

When planning, Oudolf considers the calendar of the garden, creating points of interest that will flourish year round. ‘Gardens should be interesting all year long,’ he insists. ‘The plants that I choose in my designs often have another life after flowering. The colour is only there for a month or two.’ Part of Oudolf’s genius lies in his appreciation of the architecture and structure of plants beyond petals, the framework they provide to an outdoor space. 

He works by first of all sketching his designs on drafting paper, much like an architect, and will colour code the plants according to flowering schedule or their physical properties. Next, he draws a grid over the design, which will later be marked out on the ground using string, to create a guide that allows him to transfer the designs on paper to the soil, one square at a time. 

Needless to say, the planting of a garden as intricate as this during the pandemic was challenging. Although planning began in October 2019 (in preparation for the full bloom grand opening originally scheduled for summer 2020), Oudolf was constrained to his home in Hummelo, the Netherlands, for most of the duration of the preparation. The plants, in their thousands, were positioned in situ under Oudolf’s guidance via video calls. Although he has no employees, he works with a network of trusted individuals and organisations. A local planting team, led by the landscape architect Bettina Jaugstetter and supported by Jelle Bennema of Deltavormgroep, carefully executed his plans under his stewardship. 
 
In July 2020, while the regional lockdown was temporarily lifted, Oudolf was able to drive the seven hours south from his home to the Vitra site. He met Jaugstetter on site and they reviewed the planting, noting any inconsistencies. ‘Often there are varieties that get delivered incorrectly, misnamed by accident. If you buy or order from a grower, you have to account [for the fact] that they also buy from other growers,’ Oudolf explains, observing that every industry has its supply chain issues. ‘We made some adjustments and moved some plants around.

‘In the fall of 2020, we had to prepare a bulb plan for crocuses, snowdrops and narcissi, so in February 2021 there would be something in flower. Perennials that grow in full sun start [to bloom] in May and June, and the main flowering period is August and September. In November 2020, pruning and more planting prepared the garden for a snowy winter so that it could emerge in spring 2021 in good shape, along with the rest of us.’ 

The past year has sparked an exodus from many of the world’s major cities as residents pursue a newly discovered desire for more outside space. ‘You hear, in general, that people want more greenery, and cities are spending more money on gardens and so on, and that happens more and more. You see that people that stay at home are starting to garden more, and you realise that we need more of this in our lives,’ says Oudolf. ‘I like gardens to be for everyone. I hope what I do inspires people to start with plants, and also inspires them to see the power of plants. You can only do that by creating a design that has a layer over it you cannot define, the thing that makes the garden so good and makes you want to stay. That is what I try to emphasise, to create something that is more than just plants.’ 

INFORMATION

vitra.com
oudolf.com

ADDRESS

Vitra Campus
Charles-Eames-Straße 2
79576 Weil am Rhein
Germany

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

In Stefan von Bartha's childhood, everything was about art, and very little was conventional. The second-generation owner of von Bartha gallery first graced the booths of Art Basel as a one-month-old baby. He began attending studio visits with his parents aged six, skipping school with a range of ‘wild’ excuses for why school had been ‘cancelled’. ‘I was always more interested in spending time with people, experiencing art and going to shows,’ he says over Zoom from Basel.

He staged his first show at 16, exhibiting a collection of 420 robot and space toys at his parents’ Basel-based gallery. He sold every toy, except one. After stints in auction houses and a spell as a vintage design dealer, Stefan returned home to put his stamp on the von Bartha legacy. 

Founded as Galerie Minimax in 1970 by Stefan’s parents, Margareta and Miklos von Bartha, the gallery’s origins were rooted in graphic design, geometric abstraction, constructivism and concretist traditions. ‘My mother was always rather behind the scenes, doing everything organisational, and my father was the “public figure”. That’s why today you can still hear many people say: “Yes your father”, but it was always a team,’ Stefan reflects in a film created for the gallery’s 50th anniversary. 

When he took over gallery operations from his parents, Stefan sought to retain these building blocks, while carving a younger, ‘hipper’ and more international chapter for the gallery. 

It wasn’t without its challenges, the biggest of which was timing: Stefan took the reins in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis. ‘It was super difficult to start because I thought “I know it all, and I want to be totally different” – I think my ego was a little bit too big’, he reflects. ‘In 2008, it was not so much fun, but it really helped me to start the extension of the new space in the middle of a gigantic financial crisis. I think I did five shows in a row without selling a single artwork.’ 

He also realised that imposing building the gallery had occupied for 30 years might not have the edge to attract a contemporary crowd. A building on Kannenfeldplatz Stefan stumbled across by chance hit the spot: a former car repair garage with exterior petrol pump station still intact. 

As part of the gallery’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, von Bartha staged, ‘The Backward Glance can be a Glimpse into the Future’, with accompanying book, Est. 1970. Ambitious in scale and reflective in sentiment, the show was a cross-generation celebration of the gallery’s past and future, bringing together 44 modern and contemporary artists including László Moholy-Nagy, Karim Noureldin and Claudia Wieser. ‘Turning 50 is something we’ve been mentally preparing for for a couple of years,’ says Stefan. ‘I’m very scared of turning 50 myself, and if I’ve already made such a drama for the gallery’s anniversary, I think it’s going to be even worse for me personally.’

Despite his itch to push things forward, Stefan has trodden in a few of his parents’ footsteps, namely keeping the gallery within earshot of home. ‘In 2008 I thought, I will definitely not end up like my parents living in the same space as the gallery’. But five years ago, he succumbed, moving into a loft apartment above the gallery where he live with his wife, Hester Koper, who works as von Bartha's editorial and digital marketing manager.

If there were two words to summarise the art collection in Stefan von Bartha’s apartment, they might be eclectic and extensive. ‘I don’t want to brag, but I have a lot of artworks,’ Stefan quips. It seems there is one recurring theme: each piece has had an intriguing, sometimes agonising route to ownership.

The first story begins with the apartment itself. During a discussion with architect Lukas Voellmy – who, with his office LUVO Architects was enlisted to reimagine the space six years ago – a piece of art sprang abruptly into Stefan’s mind: Sarah Oppenheimer’s eye-bending P- 21. He called the artist and she agreed to sell the towering wooden structure. The catch? The piece had very specific dimensions which the architectural plans didn’t cater for. The solution? Redesign the space to fit the art. ‘It was such a pain in the neck to get it installed but it’s now one of the highlights. It has this crazy illusion and effect of space.’ 

One piece dense with sentimental value is Signe Croix Multiple by Aurélie Nemours, the late French artist and ‘grande dame of Minimalism’. Stefan recalls visiting her Paris studio with his father aged eleven. ‘I was just looking around and found a painting hidden behind a table and took it out – rude as I am. She was very upset, [and said] “don’t touch things”’. A year later, Stefan received the painting as a gift from his father, and it’s one he will never sell. ‘For someone that doesn’t like minimal art it’s the most boring thing in the universe, and I just thought it was a really cool painting.’ 

An eleven-part installation by Landon Metz required exchanging an Imi Knoebel painting with the artist. Another work, Union IV, this time by Knoebel, took two days of negotiations with, and ‘getting on the nerves of’ the artist’s wife before she finally agreed to sell. ‘I think it’s going to be an all-time classic; red, blue and yellow is sometimes very boring but it will always come back,’ says von Bartha. 

The work of Imi Knoebel is not just a source of admiration for Stefan but has played a key role in von Bartha’s evolution. The gallery recently opened ‘Centrum’ a solo show by the artist which includes a new series of five large-scale, monochrome paintings. The exhibition (which has been staged alongside a concurrent show by Bernar Venet) has been a source of much excitement and anticipation for Stefan. ‘I’ve been looking at the sketches for these new paintings since 2012. When they finally arrived at the gallery, I was like a kid at Christmas.’

For Stefan, part of propelling the gallery into the next generation is widening its appeal to a ‘younger crowd’. ‘It would be a pity to work your arse off and only sell [art] to ten or 20 people,’ he says. Tied to the 50th-anniversary festivities, the gallery also produced three artist editions by Andrew Bick, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon and Beat Zoderer. Each is priced between a more approachable 700-1000 CHF, with 100 per cent of proceeds benefiting the Foundation for Artists in Need, an initiative conceived by Basler Kunstverein.

Stefan’s vision for von Bartha is a space for dialogue; and one which values art on its critical and cultural importance, and not how rapidly it gets snapped up. ‘If someone comes to the gallery and looks at the Imi Knoebel show tells me they think it’s total crap, I think fair enough, but we can talk about it,’ he says. 

After 50 years, von Bartha is transitioning from the founding generation to the next, but even in this new age, it still feels like a family affair, and one anchored in, as Stefan concludes, ‘a huge amount of personal decisions.’

Von Bartha’s 50th anniversary film 

INFORMATION

Imi Knoebel: ‘CENTRUM’ and Bernar Venet: ‘TRAJECTORY’, until 20 February 2021, von Bartha. vonbartha.com

ADDRESS

von Bartha
Kannenfeldpl. 6
4056 Basel

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Born in Rochester, New York to a mother who worked at Kodak, and a father who was the designated family photographer, Deana Lawson has long engaged with the medium of photography, with the family album format informing her aesthetic approach. The family photo album also serves as a metaphor for unity in the lives of the Black diaspora who are scattered across the world due to migration as a result of invasion, conquest, colonisation and immigration. In a recent interview with PARIS LA, Lawson describes this influence by stating: ‘One of my first visual influences was the idea of a family album. In my portrait work, I am creating more formal images, a theatre of the family snapshot.'

In centring on the nuances of Black lives in the USA and extending across the diaspora to countries such as Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Jamaica, Lawson highlights those who have been overlooked by the art historical canon and portrays Black individuals as celebratory, king and queen-like figures. She also presents personal and powerful portraits in domestic and outdoor scenes including kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, and in nature. Worn furniture, lived-in couches, rugs and unmade beds lend themselves particularly well as props in intimate compositions that give insight into the rarely depicted everyday lives of those she photographs. The majestic and elaborate qualities of Lawson’s images seem to take James Baldwin’s call for Black excellence when he stated: ‘Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.’ 

In Lawson's solo exhibition ‘Centropy’, on view at Kunsthalle Basel and co-produced with the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo as part of the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, Lawson presents recent and new large-format photographs, moving images and holograms, one of which is titled Boom Box Hologram (working title), 2020 and is an homage to the iconic boombox. Axis, 2018 stands out for its stunning depiction of Black femininity. Three nude women of different shades of brown press up closely against each other as if conjoined. Each has one leg outstretched in a synchronised pose framed by a boldly patterned kitschy carpet. Chief, 2019, as the title suggests, alludes to a leader or ruler of a clan reinterpreted through a contemporary lens and sees a male sitter adorned in gold jewellery and a crown. Both of these works and others on view command the gaze of the viewer in a direct manner, a hallmark of Lawson’s portraits.

This exhibition continues Lawson's investigations into non-stereotypical representations of Blackness at a time of global racial reckoning, when renewal and optimism are needed now more than ever. ‘Centropy’ brings together nuances of Black identity across the diaspora showing shared and universal aesthetics that uplift individuals beyond the constraints of their everyday lives. It calls attention to a group that refuses to be overlooked any longer. 

INFORMATION

‘Centropy’, until 11 October, Kunsthalle Basel. kunsthallebasel.ch

There’s much talk in the art world about the untapped potential of virtual gallery viewings, online curator’s tours and digitally driven sales, and, propelled by world events, Art Basel Hong Kong is putting them to test.

This year’s edition, from 20-25 March is an online-only event, with 234 galleries from 31 countries displaying works through virtual viewing rooms.   

More than 90 per cent of exhibitors from the cancelled Hong Kong fair decided to take part in this experimental iteration, and since more than half of these have exhibition spaces in Asia, art from the region was an obvious highlight.  

Lisson Gallery collaborated with Antenna Space from Shanghai, Beijing’s Boers-Li Gallery, Singapore’s STPI and Taipei’s Tina Keng Galleries and TKG+ to provide a VIP virtual walkthrough of their booths. Each gallery gave a ten-minute presentation to an online audience of hundreds, providing descriptions of its artists and insights into their methods. Up to ten works can be displayed per booth and unlike a real-time fair, these come with a title and a price tag. 

Technical hitches aside (and there were a few), David Tung, Director of Lisson Gallery Shanghai who master-planned the virtual walkthrough, reveals other challenges; ‘You lose texture and feeling online, so we selected works differently to try and replicate this.’ Among Lisson’s heavy-hitting pick were Julian Opie, Ai Weiwei, Cory Arcangel and Carmen Herrera, whose Camino Negro sold at the preview for 850,000 USD. Lisson’s Alex Logsdail explains, ‘While a viewing platform is not a substitute for the pace and interaction of a fair, business is still active and we have made sales in parallel to the fair this week.’

STPI director Rita Targui adds: ‘the online format provides an opportunity to be nimble. We can change works round with ease.’ Each day, two different artists are exhibited at its booth, accompanied by images of the works in progress, (adding narrative that might well be lost in the traditional fair setting). All the works on show have been made in STPI’s on-site paper mill. First up were Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi and his Autumn Trees series and paper pulp pieces by British artist Jason Martin, while additional exhibitors include South Korean artists Do Ho Suh and Haegue Yang who incorporated ground spices purchased in Singapore markets into her canvases. 

Opie’s distinctive, reductive language may work well online, but other artists translate with less success; viewing Antony Gormley's Breathing Room II, an environment that uses phosphorous to conjure architecture as if from the air through Galeria Continua’s portal, or seeing James Turrell’s new circular glass work at OMR’s online gallery, leaves you feeling underwhelmed. You just wish you could be there.

Perhaps inadvertently, Heemin Chung, on show at P21 Gallery, sums up the reality of this year’s Art Basel. The Seoul-based artist explores the lack of tactile sensations – and our desire for them – in a modern world that is filled with virtual images. She strives to capture those senses that are overstimulated or deficient in the digital realm and portray them on canvas; direct touch, not digital media, provide true reality.  

But who gets to touch big-ticket artworks anyway? Collectors often know what they want without having to see it at a fair, and a time when we need to reduce our carbon footprint, Art Basel’s virtual version may just be a trailblazer.

INFORMATION

Art Basel Online Viewing Rooms, 20-25 March. artbasel.com

Those working in the business of residential interior design often feel frustrated that while there is plenty of compelling and serious conversation around the topic of housing, the design of the domestic interior is increasingly trivialised.

Hoping to redress the balance, ‘Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors’ is a new major exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein that celebrates the power of the interior. The show highlights how in the past century, the Western domestic interior has come to reflect some of the most pressing issues of our time.

To tackle this vast and ambitious subject, curators Jochen Eisenbrand and Anna-Mea Hoffmann selected 20 game-changing interiors from the past 100 years to guide the show’s narrative. References to superficial trends or styles are avoided and the focus is placed firmly on ideas.

‘There was the question of how to show interior design in the exhibition,' recalls Eisenbrand. ‘We decided not to try to recreate any interiors because we think that this never really works in a museum context. You don’t have daylight, you don’t have a sequence of spaces, and in the end it always seems a bit dead and dusty.'

Set Design

The exhibition is filled with drawings, documents, films, photographs, furniture and models laid out across an understated set design by Joseph Grima’s studio Space Caviar. Intended to function as a simple but elegant backdrop to the complex and layered issues presented, the display stands are made from a system of modular cork bricks topped with mirrored surfaces. Grima says the system can be endlessly reconfigured as the exhibition travels to different locations, and beyond that, can be repurposed as building materials.

Laid out in reverse chronological order and split into four sections, the exhibition takes visitors backwards through time from the present day to the 1920s.

‘The reason for going back in time is to show that present day is not necessarily better than 100 years ago,' explains Hoffmann. ‘Although I hope we have learnt from our mistakes, this layout demonstrates that there is never a linear history.’

Space Economy and Atmosphere: 2000 – Today

In this section, issues of dwindling urban space and the impact of social media are explored through projects such as an apartment designed by architecture studio Elii where furnishings fold out of walls. A slide show of images selected by Jasper Morrison serve as a visual essay that meditate on the question of what makes a ‘good interior'. ‘I have an idea of what makes a “good object” but making a good room is more complex,’ says Morrison. ‘Exceptional interiors are much rarer than exceptional objects, and few people have the skill necessary to create them.’

Rethinking the Interior: 1960 – 1980

Along with the radical new design approaches that came with movements such as Memphis, in section Rethinking the Interior: 1960 – 1980, we witness how society’s perception of furniture shifted – from heirlooms to be treasured and passed down through generations to consumer products that could be disposed of as fashion changes.

Nature and Technology: 1940 – 1960

This area highlights how homely Scandinavian interiors, such as those seen in the home of architect Finn Juhl, became increasingly influential and architects such as Lina Bo Bardi started to blur the boundaries between indoors and out.

The Birth of the Modern Interior: 1920 – 1940

In this final section, we see the emergence of concepts, such as the open-plan interiors championed by Mies van der Rohe, that still dominate today. Exhibits include a reconstruction of the world’s first fitted kitchen designed by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926. Schütte-Lihotzky wanted the Frankfurt Kitchen to make modern life more streamlined and ultimately reduce the burden of women’s labour in the home.

The Frankfurt kitchen is one of three life-size installations dotted throughout the show – the other two include George Candilis’ clinical Hexacube micro-house from 1972, which is placed outside the museum entrance, and Verner Panton’s upholstered Phantasy Landscape room, which visitors are free to explore in Zaha Hadid’s nearby Fire Station building.

‘I want visitors to see how diverse the discipline is, how many changes there have been throughout history and how design not only reflects us as individuals but society as a whole,' reflects Hoffmann. ‘Some of the projects showcased could be seen as failed visions. We didn’t want to only showcase interiors that worked out perfectly because design is about failure and innovation.'

INFORMATION

‘Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors,’ Vitra Design Museum, until 23 August.

design-museum.de

ADDRESS

Vitra Design Museum
Charles-Eames-Straße 2
79576Weil am Rhein
Germany

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It was the duct-taped banana that launched a thousand memes. Galerie Perrotin could have hardly anticipated the furor that would erupt over the course of four days at Art Basel Miami Beach last month, sparked by the debut of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s first new ‘sculpture’ at a fair in more than 15 years.

The seemingly innocuous artwork – titled Comedian – barely caused a stir among collectors who descended on the Miami Beach Convention Center during preview day. After all, this was a clique hardened to the most outré of artist stunts (Banksy’s shredded painting, anyone?) Local media, however, soon picked up that a humble banana was being hawked for $120,000, in an edition of three no less.

Everyone had an opinion. Team Wallpaper* encountered bootleg versions of the banana at every turn, from satellite art fairs to the street. Artnet published six stories about the banana (and then another rounding up said coverage). It was the most-talked about artwork at Miami and arguably of 2019, eventually spawning its own Instagram account.

By Friday, fairgoers were queuing to get a selfie with the now-infamous perishable fruit. On Saturday, New York-based artist David Datuna helped himself to the banana, peeling it off the wall and devouring it in seconds. (The gallery swiftly manned the replacement work with a burly security guard.) Come Sunday morning, Comedian had been removed entirely with Perrotin citing safety concerns in a statement. #Bananagate had run its course – or so we thought.

Perrotin today announced it is harnessing the viral sensation for a worthy cause, teaming up with Cattelan to release Comedian t-shirts at the gallery’s New York bookstore on the Lower East Side. Profits from each sale will benefit Feeding South Florida, a hunger-relief organisation serving Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. ‘Feeding South Florida is a small, but mighty organisation that fights hunger all across South Florida. For every $1 donated, the organisation provides 7 meals. I am proud to partner with them and I hope you will join me in supporting this worthy cause,’ says gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin.

Available from 25 January and priced at $25 each, the t-shirts are also available for pre-order via Perrotin’s online store, to be shipped from the gallery’s Paris location. It’s 2020, and we’re still talking about Cattelan’s Comedian. Bananas.

INFORMATION

perrotin.com; feedingsouthflorida.org

ADDRESS

Perrotin
130 Orchard Street
New York

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

When Mera and Don Rubell began collecting in 1964, they diligently assigned a budget of $25 (a quarter of Mera’s teaching salary) each week to art. Five decades on, the genial couple have amassed an enviable collection of 7,200 works by more than one thousand artists – and counting. Together with their son Jason, the family recently opened the doors to their collection’s new home in Miami’s emerging Allapattah neighbourhood, enlisting Selldorf Architects to reimagine a disused rice storage complex as the newly minted Rubell Museum (previously known as the Rubell Family Collection).

The New York-based architecture firm gutted and transformed six warehouse units into a cohesive 100,000 sq ft campus – tripling the exhibition capacity of the collection’s previous space, a two-storey former Drug Enforcement Agency building less than a mile away in the city’s Wynwood district. The Rubell Museum now unfolds across a single level, comprising 40 galleries, a flexible events and performance space, a richly stocked research library, a bookstore, an outdoor bar and new restaurant LEKU, serving Basque cuisine.

Inside the museum, Annabelle Selldorf – the go-to architect for blue-chip galleries including David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth – has largely hewed to the building’s industrial origins. The structure’s factory bones are palpable in the expansive ceilings and concrete columns, tempered by a museum-quality finish of white walls and refinished concrete floors. Hurricane-safe windows have been strategically placed in the warehouse structure to allow Miami’s abundant daylight to filter into the space, while an internal street branches off into the galleries to the west, and leads to administrative spaces to the east.

Selldorf addressed the needs of the collection with scaling galleries, to accommodate monumental works from Sterling Ruby, Keith Haring, Kehinde Wiley and more, through to installations, such as Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms, and more modestly sized pieces. At the heart of the site – where the loading dock was once located – is a leafy courtyard garden designed by La Casona Garden in collaboration with Juan Roselione-Valadez. The garden was conceived as a ‘restoration project’ using rare plants native to the Everglades and the Florida Keys.

The Rubells were instrumental in luring Art Basel to Miami Beach 18 years ago, so it’s only fitting that the influential collectors timed the opening of their new museum on 4 December during Miami Art Week. They’re in good company too: fellow Miami art power player, the philanthropist and magnate Jorge M Pérez, similarly opened his own private museum, El Espacio 23, several blocks directly west, in Allapattah. As development hots up in this swiftly changing area, we’ll be on neighbourhood watch.

INFORMATION

selldorf.com; rfc.museum

NetJets has been whisking its globetrotting clients to far-flung destinations for more than five decades. Tasked with the commission for the private aviation company’s VIP lounge at Art Basel this year, however, American painter, sculptor and photographer Matthew Day Jackson embarked on a mission to transport fairgoers even further, with a suite of paintings and new iterations of his furniture collection for Finnish design house Made By Choice, inspired by images of the moon.

Jackson was drawn to photographs by astronauts looking out into space, with one particular cataclysmic event igniting the line of inquiry that would result in his Solipsist series of paintings. ‘It started with the first Gulf War, when the Iraqi Army was retreating and lit the oil fields on fire – you could see the trails of black smoke from space,’ explains the artist. ‘It made me think about how I could locate the event within our history. I knew that human beings had created this smoke, but you couldn't see the human beings.’

His Solipsist paintings of silkscreened Formica landscapes, with satellites cast in poured lead form a constellation of manmade ‘scars’ around the lounge. Each one depicts landscapes that are disappearing or transforming as a result of climate change – a particularly prevalent topic at this year’s fair. Upon closer inspection, the four elements become apparent: land left barren by mining activity (earth), the polluted Ganges (water),  forests engulfed in smoke plumes (air), and the volcanic Yellowstone Caldera (fire).

The NetJets installation also features Jackson’s ‘Kolho’ furniture collection of chairs, benches and tables (first launched during Salone del Mobile in April), reimagined in bright new colourways and, in some instances, with a groovy tie-dye twist. ‘There’s a connection to the end of the summer of love, this idea that tie-dye is a symbol of freedom and abstract expressionism,’ he explains.

Made with a custom Formica laminate based on aerial views of the far side of the moon, the furniture collection shares a common thread with his paintings. ‘The serpentine form [of the chair legs] represents chaos, and the surface represents reason,’ says Jackson, the tension between opposing forces ever underlying – decay quietly brewing behind a beautiful façade.

NetJets marks its 18th year as associate partner of Art Basel, and has previously collaborated with the likes of Snarkitecture, Oli-B, Timorous Beasties, and Rebecca Louise Law for projects during the fair.

INFORMATION

netjets.com; artbasel.com; hauserwirth.com

China is now the world’s second biggest art market, having overtaken the UK, according to a recently published report commissioned by Art Basel and UBS. The US remains the largest, with 42 per cent of the market, while China enjoys a 21 per cent share, a significant increase on the nine per cent it had in 2008. On the one hand, Shanghai’s rapidly evolving art scene is attracting huge interest globally; on the other, Beijing has long been the heart of Chinese culture and a beacon of contemporary Chinese art.

Kylie Ying, co-founder of two of the country’s headline art fairs – Jingart in Beijing and ART021 in Shanghai – opines the capital is only gaining cultural cachet. ‘Most of the local galleries were founded and established in Beijing. Many Chinese artists are based in the capital, and the city is very strong both in ancient and contemporary art,’ she says. ‘A city with such a profound cultural heritage should have a high-level art fair.’

Jingart (30 May – 2 June) wrapped up its second edition earlier this month in Beijing, having brought together 41 leading international and Chinese galleries at the historic Sino-Soviet style Beijing Exhibition Center, with a genre-spanning showcase of art and design, furniture, fine jewellery and decorative arts. Jingart co-founder Bao Yifeng notes that galleries are tapping into China’s flourishing art market, opening new premises across the country with artists from both home and abroad represented, but ‘gallerists are particularly curious about the Beijing market and want to try this old-new capital’.

Local galleries staged some of their best exhibitions of the year to coincide with the fair: Beijing Commune hosted a solo presentation at Jingart for the Beijing-born Ma Qiusha, who investigates feminism in her work and is one of the nominees for the Porsche ‘Young Chinese Artist of the Year’ award. At its space in the city’s 798 Art Zone, Zhou Yilun from Hangzhou had his second exhibition with the gallery, titled ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’, which reworks commercial items to find new life in ‘the superfluous’.

‘Beijing is the heart of the local art scene while Shanghai is developing into a new international hub for contemporary art, which is also highly market-oriented’, says gallery director Lu Jingjing. Mengmeng Li, of HdM Gallery adds: ‘Shanghai is showing rapid transition from a collectors’ market to a consumers’ market and people are more open to young artists and more fashionable expressions. Beijing leans towards works that are bigger and weightier – works that shows traditional values and with precise context, purpose and meaning.’

‘The Window Blind’ was Shanghai-born Hu Weiyi’s first collaboration with the HdM and his second solo exhibition in the city after his show at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA). Hu delves into the complicated relationship between the natural and manufactured world through photography, videography and installations. At Hive Center for Contemporary Art was Shanghainese LI Wenguang‘s ‘Science Fiction’, whose practice focuses on pseudoscience and the subconscious. Curatorial director Jian Yang believes that the differences in culture and mentality between Beijing and Shanghai are ‘essential and healthy’ for China’s future artistic development. 

Beijing is also the country’s major auction centres, and where investment is rocketing. Auction house China Guardian holds fifth place in worldwide rankings  with sales of $873 million – 84 per cent of which stemmed from the capital. Strategically positioned at the edge of the Forbidden City, and designed by Ole Scheeren, the Guardian Art Center is seen as a contemporary response to China’s cultural history. With its striking architecture, healthy arts programme and lifestyle outlets, it has been in the spotlight since its opening in early 2018.

The greatest players in the global art world are drawn to Beijing by its frequent collaborations with prestigious institutions. UCCA, which has been fronting the China-international modern art dialogue since 2007, has just opened the first exhibition of Picasso in the country in collaboration with Musée National Picasso-Paris. In 2017, the centre underwent a renovation masterminded by Dutch architects OMA.

M Woods, one of the youngest private museums in China, established in 2014 within a repurposed former munitions factory, will present a David Hockney exhibition this year in partnership with the Tate, and has also just announced an imminent venue in the Longfusi area – the historical and cultural nucleus of the capital – with an ambition to form a new cultural hub in the old city together with the Forbidden City, the National Art Museum of China and the People’s Art Theater. ‘Together, the two venues with their different specialities and features will further enrich the Beijing art scene, which is what the city needs urgently,’ says M Woods co-founder Michael Xufu Huang.

There’s long been debate about whether winemaking is an art or a science. For Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, who recently unveiled six photographic works in collaboration with champagne house Ruinart, there’s undeniably a great deal of creativity involved in creating fine wine. ‘Winemaking is a very complex thing. It requires a lot of knowledge, and somebody like Frederic Panaïotis [cellar master at Ruinart], is very creative,’ says Muniz. ‘It’s just as experimental as what I do as an artist.’

After gathering inspiration during an art residency on a vineyard belonging to Ruinart, Muniz has revealed his body of work, Shared Roots. Stemming from the French house’s bucolic surroundings, Muniz’s works explore the human and nature relationship between the winegrowers and vineyards as well as the terroir. ‘These are all connected. Everything comes from the ground, and everything comes from the soil,’ says Muniz.

On display until the end of March in Ruinart’s gallery, which is housed in one of its cellars in Champagne, Shared Roots will travel to over 30 art fairs including Frieze and Art Basel before returning to the Maison. Ruinart has worked with artists since 1896, including Piet Hein Eek, Liu Bolin and Maarten Baas. For the champagne brand, Muniz was an obvious next choice. ‘He is a Francophile: he speaks French, he is an epicurean, he loves food. He’s [also] an extremely lively, entertaining Brazilian, and we thought he is the best ambassador we could have,’ says Ruinart president Frédéric Dufour.

 

The theme Muniz chose for this project is one he’s been toying with for a while – even before the residency was offered to him. ‘I wanted to work with the idea of tree morphology. When I met Frédéric Panaïotis, he knew all about it. He can tell [so much about] leaves just by looking at them,’ says Muniz, who was deeply inspired by Panaïotis’ wealth of knowledge. In the six photographic prints, Muniz captures the vines through the use of natural elements like charcoal, leaves and blackened wood.

Trees are something Muniz has wanted to use as a subject, but never had the opportunity to. Until he had access to the Sillery vineyard on the Montagne de Reims. It was through the landscape and his discussions with Panaïotis – who offers a contrasting and unique skill set – that Muniz unlocked a certain creativity. ‘I’m very curious about working with people who are very passionate about what they do, and who work in something completely different to me. I have worked with scientists, poets, writers, perfume makers. I think this contrast creates a lot of knowledge.’ §

INFORMATION
ruinart.com; vikmuniz.net

For 17 years running, Netjets has partnered with Art Basel to welcome fair visitors with a dedicated lounge space, a celebration of the private aviation company’s commitment to art and design. It has traditionally commissioned artists to create site-specific works for its spaces – and this year was no exception as it called upon painter and street artist Oli-B to create a work inspired by air travel.

The Belgian artist’s signature style features graphic compositions of bold colours created through a variety of media, from spray paint to digital and screen-printing techniques. His works to date have included commissions for public spaces, sculptures and products.

For Art Basel this year, Netjets tasked Oli-B with illustrating the experience of traveling on one of its aircrafts. The artist created a large triptych of paintings – hung at the lounge’s entrance – and a series of smaller figures that adorn a corner of the space.

Oli-B’s installation may seem entirely abstract at first sight, but the artist has incorporated recognisable elements among the colourful shapes, such as a cockpit, or the nose and of airplane – but most of the sinuous forms are open to interpretations.

There is no right or wrong here: Oli-B keeps this visual playground free of boundaries to let viewers imagine their journey through the images. Some visitors may see outlines of countries and geographic morphology; others might find stylised birds and clouds.

‘It’s a call to a dreamy journey,’ explains the artist. ‘When you fly, you can also dream, and to capture this quality I took inspiration from the design of a plane in the sky and the evasion of reality. The painting will invite visitors to travel in it, and bring them good feelings, serenity and positive energy.’

INFORMATION

Art Basel 2018 runs 14-17 June. For more information, visit the Net Jets website and the Art Basel website

ADDRESS

Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10
4005 Basel

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Design Miami/ Basel returned to the Herzog & de Meuron-designed fairgrounds for its 13th edition, presenting its traditional mix of new creative projects, iconic designs from the past and conceptual interpretations of the genre. With 43 international galleries presenting work from names of modern and contemporary design, as well as ten special Curio presentations and more large-scale installations, this edition once again offered a magnificent celebration of culture and commerce. Here are our highlights.

(Con)temporary Home by ETEL

This year’s Collectors Lounge is created by Brazilian brand ETEL and designed by Italian architecture firm Superluna. The space is designed to feel like a domestic environment, encased in a steel frame which gently separates the lounge area from the bustling fair. Inside, contemporary and historical Brazilian design pieces are arranged in conversation with photographs by Ruy Teixeira, which complete the space. Among the iconic furniture offering guests a place to relax and enjoy a glass of champagne is a notable selection of pieces by Jorge Zalszupin, a special tribute to the Brazilian master’s 96th birthday.

Watercolour Collection by Nendo, presented by Friedman Benda

New York gallery Friedman Benda presents a new body of work from the Tokyo-based Nendo, a collection created to impress the illusion of watercolour paintings on paper. The 18 pieces are made of folded sheets of metal finished with a technique that makes them appear like pieces of paper, then painted by hand to mimic a light blue watercolour effect. The pieces suggest traditional furniture shapes, reimaged by the design studio in slightly abstract compositions. The paint interacting with the forms creates a poetic illusory effect. www.friedmanbenda.com

Anne Holtrop for Maniera

Belgian gallery Maniera has been working closely with international architects, commissioning furniture that brings their signature aesthetic to a small scale. At Design Miami/ Basel, the gallery will present new work by Dutch architect Anne Holtrop, including furniture, lighting and accessories that form micro-architectures based on the Holtrop’s shape and material sensibility. www.maniera.be

Design at Large, curated by François Halard

For 2018, Design Miami/ Basel’s annual Design at Large initiative was entrusted to photographer François Halard, who is exploring the lasting impact of good design on our lives and on the world around us with a series of nine diverse projects from the 20th and 21st century. The display includes iconic elements of Jean Prouvè’s architecture (pictured), Gaetano Pesce’s interiors for the Dujardin children’s store in Knokke-Le-Zoute on the Belgian coastline and a micro-architecture by RDAI, amongst others. ‘I am looking at how the past has influenced the now and how the now may influence the tomorrow, it is all linked,’ says Halard. ‘Ideas are the bedrock of art and design; will and craft makes them physical, and time is the mediator. In some of these projects we can see concepts that have defined the last 50 years of art and design as well as in other ways we may see the seeds of the cities of tomorrow, and yet only time will tell.’ www.designmiami.com/design-at-large

‘A New Layer Taiwan’, presented by Spazio Nobile Gallery

An initiative by the National Taiwanese Craft Research and Development Institute, in collaboration with Belgian gallery Spazio Nobile, ‘A New Layer Taiwan’ is an ongoing project fostering creative relations between Taiwanese craftsmen and international designers. Curator Lise Coirier enlisted seven designers and invited them to Taiwan to collaborate with local craftsmen and workshops. The results include ceramic pieces by Anton Alvarez and BCXSY, bamboo furniture by Sebastian Herkner (pictured) and Jin Kuramoto, and lacquer objects by Julie Richoz and a lacquered clay table Wonmin Park. www.spazionobile.com

Blue and White, by Olivier van Herpt, for VIVID

Eindhoven graduate Olivier Van Herpt developed a unique ceramic 3D printing technique that created a new distinctive aesthetic for the material. The latest in his ongoing series of experiments is a set inspired by the Delft tradition of blue porcelain, initially started as a commission by the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag to complete the pedestal of a 17th-century tulip pyramid. The blue pattern, explains Van Herpt, is the translation of human interaction with the machine. Cobalt pigment is applied by hand on the clay before it’s inserted in the extruder; the pattern is then reconstructed by the 3D printer, resulting in a radial gradient that, as all of the designer’s pieces, celebrates cooperation between man and machine. www.oliviervanherpt.com

Limited edition Feltri, by Gaetano Pesce, for Cassina, with vintage quilts selected by Raf Simons, for Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein makes its debut at Design Miami/ Basel with an installation celebrating Italian designer Gaetano Pesce’s work. The designer’s Feltri chair, designed in 1987 for Cassina, is presented in an environment inspired by an authentic barn, and reinterpreted by creative director Raf Simons using one-of-a-kind American heirloom quilts from the 19th and 20th centuries. The installation features 100 limited edition numbered chairs. www.calvinklein.com

'Origins: Design from the Ancient World', presented by Galerie Chenel and Oscar Humphries

After last year’s successful Curio installation, where he reproduced a Turin auditorium designed by Carlo Mollino, Oscar Humphries returns to Design Miami/ Basel with yet another Italian marvel. In collaboration with Paris’ Galerie Chenel, the Australian curator presents the first ever display of Roman design seen at a design fair. The collection focuses on Greco-Roman artefacts, design and architectural elements from 200 BC to approximately 200 AD, including columns, capitals, urns, and fragmentary sections from interiors and furniture. The magnificent display is set to gain a deeper meaning amidst the modern and contemporary design booths, showing how the impact of Roman styles can be found in many genres, from Art Deco to Memphis shapes. The project, its curators explain, ‘was conceived to bring this material to a new audience and to give it a new context that demonstrates the fundamental synergy of great design from any period, as well as its profound differences.’ www.galeriechenel.com.

INFORMATION

Design Miami/ Basel runs 12-17 June. For more information, visit the Design Miami website

On a snowy day in March, all sorts of things are happening in Carol Bove’s studio. An assistant in a white Tyvek suit is stripping down a sculpture – one of the seven lively blue forms that stood like an abstract family outside the Swiss Pavilion in Venice during the 2017 art biennale. Another is welding a huge steel tube, which seems to have writhed into submission, crushed and doubled up on itself. Gordon Terry, Bove’s husband and the studio’s managing partner, is showing a couple around the huge space. ‘He has oversight,’ says Bove, ‘but he’s really doing his own stuff right now.’ Terry, also an artist, is currently studying philosophy. ‘We talk about Kant all the time,’ adds Bove. She’s laughing, but in all seriousness, her work is as much about the psychological as it is about occupying and disrupting the space around it, asking for an unconscious response to its often unlikely presence.

Bove’s career has fairly cantered along since she completed her art studies at New York University in 2000. She first gained attention with her sparse arrangements on plain wooden bookshelves: magazines and publications from the 1960s and 1970s, and peacock feathers and shells, like minimalist cabinets of curiosity. Her work has since grown in scale as she works heavy metal into increasingly light forms. In 2013, for the final section of the High Line, she created six giant sculptures, including a Loch Ness Monster-style multiple loop of steel that spoke the same language as the old rail tracks and urban detritus around them. Last year, she reworked a classical sculpture garden at the Contemporary Austin in Texas with more steel loops, metal pieces finished in velvety car paint and elegant minimalist grids.

Born in Geneva in 1971, albeit to American parents, Bove was eligible to represent Switzerland in Venice, and she has referred to herself as ‘spiritually Swiss’, though she mostly grew up near San Francisco. Her studio, 1,580 sq m in all, is in the outlying, artist-favoured Brooklyn neighbourhood of Red Hook. On the waterfront, and cut-off by distance and a distinct lack of public transport, the area has the feel of a slightly abandoned seaside town, though some houses have now been architecturally enhanced and there are a sprinkling of cool oyster bars and smart wine shops.

Bove’s studio is in a handsome, stone-built hangar that had once housed a small brick factory. When she took it on 18 months ago, initially as a place to plan out an exhibition at 1:1 scale, it was filled with silica dust. Now it is full of machinery that is as sculptural as the work it helps to create. ‘We call this the crusher,’ says Bove’s studio director Teneille Haggard, pointing to a large red contraption from which a hefty weight is dropped onto steel tubing. Nearby is a bright yellow A-frame hung with heavy chains, also used to beat metal into submission.

If the process is brutal, the results, which sit serenely in the ‘clean room’ next door, are anything but. This is Bove’s new work, which will soon be on its way to London for an exhibition at David Zwirner’s Mayfair gallery. In its dazzling use of colour, it marks yet another new step on her artistic journey. ‘I’m experimenting with a narrower set of variables,’ she says. In one grand red work, the original steel has been manipulated into folds so soft and fluid it could be a close-up of Renaissance drapery. ‘There’s something very open-ended about it,’ says Bove as the changing light deepens the shadows of its folds. ‘It looks like taffy to me right now, but there are always new narratives, interstitial moments.’ Others are assemblages of forms – that love of collage again – one in spring green and pink, colours that recall Memphis and the glass works of Ettore Sottsass. ‘That pink makes me think of Sarah Lucas,’ says Bove. ‘It’s fleshy, like pantyhose.’

Bove has never denied the direct influence of other artists’ work. She has referenced John Chamberlain in her crushed metal sculptures, and the big boys of the 20th century such as Tony Smith and Anthony Caro in conversation and her forms. But the way she works is very much her own. ‘My process is completely expressionistic,’ she says of a method that allows the material to speak very much for itself. She never sketches, though she does walk around the studio endlessly manipulating pieces of brightly coloured Play-Doh in her hand. ‘Not even the big work is prefigured by a drawing,’ she says. ‘It’s spontaneous and improvisational. That’s why I need the gantries and the hoists!’

An extra-large work, currently being born in the main space, was created by swinging together three massive metal plates more commonly seen patching up roads in the US. They come complete with found text scratched onto them, like scores in skin, and deep orange bursts of rust. ‘First we had to put soft bends into them by leaning them upwards and driving over them with a sort of tank,’ says Bove. ‘Then I picked each one up with a separate crane and swung them together until they made a perfect kind of contact. That’s where they are now welded together.’ A red painted scrunched section of steel has been wedged into the space between them and studded with a black lacquered disc. ‘There’s a story of movement and pressure, force and softness,’ says Bove.

This piece will be seen in June in Art Basel’s Unlimited section, where galleries show their largest works. ‘I like the idea of the human scale,’ says Bove, ‘but I like the idea of bigger too.’ One suspects that, in that respect, she is far from reaching her limits.

As originally featured in the June 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*231)

INFORMATION

Carol Bove is at David Zwirner from 8 June – 4 August. For more information, visit the David Zwirner website

ADDRESS

David Zwirner
24 Grafton Street
London WS1 4EZ

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Alan Lo made a name for himself as co-founder of the Classified Group (formerly known as the Press Room Group, and which owns the Classified franchise and The Pawn), Blake’s, and Duddell’s – the latter a firm favourite of Hong Kong’s art crowd and Wallpaper* editors alike.

But perhaps lesser known is the restaurateur and property investor’s role in shaping Hong Kong’s art and design scene. A staunch advocate of local institutions and artists, Lo is optimistic of the city’s increasing reputation as a major global cultural hub and has endeavoured to bring an art-centric bent to all of his projects. (Case in point: Duddell’s boasts a year-round art programme spearheaded by a dedicated art manager.)

The avid art collector also serves on a number of rather wordily named government committees, and is chairman of nonprofit organisation Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, a member of Art Basel’s Global Patrons Council as well as a board member of Hong Kong Arts Development Council and Para Site.

With the city’s appetite for the arts reaching fever pitch during Art Basel Hong Kong (29 – 31 March), we asked Lo to share his favourite highlights from around town. Here, in his own words, are the art aficionado’s top five tips...
 
Potato Head
Potato Head (pictured top) in Sai Ying Pun, from the Potato Head Family, JIA Group and architect Sou Fujimoto, is a green escape in one of my favourite neighbourhoods. It was the Tokyo-based architect’s first project in Hong Kong – his signature style leads and champions the work of the craftsmen from Indonesia. The space is best enjoyed with a conscious cocktail by the group bar manager Tom Edgerton, who is focused on sustainable bartending in a city, where that is hard to execute. Read our review of Potato Head here.

100 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun; tel: 852.2858 6066; www.ptthead.com
 
Tai Kwun Contemporary
Tai Kwun Contemporary is part of the nonprofit art galleries located in the restored Central Police Station compound. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, this address was previously closed to much of Hong Kong, but in a twist of fate, will now be open to all.

10 Hollywood Road, Central; www.taikwun.hk
 
Vicky Lau, head chef of Tate Dining Room and Bar
Vicky Lau is a celebrated chef in Asia who in 2015 was named the Best Female Chef at the Asia 50 Best Awards. She graduated from New York University with a degree in graphic communications, and when you see her expressive plating you will understand and agree with the reputation she has worked to achieve for Tate Dining Room and Bar. Read our review of Tate Dining Room and Bar here.

10 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan; tel: 852.2555 2172; www.tate.com.hk
 
Duddell’s

For the first time, Duddell’s will present a site-specific performance piece, I Was Not Invited (The Organ Grinder’s Canto) by Leila Hekmat. Her work speaks to what the founders wanted the venue’s Art Programme to be from its inception in 2013 – a spatial format that is both tangible and intangible, where boundaries could be tested and collaborations between people and projects that excite and intrigue occur. The performance is presented in collaboration with Berlin-based Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi. Read our review of Duddell’s here.

I Was Not Invited (The Organ Grinder’s Canto) runs 30 March – 28 June; Duddell’s, Level 3 Shanghai Tang Mansion, 1 Duddell Street, Central; tel: 852.2525 9191; www.duddells.co
  
Para Site
Para Site is Hong Kong’s leading nonprofit space in Quarry Bay. It is one of Asia’s most active independent art institutions and worthy of support. Its current exhibition, A Beast, A God and A Line (17 March – 20 May) curated by Cosmic Costinas, is woven together by the connections and circulations of ideas and forms defined by the geography of Asia Pacific. The stories date back several historical eras, starting from the early Austronesian world that has a strong maritime reference. Given Hong Kong’s ties to the water, that’s relevant.

22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Building, 677 King’s Road, Quarry Bay; tel: 852.2517 4620; www.para-site.org.hk

The most intriguing installation of Hong Kong’s annual art week is outside the blockbuster Art Basel fair on the 18th floor of vertical art complex H Queen’s, where Italian luxury textiles company Loro Piana has unveiled an evanescent cloud-like sculpture made of the brand’s most precious raw material – its finest merino wool, The Gift of Kings.

Finer and softer than cashmere, this rare fibre measures only 12 microns and is available only in tiny quantities, only 3,000 kilos are produced each year. The title was originally given to merino wool in 18th-century Europe, when the Kings of Spain presented merino sheep to the royal families of France, Britain and Holland.

In Hong Kong, it took an entire week to set up the site-specific installation. There are 590 suspended monochromatic panels that immerse visitors in a surreal and highly tactile experience as they push between outer layers of unfinished coarse fibre wool across three chambers which display the material in progressive forms. Visitors follow the journey from its raw state through various treatments into wrist-thick twists, and finally into a sublime fine yarn that will be spun into a crease-resistant limited series of outerwear, sweaters and scarves.

The material is so soft and delicate that Loro Piana artisans have had to develop special techniques to protect the transformation of the inimitable strands into fabric. The installation, on show for the first time, demonstrates the brand’s expertise in sustainable fine fabrics.

‘At Loro Piana the sense of touch is paramount: this experience allows visitors to step inside and feel the Gift of Kings while learning about its journey in pursuit of excellence,’ says Loro Piana CEO Fabio d’Angelantonio. The raw soft fabric has also been used for 16 whimsical swing chairs suspended from the ceiling, the perfect perch from which to enjoy the gallery’s 180-degree views over Hong Kong.

This playful tone continues in a nearby mini-gallery pod adorned with an unusual gift for visitors: pocket-sized squares of Loro Piana fabrics embroidered with the brand’s value statements like ‘Traditionally Innovative’ and ‘Pure Rarity’. Loro Piana traces its roots to the northern Italian town of Quarona in the Piedmont region, where the family were wool merchants in the early 19th century. The company was established in 1924 and became part of the LVMH group in 2013.

INFORMATION

’The Gift of Kings’ is on view until 31 May. For more information, visit the Loro Piana website

It never serves to be complacent. As much as Rolex or Omega, Patek Philippe is a Baselworld stalwart and is as protective of its ‘novelties’ as any. Moreover, Patek Philippe is as conservative and ultra-Swiss as any brand can be, so sneak previews are not expected. And yet, for 2018, the Grand Lady of Geneva has used social media to drive enthusiasts to check the health of their bank statements.

There’s something else about Patek Philippe that one shouldn’t take for granted, which is the assumption that the aforementioned conservatism defines them. For years, the company resisted producing facsimiles of certain museum pieces which were out of character for the brand, the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time Ref 5524 watches that stole the show in 2015. Inspired by navigators’ models in their museum, they proved divisive.

Tool watches are not a Patek Philippe forte, but these managed to transcend the criticisms in the same manner that the Nautilus showed how the company could produce a sport watch in steel and create a cult. (This year ought to see hot new Nautilus and Aquanaut models, which have become perennials for Patek.) But so in demand are the Calatrava Pilots models, they can command a premium over list price. 

For 2018, the existing 42mm white gold model will be joined by a rose gold version with brown dial and – more earth-shattering for PP-watchers – a version for the ladies, the Ref. 7234R sized at 37.5mm. Also fitted with the self-winding cal. 324 S C FUS movement, the smaller watch is, ironically, the same size as a typical man’s watch of 20 years ago. Which makes it more ‘unisex’ than simply ‘ladies’. And at a time when wage parity and other matters between the genders are hot topics, the smaller model couldn't be more timely. How so? Reverse psychology. Some men simply don’t have big enough wrists for rocking a 42mm watch…

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Patek Phillipe website and the Baselworld website

Every four years, Omega has its element of surprise at Baselworld undermined in part by the Olympics. That’s because, as the Games’ official timekeeper since 1932, it has to announce the pieces before the Swiss watch extravaganza takes place. Thus, we already know about the Omega Seamaster Olympic Games Gold Collection for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

They symbolise the three winning medals presented to athletes at the event, and feature three different types of gold for their 39.5mm cases: 18K yellow gold, 18K Sedna™ gold and 18K Canopus™ gold. 

Also bound to be seen at Baselworld is the Seamaster Olympic Games Collection, which celebrates the brand’s long service to the games through five unique watches. Designed to represent the different colours of the rings of the Olympics’ logo, they will be available in black, yellow, green, blue or red.

That said, the big news for Omega-watchers is always the year’s new Speedmaster Professional. The ‘Moon Watch’ has provided Omega with more possibilities and more collector potential than anything it has ever created, and the company has never failed to turn up with handsome variations on a design that dates back to 1957. 

Because last year was the 60th Anniversary and Omega celebrated it with a plethora of pieces, one wonders if this year might be a quiet one for the Speedy. That, however, would be to ignore 2018 being the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 8…

Seamasters won’t enjoy a new Bond film this year, which is always an occasion for a new model, but that won’t keep Omega from finding some cool new finish or material to apply to their hugely-respected diving watch. 

As Seamaster 300 values trebled overnight thanks to its appearance in the last Bond film, the name has never had greater currency. All-black? More ceramics? A spot-on replica of the original? Watch this space.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Omega website and the Baselworld website

Of all the brands that do their utmost to ensure a tense build-up to Baselworld, Rolex is probably the most close-lipped. Indeed, a great time-waster for enthusiasts is trawling the web to see what the various pundits have predicted. 

Given that Rolex is among the more consistent of brands for keeping its models in continuous production, and given that just about all of their ranges have had recent makeovers – even less-common lines like the Milgauss and the Explorer II – there is little in the way of a clue there. The pundits are confounded.

Rolex’s evergreen DateJust enjoyed a refresher course last year with the DateJust 41, bringing its size up to current norms, while the company’s magnificent ceramic bezels have gone beyond the diving models to include the Daytona. 

One observer anticipates a revitalising in another direction, based wisely on the improvements Rolex has made to its bracelets: the dressy Jubilee is overdue for a re-think, and it’s a natural to be fitted to the colourful GMT-Master II or the refreshed Explorer II.

Rolex has added blue and green dials and bezels to its much-loved Submariner, and they have been embraced by the cognoscenti with such fervour that prices have skyrocketed along with waiting times. 

It ain’t gonna happen, but I’ll bet there are enthusiasts out there who would like to see the Submariner offered with a burgundy scheme like Rolex’s sibling brand, Tudor. I rather doubt Rolex would even consider bright red.

If wishful thinking is permitted, this enthusiast would love to see some sort of homage paid to the Bubbleback. That series featured ‘California’ dials with their mix of Roman and Arabic numerals, ornate hooded lugs and other design touches redolent of the era. 

As Rolex has blissfully ignored the industry’s battle for ‘Who makes the thinnest?’, this little plumper would prove a tonic to horological anorexics.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Rolex website and the Baselworld website

Are there too many art fairs? With hundreds of events plotted on the art world’s calendar each year, the answer might be a resounding ‘no’ from so-called ‘fair-tigue’ sufferers – though that hasn’t stopped a clutch of fairs from establishing new destinations in 2018.

In November last year, Art Basel offered the first taster of its multi-year Art Basel Cities initiative, which will add to annual shows in Basel, Hong Kong and Miami. Launching this year in Buenos Aires (11-16 September), the initiative’s official inaugural edition will see it eschew the traditional format of a commercial art fair, instead taking up residence in the Art Basel Cities House on Basavilbaso 1233. A series of masterclasses, performances and talks hosted here will complement a citywide programme helmed by artistic director Cecilia Alemani, who is director and chief Curator of High Line Art in New York and curated the Italian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

The preview offered a glimpse into Buenos Aires’ flourishing art scene, from established institutions such as Faena Arts Center, the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA), and Fundación PROA, to young galleries like Galería Isla Flotante and Ruth Benzacar. Speakers at the Art Basel Cities House, meanwhile, included Buenos Aires artist Guillermo Kuitca; Palais de Tokyo director Jean de Loisy; Marta Minujín, Artist, Buenos Aires; curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist; and many others.

The Art Basel team met with over 100 art-world personalities from Buenos Aires. ‘We tried to understand by listening and asking questions, what was the situation was here – and how could we help,’ explains Patrick Foret, director of business initiatives at Art Basel. ‘This was a very inclusive approach. Every Art Basel Cities programme is designed for the city’s specific ecosystem.’

Art fairs, both local and global, ‘are the most important point for acquiring new buyers’ and ‘the largest concern of art dealers and galleries reporting to our annual survey’, according to the TEFAF 2017 Global Art Market Report. Between booth and shipping fees, the cost of showing at a global fair can be especially prohibitive for younger galleries. Initiatives like Art Basel Cities offer gallerists in second-tier regions the opportunity to court international collectors – and this can only be good news for the future of art fairs.

Here, we highlight the art fairs debuting editions at new locations around the globe in 2018...
 
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair
When: 24-25 February
Where: La Mamounia, Marrakech, Morocco
Established in 2013 by Touria El Glaoui, the fair celebrated its fifth anniversary in London last October, and expanded to New York in 2015, with the US edition occurring annually in May. Next month sees its first-ever outing in Marrakech, a natural next step, of course, for a fair celebrating African art.

The Other Art Fair
When: 15-18 March
Where: The Majestic Downtown, Los Angeles, US
Pegged as the ‘leading artist fair for a new generation of art buyers’, The Other Art Fair already has instalments in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Bristol and New York. The Saatchi Art-backed initiative will showcase work by 110 emerging and independent artists at its West Coast debut.

Moniker Art Fair
When: 3-6 May
Where: The Green Point Terminal, Brooklyn, US
The Moniker Art Fair – launched in 2010 in London – has ‘roots embedded in urban culture’, with a focus on street art and graffiti. Its first US edition will take a place in a warehouse of the recently restored Greenpoint Terminal, a Brooklyn landmark that played a significant role in the American Industrial Revolution.

Discovery Art Fair
When: 2-4 November
Where: Forum Messe Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
Frankfurt is home to around 60 museums that attract 2 million visitors a year, so it’s little surprise that Discovery Art Fair has chosen Germany’s financial capital for the next stage of its expansion. The fair, which offers contemporary art with affordable price tags, has been exhibiting in Berlin for 15 years, and Cologne for five.

Masterpiece London
When: TBA
Where: TBA
Masterpiece London Ltd was founded in 2008, with the first edition of the fair launching in 2010. At the fair, 150 leading galleries and specialists present works from ‘every major market discipline’, including ancient and contemporary art, rare books and photography, design and antiques, jewellery and ceramics. Having acquired a 67.5 per cent stake, MCH Group has confirmed it will be expanding Masterpiece London in the US, Asia and the Middle East over the next few years – though locations and dates have yet to be confirmed.

Frieze
When: 14-17 February 2019
Where: Paramount Pictures Studios, Los Angeles, US
Good news for the art world’s sun-seekers, as Frieze announces that it will be heading to the balmy climes of Los Angeles in 2019. Frieze has tapped Bettina Korek as the fair’s executive director, working with Victoria Siddall, director of Frieze fairs to launch the inaugural edition of Frieze LA. Meanwhile, curator Ali Subotnick will oversee a site-specific programme of artist projects and film at the fair, which will premiere at Paramount Pictures Studios in a structure custom-designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of wHY.

INFORMATION

artbasel.com

When people think of Miami locations, they think of the water and the views. For its first Design Miami foray, the team at design show CasaCor went for the latter. ‘We couldn’t find anything we liked on the water, and then we found these houses in a prime location,’ says CasaCor Miami CEO Lucio Grimaldi, who is referring to the three high-rise penthouses located at RISE at Brickell City Centre, which is the site of the inaugural CasaCor Miami. The experiential exhibition will be on view there through 18 December.

‘We decided to try and franchise in the States, and take advantage of Miami being midway between South America and the United States,’ says CasaCor director Alex Stevens. In South America, the showcase is celebrating its 30th year, with exhibitions in various countries throughout the continent. The 20,000 sq ft Miami edition is located on the 43rd floor of RISE in penthouses that range from $3.5 million to $6 million, and offers stunning views of the surrounding areas.

The rooms are just as varied as the designers CasaCor tapped to decorate them. Designers were given free reign over the project. ‘When you give freedom to designers, good things come out of it,’ explains Grimaldi.

Tatiana Moreira’s set up at CasaCor

The result is eclectic, spanning the whimsical to more traditional rooms. Suchi Reddy decorated the dining room in her area with an Anima Domus rug that emulates a collection of athletic jerseys that are stitched together, topping it with Studio Nucleo's simple white 'Primitive' dining table, specially commissioned by Ammann Gallery. She also tapped Cey Adams to create a graffiti covered mural over the already existing kitchen mural.

Studio Guilherme Torres conceptualised a clean, stark white bedroom with pieces by Espasso and Gessi, while Gustavo Neves went for a sexier, darker look, hanging a piece of art by Luis Pons Design Lab that consists of chainmail stuck on to a magnetic board.

Elsewhere, Peruvian designer Roque Saldias used an alligator skull covered in gold, and ponchos sewn together for a rug to adorn his space, adding a Syrian dowry from the 1800s. Cable Design created a living room and kitchen full of bold swathes of colour inspired by geometric art, and a glass table by Useche and Axia Design Niche.

In keeping with the theme of Miami Art Week, plenty of works decorated the walls, like Joan Hall’s pieces made of found nets and resin that called on conservation efforts, and Liz Tokatlilar and Erwin Georgi’s maze of colourful neon lights.

‘We have an international flavour, and it reflects the Miami culture. Because you have people from all over the world, and it’s less traditional,’ muses Grimaldi.

More from Design Miami 2017

Miami Art Week 2017 in pictures

Prada moves to a modern Brazilian beat at its new Miami boutique

Ceramics artist Sarah Flynn is making waves at Loewe

INFORMATION

CasaCor Miami is on view until 18 December. For more information, visit the website. Follow our live report from Design Miami 2017

ADDRESS

RISE at Brickell City Center
88 SW 7th Street
Suite 500
Miami

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Jonathan Anderson is a master curator when it comes to weaving together disparate mediums. As Andrew Bonacina said of the ‘Disobedient Bodies’ exhibition he co-curated with Anderson earlier this year, the Irish designer ‘brings things together in a way that’s expansive and promiscuous’.

The same can be said of the diverse inventory of objects currently on show at Loewe’s Miami boutique. ‘Chance Encounters III’ attests to Anderson’s eclectic curatorial vision. It’s the third in a series of exhibitions established by the Loewe Foundation, that brings together artists from various disciplines in the hopes of promoting unexpected conversations.

The latest showcase includes specially made ceramic vessels by Irish artist (and Loewe Craft Prize 2017 finalist) Sara Flynn, seen in relation to photography of 1930s Ceylon by Sri Lankan artist Lionel Wendt, and a renowned 1975 fabric sculpture by Richard Smith. The works surround an imposing 18th-century Spanish granary that runs the length of the boutique.

More than simply aggregating variant objects, Anderson’s curatorial method is nuanced, balanced and trusting of his artists. ‘In terms of the brief, Jonathan didn’t ask me to make work in response to the other makers,’ Flynn explains. ‘Instead, he wanted me to respond to the space. He didn’t want me to be derivative or try to link the three artists together in a false way.’

Held together and framed by the granary structure, a kind of effortless conversation exists between the works. Each bares an understanding of how three-dimensional forms interact with the space around them. Wendt’s dynamic portraits, for example, carry a dancerly sensitivity of how the body displaces the air, reflected in the ripples and contours of Flynn’s manipulated ceramics. Likewise, Smith’s protruding ‘kite painting’ juts out into the gallery, its contoured structures exploring the tension between volume and surface.

To wit, each work is preoccupied with craftsmanship. Flynn adopts an organic, almost folkloric approach. Her vessels are thrown on the potters wheel to start with, in ‘a method steeped in tradition’. Then they’re ‘cut, pushed, reassembled and stuck back together’. The resulting asymmetrical forms appear to shift and change as the surface unfolds.

Flynn has had a ‘lifelong love affair’ with clay. ‘I’ve been making clay pots for upwards of 20 years,’ she says, ‘and the clay is still the boss.’ Materiality is of the upmost importance to her – something she believes Anderson understands better than anyone. ‘Loewe have these master craftsmen working with the most incredible leather. His relationship with high quality materials is a real common thread between our works.’

More from Design Miami 2017

Explore the top 20 exhibitions and satellite events from Design Miami 2017

ICA Miami’s new home has all the right angles

For its tenth foray at Design Miami, Fendi teams up on living room furniture by Chiara Andreatti

INFORMATION

‘Chance Encounters III’ runs from until 24 January. For more information, visit the Loewe website

Follow our live report from Design Miami and Art Basel Miami Beach 2017

ADDRESS

Loewe
Miami Design District
110 NE 39th Street
Miami

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It’s a rare sort of company that appears more youthful as it grows older. Swiss bathroom specialist Laufen – which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year – is one such forward-thinking brand.

Established in 1982 in Switzerland, Laufen has celebrated several milestones along the way: the invention of both the first wall-hung toilet and one piece floor-standing washbasin, and most recently, the launch of its groundbreaking SaphirKeramik. But it’s Laufen’s creative collaborations that have really captured our imagination.

So to Design Miami/ Basel, where Laufen has brought together luminaries from the spheres of art, architecture and design for the project, with Atelier Oï, Konstantin Grcic, Alfredo Häberli, Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, and Patricia Urquiola among them. Curated by Beda Achermann, the objects are playful explorations of Laufen’s materials.

Toan Nguyen created a vase in glazed and sintered SaphirKeramik, reimagining a drop of water in an abstract way, while Atelier Oï envisioned the cross-section of a sapphire crystal using 3D printing. Peter Wirz’s contribution – a fine fireclay recreation of a Toblerone chocolate bar – was a humorous tribute to the proudly Swiss bathroom brand.

The exhibition made its debut in March at the German Architecture Museum (DAM), before travelling to Milan for Salone del Mobile, and Copenhagen for 3 Days of Design. Further stops on the tour include the London Design Festival, and Vienna Design Week, culminating with Design Miami in December.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Laufen website

A time-travelling monk leaves a dramatic mountainous setting in what appears to be ancient China. He sets off by foot, walking through time toward a nameless megacity. With a composed expression and dressed in traditional costume, we see him pass by fragments of modern China – mass construction of soulless high rises, super highways with endless traffic, giant advertising billboards, a factory car park with row upon row of identical cars. He approaches a black racecar, puts on a virtual reality headset and enters the future, projecting dazzling, dancing lights onto the vehicle.

Unmanned is the video-art prelude to BMW Art Car #18 by multimedia artist Cao Fei, unveiled in Beijing at the Minsheng Art Museum. Following the video, an M6 GT3 racecar appears on stage cloaked in a deep matt carbon black. The audience aim their smartphones at the number 18 on the car, and through a special app project colourful light swishes onto its surface.

There are three layers to this latest Art Car: Unmanned, the racecar and a free app that employs both virtual and augmented reality. The idea is to experience these elements simultaneously for a theatrical experience as the light swishes form an AR installation floating above and around the car. Here we, the audience, are active participants. This is art as experience.

Cao is one of China’s most notable contemporary artists. Following the contributions by Jeff Koons and John Baldessari, at 39 she is also the youngest and first Chinese artist to be involved in the 42-year-old series. The unique BMW Art Car project began life quite innocently when racing driver Hervé Poulain asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint his 3.0 CSL which he subsequently raced at Le Mans. Since, some of the most notable names in art history have painted BMW racecars, with all but Olafur Eliasson’s competing on the international racing scene.

A decade ago the Icelandic artist made an ecological statement by taking the wheels of his Art Car. Yet no artist has attempted to take this into virtual space – until now. Cao’s project can be read as a statement on the second life of the automobile – the clean, multi-functioning, digitalised, autonomous vehicle. Simultaneously, she is narrating the dazzling speed of change in China.

The artists who work on the Art Cars have complete creative freedom, but as these are functioning racecars, they cannot interfere with the body shape or weight. In Cao’s case the challenge was to find a surface that would work with AR technology, and the only way this could function effectively is on a flat matt colour as reflective surfaces tend not respond to the algorithm. She explains, ‘I needed the darkness shade so when the colour appears with the AR you only see the shadow of the car.’

Cao was chosen by an independent jury that includes some of the world’s most notable gallery directors and curators, and it took some convincing the BMW board members in Munich to take a risk. ‘It wasn’t easy for BMW to go ahead with this car,’ admits Thomas Girst, head of BMW Group cultural engagement. The jury though were unanimously in favour of this rising star. ‘She is a very courageous choice because of her capacity to make parallel universes,’ offers Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The BMW Art Car #18 has taken three years from initial concept, during which time Cao has had a racing experience and visited the BMW headquarters, working closely with the engineers, designers and digital specialists. A virtual experience will be on display during Art Basel this week. Then in November, BMW racing driver Augusto Farfus will take the M6 GT3 on the track at FIA GT World Cup in Macau. How Cao’s virtual and augmented vision will play out on the race track, when the car zooms by at high-speed, is something we are told the team will work on perfecting by then.

The following day we visit the artist’s studio in Beijing. She has occupied an abandoned 1950s cinema complex since 2015, painstakingly restoring many of its original features. This and the surrounding neighbourhood are relics from the Soviet Union and later German Democratic Republic’s involvement with China as part of the Five-Year Plan. Sadly, the area, once considered a utopian vision, is being demolished in a couple of years to make way for more high-rises, the kind that occupy Beijing’s skyline.

Cao is very much from the digital age. She has a prominent presence in Second Life and says to her the machine ‘is like human’. You can sense her comfort within the virtual world as she speaks passionately about technology, of using virtuality to imagine another reality. ‘When looking at the boundaries between the virtual and real world my answer is light, something visible and something invisible,’ she says. ‘To me, light represents thoughts. As the speed of thoughts cannot be measured, the Art Car questions the existence of the boundaries of the human mind.’

Her is a mix of old and new customs and philosophies. For instance, in Unmanned the practitioner executes spiritual movements, which echo in colourful streams of light. When the monk performs his dance, Cao is paying tribute to the traditional Asian spiritual ceremony when a new object is blessed – here the racecar and driver. She says the light elements mirror what the eyes cannot see and the mind may not be able to picture. When the AR app is projected on the car, a similar experience is meant to happen.

She offers: ‘We are entering a new age, where the mind directly controls objects and where thoughts can be transferred, such as unmanned operations and artificial intelligence. Which attitudes and temperaments hold the key to opening the gateway to the new age?’

Cao is from a generation born into a modern China. Her father was a prominent socialist realist sculptor who created busts of heroes and political figures, and his daughter often accompanied him to revolutionary gatherings. She speaks fondly of the experience. In contrast, she was raised in Guangzhou, a city close to Hong Kong and one of the first to experience change in 1980s. She admits her work takes a great deal from witnessing China’s rapid development, first as a child then when she moved to Beijing over a decade ago.

Cao admits that these many layers and contradictions have helped inform her work. Aware of the disconnection from the past, she will now spend time investigating the country’s immediate history – the 1950s and 60s. Although on the whole artists here are left undisturbed by the government, Cao admits there are always constraints – from not being able to log onto social media, to the banning of Google, but that ‘swimming along’ is a Chinese skill.

She offers: ‘My father was expressing the idea of restrictions within restrictions. For me virtuality is a means to express myself, to understand reality which is what I’m interested in. I use writing and film too, but we are living in an age of rapid technology and in this context, we need to know that virtuality has changed the way reality works. And to do this we need to be part of it.’

Much like the city she works in, Cao’s work is interjected with slogans that are political but also about advertising and high-consumerism. ‘I used to do advertising where you have to first catch the eye of the consumer to then draw them in,’ she says. ‘Here I want to convey a message to the younger generation by using an app. This kind of interaction is crucial for me.’

The vehicle for mass consumption is relatively new in China and there is little historical connection to the romance of the motor car here. Perhaps it is this lack of emotional context that allows an artist like Cao Fei, who doesn’t hold a driving licence, to so breezily visualise the vehicle in its next digitalised, autonomous life. China’s dazzling development, whereby city maps are reconfigured every six months or so, leaves little time for contemplation.

With BMW hoping to evolve into a technology firm, exploring cars that are advanced mobile tech gadgets, we ask the artist if she is aware that her project is expressing this vision? She contemplates this question for some time, then offers, ‘Today, it isn’t enough to use a brush to paint – we need to go beyond aesthetic values. The monk in the film is travelling from past to the future through different spaces. It is about past, present and future, but also reality and virtuality. Image can give energy to cars because this kind of energy cannot be expressed in language. These images can showcase our vision for the future automobile.’

INFORMATION
The BMW Art Car #18 will be on view at Art Basel from 15 – 18 June. For more information, visit the BMW Art Car website

Bubbles and beaux-arts have always mixed well in a cheery cocktail of luxury-meets-Bohemia, especially at Private View time. But visitors to this year’s Art Basel will come face to face with the more unusual pairing of £500 skincare and original sculpture.

Swiss beauty brand La Prairie is breaking new ground by taking luxury cosmetics to the art world. Celebrating 30 years of its range of creams infused with caviar, it has partnered with five artists from the mediums of sculpture, digital art, kinetic art and photography, and the results will be shown over the next few months at fairs in Basel, New York, Shanghai and Paris.

At Art Basel, a sculptural piece by Paul Coudamy will take its place in the La Prairie pavilion in the Collectors Lounge. Coudamy – who runs his own interior design practice in Paris and sits at a crossroads between artist, designer and architect – was given a free hand to evoke, in sculptural form, the brand’s Skin Caviar Absolute Filler.

To develop his piece, Coudamy examined the Weaire-Phelan formula, an exact geometrical structure representing bubbles. Expressing the product’s scientific side, the piece is made up of equal-sized cells of lacquered metal that lock together to form a sculpture that can take new forms each time it is installed. Clustered around its edges are 100,000 black magnetic caviar-like balls. The two elements – the mathematical cell structure and the uncontrollable, organic formations of the balls – combine to represent the make-up of the product.

For fair-goers, appreciation of the piece might be enhanced by the experience of a customised facial, also to be found in the Collectors Lounge.

As originally featured in the July 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*220)

INFORMATION

Paul Coudamy’s sculpture will be on view at the La Prarie Pavillion in the Collectors Lounge, Art Basel from 15 – 18 June. For more information, visit the La Prairie website and Art Basel website

ADDRESS

Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10
4005 Basel
Switzerland

View Google Maps

Now in its fifth edition, Art Basel Hong Kong has become a firm annual fixture on the city’s cultural – and art collector’s – map. With almost 80,000 visitors and surprisingly robust sales reported on opening night, this edition featured a stronger selection of works than previous years, and noticeably less bling on show by 242 galleries from 34 countries.

Not that there weren’t plenty of crowd-pleasing works. Shen Shaomin’s Summit (2009) presented by Osage Gallery featured an ‘imaginary meeting’ of Ho Chi Minh, II-sung, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin in crystal coffins with Fidel Castro still alive in a hospital bed. Sundaram Tagore Gallery showed Singaporean Jane Lee’s Instagram-worthy oozing thick oil paintings while at Mind Set Art Centre’s booth, Taiwanese artist Shi Jin-hua drew 100km of pencil lines over a 10m long canvas; and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s traditional bamboo structure containing 3D-printed bonsai trees drew a crowd.

There was plenty of Asian work on show led by Galerie du Monde’s showing of the historically important Fifth Moon Group; KaiKai Kiki’s Mr’s new kawaii-meets-destruction installation; STPI’s paper rubbings by Do Ho Suh; and Tina Keng Gallery’s Chinese Emperor 7 by Wang Huaiqing.

Notable highlights included Mexico City institution Kurimanzutto’s architecture-inspired brass installation; Galerie Gmurzynska showing new work by Fernando Botero; and Lucio Fontana’s slashed colourful canvases at Ben Brown.

Beyond the monolithic Convention Centre, hundreds of exhibitions across town included a stellar ‘Abstractions of the World’ collaboration with the Biennale of Sydney at Duddell’s while at Pacific Place, German media artist Julius Popp introduced Bit.Fall featuring digital information captured from newsfeeds in real time transformed into water droplets that are glimpsed for a fraction of a second in a 9m-tall curtain of water.

At M+ Pavilion, 'Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Culture' (until 21 May) explores how local artists challenged traditional gender roles as the city’s culture blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s.

Wong Chuk Hang saw HK Walls annual street-art festival with public mural paintings and a face-off battle between artists, while Spring Workshop marked its final year with a mesmerising musical experience titled ‘An exposition, not an exhibition’ by American composer and artist Ari Benjamin Meyers.

For design lovers, ArtisTree in Taikoo Place is showing Zaha Hadid’s creative process through early drawings and sketches at an exhibition conceived by the late architect and artistic director of London’s Serpentine Gallery, Hans Ulrich Obrist (until 6 April).

Art Central’s airy white tents on the waterfront again proved popular with works by Indonesian artist Uji Handoko Eko Saputro who divided his painting into 2002 pieces to be sold to the public, Sin Sin gallery’s showing of Cuban artist Carlos García de la Nuez’s paintings; and Yuri Suzuki’s intriguing Sharevari interactive sound installation for Swarovski.

Happily, some of very best works were staged in the public domain: at the Peninsula Hotel, Royal Academy conceptual artist Sir Michael Craig-Martin created an intense yellow 4m high steel light bulb sculpture suspended above the hotel’s iconic entrance water feature, while local artist Kingsley Ng transformed two city trams into free moving artworks with his Twenty-Five Minutes Older.

INFORMATION

Art Basel Hong Kong ran from 23–25 March. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre 1 Expo Drive Wan Chai Hong Kong

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian are two of the biggest dealers in the art world, so imagine the possibilities when the competitors partnered up for the latest Miami edition of Art Basel. The pair tapped Diana Widmaier Picasso, the granddaughter of Pablo Picasso, to curate 'Desire', their second Art Basel Miami Beach collaboration, which ran through 4 December at the Moore Building in the city's Design District. The exhibition took a look both a figurative and conceptual look at eroticism through both the modern and contemporary lens. Over four dozen artists are featured in the group exhibition, from Picasso, Diego Rivera, and Francis Picabia to Harmony Korine, Deana Lawson, Vanessa Beecroft, Nan Goldin, and Eddie Peake.

The exhibition's namesake is Desire, an Ed Ruscha painting from 2013. The work, which started the exhibition, depicts the word 'Desire' in bold, white lettering before an image of a snow-capped mountain top. The exhibition captures every element of desire, from the innocent longing to nudity of both the female and male forms, to the actual carnal act of intercourse.

'Trent Looked at Tara', by Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis, 2016. © Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis. Courtesy of iStock and Gagosian. Photography: Josh White/JWPictures.com

Set over three floors of the Moore Building, the exhibition includes Torso (1977), a polymer paint and silkscreen print by Andy Warhol of a peach-colored woman’s torso, complete with pubic hair, against a periwinkle background. Across the room, Picasso’s 1956 painting, Femme Dans Un Rocking-Chair, shows off one of the artist’s crude, colorful nudes. Harumi Yamaguchi’s 1977 acrylic paintings, including of a woman falling off her skateboard shows the more innocent, playful side of desire.

Marilyn Minter’s Haze (2016) shows a photograph of a pouty open mouth behind fogged glass. Juergen Teller’s Octopussy (2008), shows off the photographer’s signature cheekiness through an image of an octopus on a bed covered with a white sheet. Auteur Gaspar Noé presented a quadriptych of four images in red that show the fondling that goes on when two people fool around. Nobuyoshi Araki’s photographs are among the most erotic works in the show, but the centerpiece, no doubt, is the Jeff Koons sculpture of him fornicating with his ex-wife, porn star Ilona 'La Cicciolina' Staller, which sat in the middle of the ground floor beneath the Zaha Hadid intervention.

INFORMATION

’Desire’ is on view until 4 December. For more information, visit the Gagosian website

ADDRESS

Moore Building
Miami Design District
3841 NE 2nd Ave #300
Miami, FL 33137

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

During this year's Art Basel Miami Beach, BMW unveiled the latest instalment of its Art Car collection, this time created in collaboration with American artist John Baldessari. It’s the 19th in a series of vehicles (or ‘rolling sculptures’) created by visual artists: since 1975, the German car marque has worked with Andy Wharhol, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein, among others.

The car was on display at Miami’s Botanical Gardens, before being prepped to race next January. Baldessari worked on the M6 GTLM, a V8 engine with M TwinPower turbo technology, while racing drivers Bill Auberlen, Alexander Sims, Augusto Farfus and Bruno Spengler will take turns at the wheel during the the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race.

‘For the project, I entered uncharted territory, not just in terms of the subject, but also moving from two to three-dimensional art,’ says the artist, adding that one of the challenges he faced was to create something that would be understood from multiple points of view. The car bears some of the recurring motifs of Baldessari’s oeuvre: both the bumper and the roof feature green and red dots, while the artist wrote ‘Fast’ on one side and painted a miniature of the BMW model on the other side. ‘I like the ambiguity, having two-dimension and three-dimension at the same time,’ he adds.

The car comes with a Baldessari signature on the roof, and the artist had to work with a special paint to ensure that the car would perform in the race without being affected by unnecessary weight. ‘To create something that is not an ornament but has a function is interesting to me,’ says the artist, who was not only attracted to the functionality of the car, but also its meaning in popular culture. ‘As a culture we are not fascinated by slowness, we are fascinated by speed. Nobody wants to be slow,’ he notes, adding that the project brought back memories of attending racing events as a child in California.

‘I consider the car as an icon of contemporary life,’ concludes the artist. ‘My concept turned out playfully satirical, but it also highlights some of the trademark ideas that I use. So you can say, this is definitely a typical Baldessari and the fastest artwork I ever created!’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the BMW Art Car website

Private jet enterprise NetJets enlisted British artist Rebecca Louise Law to create an installation for their Collectors’ Lounge during Art Basel.

Unveiled earlier this week, Law’s Growth installation is suspended from the lounge’s ceiling, featuring a selection of over 15 species of preserved flowers sculpted and entwined with copper wire. Appearing like an upside-down meadow, Law’s piece gives a soft addition to the lounge, offering collectors an experience that combines art and nature. Using 7,500 flowers covering a surface of over 100 sq m (and installed with over 100 hours of labour by Law and her team), the artist’s composition is both poetic and strongly present.

The artist’s work plays with the relationship between man and nature, using dried flowers as a preferred medium, which she has arranged in infinite compositions since starting out in 2003. Previous commissions have proved the versatility of her work: Law’s pieces have in the past enriched commercial spaces with a large-scale installation presented at Bikini Berlin earlier this year, and a different iteration of her flowerscapes unveiled in Melbourne’s Eastland shopping mall on 22 June. Other site-specific installations currently on show include Drying, at the Luton Hoo Estate, and The City Garden, an installation of flowers inspired by gardens throughout the City of London.

The NetJets piece, which will be dismantled after a week in Basel and reinstalled in Miami next December, features a composition of helichrysums, daisies and globe thistles, applied at varying densities and heights. It will also be installed inside one of the company’s private jets, taking Law’s exploration of nature one step further, by presenting it in juxtaposition with a wider concept of machine and speed.

INFORMATION

Art Basel runs from 16 – 19 June 2016. For more information, visit the NetJets website

ADDRESS

Messeplatz 1
4005 Basel
Switzerland

View Google Maps

The 47th edition of Art Basel, which runs at Messeplatz through 19 June, gave VIPs a private preview on 13 and 14 June, first opening its 'Unlimited' sector, which breaks the boundaries of the traditional fair stand through massive installations, sculptures, videos and more, on Monday. Yesterday, the 'Gallery' sector opened its doors to collectors, featuring an overwhelming 4,000 artists across stands by 287 galleries from 33 countries.

With such a vast amount of art on display, it’s nearly impossible to select a handful of highlights of the fair. The 'Unlimited' sector had a number of impressive works, including Gli (Wall), a dazzling gold sculpture formed with aluminium and copper wire from 2010 by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, who is represented by New York-based Jack Shainman gallery. The Collector’s House, a massive immersive installation by Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck, who is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, Galleria Continua in Italy and Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna, continues to draw crowds, thanks to his stunning recreation of a neoclassical private room in black and white. The life-sized space features a fountain running down the middle, along with a complete library, grand piano and of course — art throughout.

Over in the 'Gallery' sector, at Amsterdam-based Annet Gelink Gallery, Israeli-born, Berlin-based artist Yael Bartana’s yellow neon text-based sculpture What If Women Ruled Our World, which is part of a body of work by Bartana of the same name, brought to mind the current U.S. election. A hanging bulbous sculpture by Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa, who is currently having a resurgence, thanks to pieces at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel in Los Angeles, and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, is priced at $2 million at Mnuchin Gallery. Meanwhile, at Mexico City gallery Kurimanzutto a pair of sculptures by Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes are on display that are derived after measuring weavings by Anni Albers. Antunes linked together brass chain, attaching the weaving to two wooden table legs and two brass legs.

Chilean-born, New York-based artist Alfredo Jaar, took a moment of repose from the consumerism of Art Basel, by distributing 12,000 blue boxes across the fair and the city that call attention to the current migrant crisis by asking recipients to donate money to the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) as part of his 'Parcours' sector project. 

Chilean-born, New York-based artist Alfredo Jaar distributed 12,000 blue boxes across the fair and the city that call attention to the current migrant crisis by asking recipients to donate money to the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) as part of his ’Parcours’ sector project. Pictured: The Gift, by Alfredo Jaar, 2016. Courtesy Goodman Gallery

INFORMATION

Art Basel runs from 16-19 June 2016. For more information, visit the Art Basel website

ADDRESS

Messepl. 1, 4005 Basel, Switzerland

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Basel's leading cultural destination, the Kunstmuseum, has seen several moves and expansions since its very first home, set up with the Basilius Amerback art collection in the 17th century. In more recent times, it moved to its current location – the building on St Alban-Graben – in 1936, which was consequently extended once in 1980. 

Still, the art museum was slowly outgrowing its space, and a new wing soon became necessary to cover the needs of a growing collection and the thriving museum's requirements for different ways to present art. Enter Swiss architects Christ & Gantenbein, who masterminded the museum's latest expansion. This would not only allow the creation of space to breathe in the original buildings, but also allow for further gallery space as well as valuable storage surface. 

Its sleek contemporary form is now located across the street from the main building, connected to it via an underground passage, its volume cutting a contemporary figure clad in grey brick outside, and marble, concrete and oak inside. 

It was one of the architects' key aims to design a building that creates a dialogue with the old Kunstmuseum. 'The idea was that it should enter into a dialogue with the main building; not to outshine it, but to enhance and empower it', they explain. 

Practical elements, such as a loading bay for precious deliveries, were keenly incorporated into the new design. A visitor-friendly ticketing and cloakroom services, as well as multipurpose event spaces, such as a large foyer, were part of the new building too, in order to cater for events, performances, and education and outreach programs. 

The museum's newest extension – and Basel's latest architectural landmark – is now open to the public. It will host temporary shows as well as exhibitions from the permanent collections. 

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Christ & Gantebein

ADDRESS

Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Graben 16
4051 Basel
Switzerland 

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

For the occasion of Art Basel, British architect Hugh Dutton created a rare oasis of calm in the middle of Hong Kong. The Swire Properties Lounge – located on the Level 1 Concourse opposite the Hall 1C entrance of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre – provided select visitors with a place to relax and have a drink or snack while perusing the seemingly endless aisles of galleries at Asia’s biggest art fair, which ended its five-day run on 26 March.

For the lounge, Dutton referenced the Climate Ribbon he designed for the almost-finished Brickell City Centre by Swire Properties in Miami, a city that has a very close connection to both Art Basel and the Hong Kong-based real estate developer. The floating ribbon took the shape of a figure eight, a symbol of infinity and continuity, winding around the front column where the circular bar area was situated, before completing the figure eight around the opposite column. In front of the bar was an area for visitors to take a break from the crowds and discuss the myriad works of art they had just viewed while enjoying the view of the harbour. The figure eight echoes, according to the press release, 'Swire Properties’ commitment to environmental sustainability'.

'The essence of this lounge design is about creating a canopy — a shelter over people to come and celebrate and enjoy Art Basel,' explained Dutton in a short film on the project. 'And to do that, we have this idea of creating a fluid ribbon that begins at one end, and then just wraps around a column and then engages with the people and the shelter and then comes back down again. So it’s a simple movement in light, picking up the light we have from the harbour, and celebrating architecture and design, science and art, here at Art Basel in Hong Kong.'

In partnership with UTA Fine Arts, the Swire Properties Lounge also hosted a number of talks during Art Basel touching upon topics like temporary architecture, art disruption in fashion and art in malls. Invited to participate as a panelist, Dutton engaged in conversation with artist Larry Bell, UTA Fine Arts head Josh Roth, Serpentine Gallery director Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, Paddle8 co-founder Alexander Gilkes, M+ curator Aric Chen and collector Robbie Antonio.

INFORMATION 

For more information, visit Swire Properties’ website

Now in its fourth year, Art Basel Hong Kong has established itself as a firm fixture on the art fair circuit. In between cocktail parties, satellite exhibitions and high-powered art deals, navigating the boundless booths in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre’s vast halls can be daunting – and exhausting.

There were few places to escape the bustle of the fair more inviting than the latest iteration of Audemars Piguet’s Collectors Lounge, this year conceived by New York-based, Chilean artist Sebastian Errazuriz, who inherits the mantle from French designer Mathieu Lehanneur.

‘The booth is designed as a series of ideas that work together as a juggling act,’ explained Errazuriz, as he talked us through the space, which draws inspiration from ice formations and the Swiss watchmaker’s snowy home in Le Brassus. To wit, the space is divided up into three vignettes (or ‘a series of perfect Instagram photos’), each one a distinct act in the Audemars Piguet story.

Errazuriz visited the brand’s remote headquarters and was captivated by the watchmakers’ solitude during the winter months. ‘I really like the idea of thinking of a watchmaker isolated for eight months, seeing the drops suddenly start melting. Not only is it a metaphor for time, but it also says spring is coming,’ says the artist. ‘The roads would open up – this was their show time.

Visitors were lured in by the façade of the lounge, which comprised a dramatic icicle-inspired installation. ‘Ice expands and grows. The shapes that can be so delicate become strong over time. The same way when they melt, you’ve got the drips function as a “ticking”,’ Errazuriz adds.

Inside, the brand’s watchmakers demonstrated their craft on a pair of cantilevered glass tables, while at either end water dripped slowly into pools from the custom-designed lighting fixtures above, creating a rippled effect. A select few timepieces were showcased behind, in display cases that mimicked alpine rocks in their colour and texture.

An all-white, soundproof room riffed on stalactites and stalagmites with a minimalist bent, created to showcase brand’s chiming timepieces. This vault is both beautiful and hostile – a duality in nature that Errazuriz purposely sought to recreate.

The booth also featured striking visuals by British photographer and Audemars Piguet collaborator Dan Holdsworth. The lounge will travel to Basel in June, where it will be expanded for the next edition of the fair.

INFORMATION

Art Basel Hong Kong ran from 24–26 April. For more information, visit Audemars Piguet’s website

One of the highlights of Baselworld 2016 was a brand new iteration of one of Wallpaper's all-time horology favourites: Rolex's classic Oyster Perpetual Air-King.

Continuing the story of aeronautical heritage that began with the original Rolex Oyster, the new steel-cased Air-King features a distinctive black dial with a combination of large three, six and nine numerals marking the hours and a prominent minute scale for navigational time readings. The dial bears the name Air-King in the same lettering that was designed specially for the model in the 1950s.

The Air-King name refers to Rolex's privileged ties with pilots and aeronautical adventurers since aviation's golden age during the 1930s. One of the pioneers of this era, English aviator Charles Douglas Barnard, set a number of flight records and always wore an Oyster whilst in the cockpit. 

'The peculiar qualities of this Rolex watch render it eminently suitable for flying purposes,' said the pilot. 'I propose to use it on all my long-distance flights in the future.' In 1933, Oyster watches accompanied the Houston Expedition as it made the first-ever flight over Mount Everest at an altitude exceeding 10,000m (33,000 ft) in extreme weather conditions.

In 1934, Owen Cathcart-Jones and Ken Waller made a return voyage from London to Melbourne in record time with a twin-engine De Havilland Comet, using a Rolex Oyster as their on-board chronometer.

In case one's aircraft has to make an emergency landing on the ocean, the new Air-King's Oyster case, always a paragon of elegant robustness, is guaranteed waterproof to a depth of 100m (330 ft). The middle case is crafted from a solid block of corrosion-resistant 904L steel, its fluted case back hermetically screwed down with a special tool that allows only Rolex watchmakers to access the movement. Fitted with the Twinlock double waterproofing system, the winding crown screws down securely against the case. The crystal is made of virtually scratchproof sapphire while the waterproof Oyster case provides optimum security for the Air-King's high-precision movement via a shield that protects against magnetic fields, an essential feature of Rolex pilots' watches of the past. Chocks away.

Italian designer Enrico Marone Cinzano is on a mission to prove that sustainable and luxurious furniture are not mutually exclusive with the launch of his first solo exhibition at Hong Kong’s Pearl Lam Design gallery.  Entitled ‘China Clean’, the exhibition features eight key sculptural pieces inspired by the designer’s frequent travels to mainland China.

Part of the collection centres around furniture crafted from recycled elm wood using traditional Chinese joinery, beeswax with natural lacquer finish and eco-friendly glue, including a flat-pack Qing chair with sailor-inspired carvings, a valet complete with a hand-carved skull, and a dramatic 'Double Happiness' cabinet. ‘I did all these strange things like hand-carving skulls, which is a little bit freakish,’ Cinzano admits. ‘But I wanted something that spoke to the Chinese and had a charm while still being functional.’

Other pieces, most notably Cinzano’s 'Fibonacci Table', made from stainless steel, petrified wood and tempered glass that was inspired by the titular Italian mathematician, reflect a more modernist style. ‘The wood is millions of years old and so elegant, so I left the cracks unvarnished,' he says. ‘The contrast with contemporary materials like steel and glass is very interesting.’

The collection also features a distinctly contemporary recycled leather chair and table featuring industrial-esque recycled steel hardware. The design, created in collaboration with Shanghai-based Stellar Works, deconstructs as a flat-pack for convenient eco-friendly transport. Creating a sustainable range of furniture in China may seem like an anomaly, but Cinzano says he was struck by the people’s enduring connection to nature. The country’s potential influence on sustainability is enormous, he explains.

‘Can you imagine what China could really do if they realised that they could make a product more efficiently and that would perform more effectively?’ he concludes.

INFORMATION

’China Clean: Enrico Marone Cinzano’ is on view until 14 April. For more information, visit Pearl Lam Design’s website

ADDRESS

Pearl Lam Design
Hong Kong SOHO
189 Queen’s Road West
Sheung Wan 
Hong Kong

View Google Maps

As the art world descended on Hong Kong for five days of Art Basel and the dizzying collection of satellite shows that piggyback on the main event, the art market held its breath wondering if the region’s economic slowdown would translate into fewer sales compared to last year’s spree.

Serious art lovers, however, obviously found moments of inspiration – particularly at the top end of the spectrum, thanks to ambitious works by the likes of Michaël Borremans at David Zwirner (all five of his paintings sold on day one to Asian collectors) and Iranian artist Shirazeh Houshiary’s abstract Raintree etchings at Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

Elsewhere, the middle market galleries, whose works were decidedly less glitzy than last year, found the going a little more challenging. Despite this, there were gems to be found, including South Korean artist Ham Kyungah’s statement-making Chandeliers for Five Cities, a collection of tapestries secretly created by North Korean textile workers.

Gallerist Pearl Lam put on a good show, with an extravagant collection of mixed media including Self-Portrait with Red by Antony Micallef; as did Pace Beijing with a mesmerising digital video work by teamLab, and KaiKai Kiki’s works by Aya Takano and Mr.

As in previous years, however, some of the most innovative cultural offerings were to be found outside of the main fair. Must-sees include the surreal film installation Duilian at Spring Workshop by the artist Wu Tsang, based on her decade-long research into a Han Chinese revolutionary beheaded by the Qing government in 1907; and art hub Duddells' collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Art, presenting emerging artist Margaret Lee’s works.

Meanwhile, Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima’s monumental Time Waterfall façade light installation did battle with the heavy rain clouds that shrouded the International Commerce Centre at Kowloon Station, while on the same side of the harbour, British artist Conrad Shawcross’ mathematics-inspired robotic light sculpture entranced guests at The Peninsula hotel. Across town, Los Angeles artist Larry Bell transformed Pacific Place mall with three enormous reflective glass cubes.

Art Central's Stiff & Trevillion-designed waterfront tent was also well worth a detour, with Elaine Yan Ling Ng’s beguiling Sundew installation for Swarovski; Hong Kong gallery Sin Sin’s extraordinary Growth drawing of roots by Indonesian artist Dwi Setianto; and Sundaram Tagore Gallery’s collection of tactile works by Jane Lee. We were also particularly taken with New Zealand gallery PAULNACHE’s architectural installation Wall Hang; and The Cat Street Gallery’s playful lacquer carvings by Shanghainese artist Jacky Tsai.

With so much happening across the city, it came as no surprise that Art Basel has announced its intention to expand its focus from art fairs to help a selection of global locations (yet to be announced) to develop their cultural landscapes.

INFORMATION

Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 is on view until 26 March. For more information, visit the Art Basel website

ADDRESS

Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
1 Harbour Road
Wan Chai
Hong Kong

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

There’s been much furor ahead of Tracey Emin’s latest exhibition, ‘I Cried Because I Love You’, not least because it is her first solo venture in greater China – and rumoured to be her last before she embarks on a yearlong sabbatical. Opened this week to coincide with Art Basel fair in Hong Kong, the frenzy surrounding the British artist’s major new show might only be overshadowed by the startling revelation she married a large, ancient stone in her garden in southern France last summer.

Spread over White Cube and Lehmann Maupin galleries in Central, the exhibition brings together older pieces alongside new paintings, drawings, embroideries and neon works. A narrative centred on her impromptu union (wearing her father’s funeral shroud in lieu of a wedding dress, no less) threads the duet of shows – fittingly, two become one.

‘It’s about me being able to not have to define myself within a gallery, within a space, within a country,’ she explains in the exhibition catalogue to Carl Freedman.  ‘I can just make my work and show it, that’s what’s important to me.’ To wit, the show is typically Emin: unabashedly confessional in its nude drawings of splayed female figures; yearning words scrawled in light and across canvases; and raw, explosive brushstrokes.

Emin doesn’t deviate far from the artist we know, yet, her new works seem bolstered by a newfound sense of self-acceptance, perhaps the result of her recent union. ‘You can find people to have sex with, but, you know, loving them is something else,’ she said. The marriage to the stone (it’s not a rock, Emin insists) is a metaphor about the longing to be with someone and the stability that comes with enduring love.

‘It’s my life. I think I’ve cried over more people that I love than people that I hate. I don’t think I’ve really hated hardly anyone,’ she has said. ‘I think my big mistake is loving people too much.’ However droll Emin is, the more she chastises journalists, the bitterer her acerbic tongue becomes: the more we try to love her.

INFORMATION

‘I Cried Because I Love You’ runs until 21 May across White Cube and Lehmann Maupin galleries. For more information visit the White Cube website

ADDRESS

Lehmann Maupin
4/F, Pedder Building
12 Pedder Street

White Cube
50 Connaught Road

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS