Art Basel will add a new section for works made within the past five years to its Basel fair this June in an effort to inject fresh material into the 55th edition of the Swiss flagship event.
Called Premiere, the section will debut with an international group of ten galleries showing works by up to three artists each. Those galleries include London’s Edel Assanti (first time Art Basel participants), with a stand dedicated to the American artist Lonnie Holley; Cairo’s Gypsum Gallery with paintings by Dimitra Charamandas and photographs by Basim Magdy; Tokyo’s Kosaku Kanechika (also exhibiting for the first time) with a new embroidery by Japanese artist Junko Oki; Tbilisi’s LC Queisser with Tolia Astakhishvili, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili and Simon Lässig, and New York’s Broadway gallery with a multi-channel video installation by Abbey Williams, titled Fugue (2025).
After a recent conceptual shift in the fair's Feature sector—which now focuses on historical projects—organisers saw the need for a curated space dedicated to more contemporary, established artists.
“The sector reflects the internationalism of our galleries, allows a platform for new galleries to show with us and allows visitors to experience cutting edge, recent works by new voices," Maike Cruse, the director of Art Basel in Basel, tells The Art Newspaper in a statement. Each Premiere exhibitor will have their own stand situated in Hall 2.1 on the first floor of the Messe—the floorplan has been “slightly adjusted” to accommodate it, Cruse says.
Any gallery could submit a proposal to join the new section, and the expert selection committee for Premiere consists of Jennifer Chert of ChertLüdde in Berlin, the New York dealer Bridget Donahue and Aleya Hamza from Gypsum Gallery in Cairo. The same trio are the expert selectors for the pre-existing Statements section for emerging artists. This year, the lineup includes 18 solo presentations including eight newcomers, among them Artbeat from Tbilisi which will show an immersive installation by the Georgian artist Nika Kutateladze.
Art Basel in Basel will take place as usual at Messe Basel from 19 to 22 June (previews 17 and 18 June) with 291 exhibitors from 42 countries, including 18 taking part for the first time. Two of them will debut straight into the main Galleries section—Arcadia Missa from London and François Ghebaly, with locations in Los Angeles and New York. Five more galleries graduate from the Feature or Statements sections: Beijing Commune in Beijing; Emalin in London; Hunt Kastner in Prague; Galerie Le Minotaure in Paris and The Third Gallery Aya in Osaka, Japan.
The Statements section, dedicated to work by international emerging artists, will welcome eight new galleries this year including Ginny on Frederick in London and Franz Kaka in Toronto. Feature focuses on historical 20th century projects and will include newcomers Anat Ebgi from Los Angeles and Repetto Gallery from Lugano, Switzerland.
Cruse, formerly the director of Berlin Gallery Weekend, oversaw her first Art Basel in Basel as director last year: “I was focused on strengthening the show and our collaboration with the city of Basel,” she tells TAN, pointing to the expansion of Parcours—the sector for works dotted around the city of Basel—which extended for the first time along the Clarastrasse up to the River Rhine.
“We saw strong sales across all sectors of the market and welcomed 91,000 visitors across the fair days, as well as curators and representatives from over 250 museums and institutions, marking the return to pre-pandemic levels,” Cruse says.
The renowned German artist Katharina Grosse will use her spray guns to tackle this year's Messeplatz commission, curated by Natalia Grabowska, a curator at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Meanwhile Giovanni Carmine, the director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, will again curate the Unlimited section reserved for large-scale installations and performances. It will include around 70 works, yet to be announced. The same goes for Art Basel’s annual public art exhibition Parcours, curated by Stefanie Hessler, the director of New York’s Swiss Institute. This year's iteration of Parcours will follow a theme of Second Nature, exploring “the increasingly blurred lines between life and lifelikeness”, according to a statement. The Merian, a riverside hotel five minutes walk from the fair, will for the second year be “activated” as an events venue as part of Parcours.
The 2024 edition of the fair reminded Cruse of the importance of Basel itself as a destination: “During Art Basel the city of Basel ... transforms into a truly unparalleled hub," she says. "It is most important to focus on quality, but also of Art Basel being a meeting point for the art world.”
A full list of all participating galleries can be found here.
