Art Basel 2025: Monumental Art, Public Imagination, and Bold New Frontiers

Gen de Art
8 minutes ago
4 min read

Art Basel returns to its flagship location in Basel from June 19–22, 2025, with Preview Days on June 17 and 18, presenting an ambitious vision that reinforces its position as the pinnacle event of the global contemporary art market. This year’s edition will feature 289 leading galleries from 42 countries, spanning painting, sculpture, digital media, installation, and performance.

Messeplatz Transformed: Katharina Grosse’s Immersive World

In a commanding opening gesture, renowned German artist Katharina Grosse will take over Messeplatz with a monumental, site-specific installation curated by Natalia Grabowska of Serpentine London. Grosse’s iconic spray-painted interventions will wash over urban surfaces, turning everyday architecture into a liquid chromatic dreamscape.

“Color becomes anarchic. It allows me to fight categorizations… to turn reality into something entirely liquid,” says Grosse, whose intervention will be one of the fair’s most discussed works.

Unlimited: Where Monumentality Meets Emotion

The Unlimited sector, curated for the fifth time by Giovanni Carmine, Director of Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, will showcase 67 large-scale installations, offering a profound interplay of politics, poetry, and presence.

Highlights include:

Andrea Büttner’s Shame Punishments (2022–2025), an expansive meditation on social codes.
Caroline Achaintre’s biomorphic textile monster Gobbler, a surreal blend of mysticism and grotesque humor.
A new series of Daffy Duck-themed velvet paintings by Cosima von Bonin, evoking absurdity and existential tension.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Go-Go Dancing Platform (1991), a poignant performance piece exploring desire and temporality.
Atelier Van Lieshout’s The Voyage – A March to Utopia (2025), a dystopian-utopian installation of interconnected life symbols, created over four years.
The feminist word painting Sexual Pleasure (1998) by Mira Schor, reintroducing radical language through form and color.
A haunting performance piece Sham3dan (2024) by Cairo collective nasa4nasa, referencing belly dance, labor, and endurance.

Unlimited Night, on June 19, will allow extended access to these installations, accompanied by live performances.

Parcours: Art in the Streets of Basel

Curated for the second time by Stefanie Hessler, Director of the Swiss Institute in New York, the Parcours sector returns with a sharp curatorial theme: Second Nature. Spanning Clarastrasse to the Rhine, Parcours will transform Basel’s urban fabric into a contemplative arena for questions around artificiality, ecological perception, and ritual.

Key projects include:

An 80-meter textile installation namak halal / namak haram (2025) by Hylozoic/Desires, referencing British colonial salt barriers in India.
Selma Selman’s painted car hoods and immersive soundscape inside St. Clara Church.
Marianna Simnett’s uncanny hot dog stand sculpture-video hybrids.
Sturtevant’s endlessly looping video of a running dog in an underpass.
A surreal raincoat shop-as-artwork by Thomas Bayrle inside Manor department store.
Yu Ji’s daily-activated cement sculptures, paired with fresh bread offerings.

“Second Nature questions what is perceived as natural in Basel’s everyday spaces, examining ecosystems, technologies, and bodies,” says Hessler.

Kabinett: Intimate Explorations

Art Basel’s Kabinett section—dedicated to thematic and curated presentations within gallery booths—returns with 24 projects. Standouts include:

Hu Xiaoyuan’s I Am Rooted, But I Flow (2025), a poetic fusion of manuscript, material memory, and ephemeral light, presented by Beijing Commune.
New black salt paintings by Pier Paolo Calzolari, exploring texture and luminosity at Galleria Franco Noero.
Lucia Nogueira’s multidisciplinary installations examining space and language, shown by Annely Juda Fine Art.
A feminist artifact from Martha Rosler—her Diaper Pattern (1973)—that interrogates domestic labor and sociopolitical narratives.

Art Basel Awards and Summit: Recognizing Visionaries

For the first time, Art Basel will host the Art Basel Awards, in partnership with BOSS, celebrating 36 trailblazers in the global art ecosystem—artists, curators, patrons, and innovators. The Awards Summit on June 20 at Messe Basel will be open to the public, engaging influential voices and fostering meaningful discourse.

The Art Basel Shop Returns

Following its successful debut, The Art Basel Shop reopens with an exclusive selection of artist-designed objects, fashion, and limited-edition collectibles, blending contemporary art with lifestyle in a curated retail experience.

A Citywide Celebration

Beyond the fairgrounds, Basel’s cultural institutions will join in, amplifying Art Basel’s impact through citywide collaborations and events. From the immersive grandeur of Messeplatz to the intimate provocation of Kabinett, Art Basel 2025 promises not only a showcase of leading talent but also a bold redefinition of how art inhabits public space, sparks conversation, and connects global communities.

“We are pushing boundaries—not only within the fair but across the cultural landscape of the city,” notes Maike Cruse, Director of Art Basel in Basel.

Art Basel 2025 is set to reaffirm its legacy while carving new paths for the future of art.

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