As early as 1970, when Art Basel was founded, there were only a few large-scale fairs. However, according to some estimates, there are more than 300 art fairs today. But even so, Basel art remains the main fair for many dealers performing in Switzerland this week.
David Fleiss, co-founder of 1900-2000 in Paris, attended the 1970 and 1971 fairs before resting until the 1990s. He has been going since then. “The Expo is this Be fair to us. He said we met the best collectors and the best museum curators we can meet at any fair. It’s still fair that you can see the best pieces offered by the gallery. ”
Founded in 1970 by Swiss art dealers Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt, Art Basel has become a global giant, with versions held in Hong Kong, Paris Miami Beach, Paris, and even Qatar. But the Swiss version is someone that one cannot miss, the dealer told Artnews This seems to hopefully keep this way.
Technically, Art Basel was not the city’s first exposition: the Basel Gallery Association held an exposition in 1968, although it included only local galleries. Bruckner pushed a larger fair for international representation, eventually bringing Beyeler and Hilt, who then worked with Mustermesse, a local trade fair.
Art Basel has 110 exhibitors – 90 galleries and 20 publishers – open from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are both primary and secondary market dealers at the fair, and the price is 5 Swiss francs (about USD 20 in 2025).
Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac saw the fair early on, first visited in 1981 and first served as an exhibitor in 1985. Artnewsalthough Basel had become the most important art fair at the time, it still faced fierce competition from the Cologne Art Fair due to Germany’s thriving art market at the time. He recalls the “European-centered” gathering of Art Basel as “a familiar crowd.”
According to Ropac, things in Basel Art used to be somewhat improvised. When Ropac was late to work, Sturtevant insisted on taking her job on her own and found herself trapped in Swiss customs, suspecting she was the manufacturer of these objects.
“I had to rush to use catalogs and documents to prove her identity, and she was the creator of the work,” Ropac said. “It was only then that customs officials became more tolerant. It was confusing, but very memorable.”
Basel artwork has been intertwined with the lives of many dealers. Iwan Wirth, co-founder of Mega-Gallery Hauser & Wirth, first attended the 17-year-old fair in 1987, a year after he opened his first gallery. He visited the fair with Swiss painter Bruno Gasser and the first artist he showed and his first collector Andy Jillien. Ten years later, the gallery made its debut in Basel’s artwork, meeting the criteria for the first year.
For Worth, one of his most precious memories was watching his eldest son, Elias, and then a little boy, playing in the gallery booth. He told Artnews. “We have pictures of Elias sitting inside, smiling like the happiest art visitors ever.”
Dominique Lévy of Lévy Gorvy Dayan was introduced to Basel as a child, like Elias. She lived in Lausanne with her mother and close friends with Beyeler in the early 1970s, about four and four to attend Basel at about Basel. She didn’t attend the event until decades later when she was a director of Anthony D’Farsay in London, until Anthony D’Farsay in London served as director, heading American artists such as Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns. Through many iterations of the gallery of the same name, she has been a long-time exhibitor and, as estimated, has not missed a single version.
She told Artnewssaid that the early presentation at the fair was “This is part of the inner circle. It is essential.”
Lévy said that as Art Basel has become a global brand, the gallery’s calculations have become more and more complex with the influence of many iterations as dealers have to increasingly weigh which version is best for their plans. Still, she sees a major dividing line between Basel before and after Basel.
Before the pandemic, she said: “Unless I wear high heels, I can’t imagine selling art. We put ice bags behind our feet.
Basel has remained charming for decades as many dealers and artists watch it change their careers. This is the case with New York dealer David Nolan Artnews He was first exhibited in Basel in 1993, and was written by the American painter William N. Copley, who died three years later. On opening day, Nolan sold six Copley’s paintings and called the artist in Key West. Copley told the dealer to drink some champagne and they popped the bottles up to celebrate. Since then, the two have repeated the ceremony every night. From the jump, Nolan saw the possible impact of the successful Basel, and at Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover invited Copley for a retrospective exhibition, followed by more museum exhibitions.
For the long-time director of White Cube, Basel participants have been around for nearly 20 years, and the impact on Basel Expo is this influence, Artnews The cultural ecosystem originated from Swiss cities, from Kunstmuseum and Foodation Beyeler, especially Kunsthalle.
“When you look back at its exhibition history, it’s attracting attention, and how many famous artists are doing early formative performances there right now,” Paris said of Kunsthalle Basel.
There is no doubt that Basel’s success over the years means a lot of change. In the eyes of Marianne Boesky, who first attended the sculptor Rachel Feinstein’s speech in the field of statements in 2000, the fair has become more global and diverse, especially in recent years among its participants and exhibitors.
However, the White Cube Paris does have a complaint about New Basel: “If I had to regret it over the years, it would be a nostalgia: I still miss the butcher in that old town is the only official supplier of iconic art Basel Bratwurst.”
