Although Liste Art Fair is known for displaying young galleries and more experimental artworks, the Satellite Fair is now 30 years old. It’s hardly a young upstart that once was, but it still manages to be surprising.
In 2021, the fair moved from Warteck Brewery to Hall 3 in Messe, bringing it closer to Art Basel. But the new environment is accompanied by more and more pain. Last year, the fair tested a circular layout that was criticized by dealers for hindering traffic to certain stalls. Organizers have once again restarted the floor plan for the 2025 edition.
The design this year seems to be better, and it is a complaint from the 99 exhibitors at the fair. About 40 are beginners and have 32 countries represented in the gallery.
While some critics think last year’s speech was too safe, the 2025 version tends to be unique and shocking – distant sound installations and conceptual work reinforce why Liste remains the top platform for choice for the Vanguard art world.
Here are Artnews’ top five stalls at the fair:
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Jin Haofan of Vanguard Gallery
Image source: Pioneer Gallery
Vanguard Gallery in Beijing is a specific location project for Shenzhen painter Jin Haofan islands. Including three sets of painting installations (two of which are composed of 100 small canvases), these works are pieced together like puzzles, thus making the color and translucent atmosphere fantasize about dusk and dawn. Vanguard director Sherry Zhang said the effect was “the Tresk sea surface after the storm.”
These works touch on subjects, including loneliness, the boundary between day and darkness, and “the duration of time.” Artnews.
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Lukas Heerich, Max Goelitz Gallery
Image source: Max Goelitz Gallery Courtesy
The bright pink walls on the booth of the Max Goelitz gallery in Berlin are immediately noticeable, but accompanied by clumsy steel and aluminum sculptures, the whispering will make visitors feel a little painful. The sound gradually spreads – I initially thought my phone speaker was broken – from the old Tannoy speakers used to broadcast disaster warnings. Recorded by Nigerian American poet Okoyomon, the audio is inspired by Hunter’s NightCharles Laughton’s 1955 film, dreams of fever, represent “fallen towers, building destruction or bone signals,” says Gabriel Schmidt, the gallery’s fresh director.
The striking pink on the wall is Phos-Chek, a flame retardant used at the airport, “it is corrosive but also soothing, just like lipsticks scattered on the harshness of the metal structure,” Schmidt added. “Like painkillers, art becomes a calm force, spreading the tension it generates and alleviating the cruelty of the built environment,” he noted, the work was acquired by European institutions.
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Tom Hardwick Alan and Lee march in the South
Image source: South Parade Gallery
The South Parade in London was founded in 2020 by Isaac Simon and is on display for the first time this year on Liste. The gallery brought three cast iron reliefs by British sculptor Hardwick-Allan, which pressed the carved wood into a mixture of sand and gasoline, leaving a mark and poured it into it. “They responded to premature chicks’ external maintenance – a balance of fuel, liquid and oxygen,” Simon told me.
The paintings of Hong Kong-born London-based artist Kin Ting Li complement the reliefs of Hardwick-Allan. The works are based on observations of nature, literature, film, architecture and science fiction, “caused new forms of organic and inorganic, inorganic, microscopic and astronomy,” Simon said, adding that “it’s important that the gallery has something important in Basel”. Last year, he also participated in the focal section of Frieze London’s emerging gallery.
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Inuuteq Storch at Wilson Saplana Gallery
Image source: Wilson Saplana Gallery
The Wilson Saplana Gallery in Copenhagen also attended Liste for the first time this year. In his debut speech, the gallery brought a series of photos by Inuuteq Storch, an Inuit artist in Greenland. The work was his attempt to take back his country from Denmark’s colonial grip, “it has defined culture for decades,” the director of the gallery Nanna Saplana told me.
Stucci represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale last year. His photos highlight relationships, intimate moments and environmental struggles in Greenland. Saplana said they were “opened in a way that evokes memories and nostalgia.”
Prices of these pieces range from $5,000 to $15,000, and some have been sold.
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Kim Adams at Hunter Gallery
Image source: Eslam Nabil
At first glance, the stall at Toronto’s Hunt Gallery (which debuted on Liste this year) looks like a loft for middle-aged model train lovers. Unfolding on the long table are micro-industrial scenes that include transport containers, train cars, trees and small people. Gallery director Daniel Hunt told me that it was all written by 74-year-old Canadian artist Kim Adams, known for using ready-made and prefabricated elements, “asking about social structure, the impact of technology and mobility and the intersection between life and art.”
Hunter added: “Adams built these trivial “worlds” as a form of social criticism, occupying a unique space between life and art.”
Automobile office ((Automobile office) is a scaling model of the building designed for Skulptur Projekte Münster’s 1977 performance. This is an old gas station with a large round gas station. Adams returns to Muster every year to shoot the structure to see its aging and adjust the artwork accordingly. Hunter said he has sold several pieces, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000.
