See. Learning. Refresh
From June 19 to 22, 2025, this year’s Art Basel will once again showcase a selection of the world’s best contemporary art.
For gallery owners, collectors and curators, Art Basel is a must-attend event. Pure joy for everyone else: immerse yourself in contemporary art.
One year of art in one day in Basel
If you wanted to visit all 200 galleries that bring important works by their artists to the fair in Basel, you would need a lot of time, an estimated one year and an enormous travel budget.
When you visit Art Basel, you have the unique opportunity to get an excellent insight into contemporary art in one day.
To want to see all the halls and other exhibition venues of Art Basel in one day is ambitious. Planning and concentration is required.
How much art can you have?
In the exhibition halls there are two large areas: the main part of the fair, where the galleries exhibit, and the Unlimited.
Very large works of art are shown in the Unlimited section. Some of these are works made specifically for this purpose or art installations for which even the largest exhibition stand would still be too small.
At a brisk pace and without too much discussion and contemplation or extended breaks (quickly a delicious veal sausage standing up, everyone eats them here and we look forward to it every time), you can estimate about five hours for this, according to experience.
If you are interested in artists who are not (yet) so established, go to the statements of Art Basel.
Furthermore, there is the Edition section, which focuses on works on paper and multiples, as well as numerous interesting panel discussions.
Those who want to get some fresh air after many hours at the fair, even in an exhibition building designed by Basel’s star architects Herzog & De Meuron, can follow the Art Basel parcour.
On this tour through Basel’s old town, you can see art projects designed for specific spaces.
In order not to lose the overview with all this offer, it is worth to download the very good app of Art Basel.
If you can only be in Basel for one day, you will be very tired at the end of the day, but you will return to your home with a refreshed spirit and wonderful impressions in your mind.
Two days in Basel
As the most important buyers and multipliers travel to Art Basel, all other art institutions in the city also show their best side during this time.
Kunsthalle Basel, Kunsthaus Basel, the House of Electronic Arts (HEK), the Kunsthaus Baselland, or the Museum Tinguely – Basel has a high concentration of art to offer and the ticket to Art Basel offers a reduced admission price for these art institutions.
In addition, Basel-based art galleries present exciting works during Art Basel, and there are a number of parallel exhibitions, such as Photo Basel, which focuses on photography.
When we travel to Art Basel for two days, we pick out two more art highlights, almost always boarding streetcar No. 6 for this and taking it to the Fondation Beyeler.
Our favorite museum always has excellent art to offer and the museum building designed by Renzo Piano with its beautiful park leaves only one wish unfulfilled: To return to Basel soon.
And finally, the art dealer Ernst Beyeler was one of the founders of Art Basel.
The fair of art dealers
Don’t miss Europe’s most important art fair, founded in 1970 by three Basel art dealers and now successfully operating other fair formats in Miami Beach, Hong Kong and Paris.
You can book your ticket for Art Basel in advance on the Art Basel homepage.
The atmosphere at Art Basel is dignified Swiss, and the big bucks for important works by established and new artists are palpable. Other art fairs are looser in format. However, the quality of art that can be seen in one day at Art Basel alone is unbeatable.
Especially if you are at the beginning of building your own art collection, it is worth visiting Art Basel a few years in a row. This trains the eye and the appreciation for the originality and value of a work of art increases.
If there is no room in your calendar for a visit to Art Basel on site, it is worth spending some time on the Art Basel homepage. Important collectors are portrayed there. For example, Hideaki Fukutake, Chair of Benesse Holding, which owns the art island of Naoshima in Japan. A very interesting video about the collector and the works of art that can be seen in the wonderful landscape of Japan’s Seto Sea.
Photography © Art Basel | Hollybush Gardens, Charlotte Johannesson, Take Me To Another World, 2021 © Charlotte Johannesson. Image courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens | White Cube, Liu Wei, Dimension, 2021 | The Breeder, Maria Hassabi Alice, 2021 © the artist Courtesy The Breeder, Athens | The Fondation Beyeler designed by Renzo Piano © Mark Niedermann | Photo Kalbsbratwurst, Art Basel 2022, Sebastian Pflum.
