Even if you prefer to buy art for your home from a local gallery you are familiar with, what you can see in one day at Art Basel will train your eye for art.

284 galleries from 36 countries will be exhibiting the works of the artists they represent at Art Basel 2023.

Art Basel © Courtesy Art Basel

In one day in Basel, you can discover everything that leading galleries consider to be the most important works from Europe, Africa, Asia and America.

According to the latest report on the international art market, published annually by Art Basel in cooperation with UBS, art fairs are an important sales channel, accounting for 35 percent of sales.

International trade fairs are an important place for gallery owners to cultivate contacts with existing customers and meet potential new customers and interest them in the position of their gallery. Online sales are still in the low double-digit range, sales are mainly made in the gallery.

As the cost of participating in the fair is also a major expense for every gallery, you can be sure that every gallery will try to present itself in the best possible light.

Champagne for the soul

A day ticket on the public days June 15 – 18, 2023 costs 67 Swiss francs. The value of the impressions for the eyes and senses is priceless. Paintings, sculptures and installations can only be experienced with all the senses if you stand in front of them and look at them from different angles.

Champagne for the soul.

It’s never too late

Don’t hesitate to plan a visit just under a month before Art Basel opens. The city’s most prestigious and well-known hotels such as the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, the Hotel Märthof Basel, the Hotel Krafft Basel and the Volkshaus Basel are reserved well in advance by the eager assistants of the galleries, museums and of course the international collectors for the time of the fair.

Especially as these hotels also have pleasant bars and restaurants where you can chat about art. But you can also do this on a later visit on days when there is no trade fair.

From the Olympus of art to the mountain and vice versa

The city of Basel has an excellent streetcar network that even extends across the border into France and Germany. The streetcar departs directly from the exhibition grounds and takes you comfortably to many nice places and accommodations outside the city center of Basel.

The Swiss Railways, the dream of every commuter in Germany, will get you in and out of Basel on time, making it a great place to live.

One day fair, one day mountain hiking, one day fair. A rhythm that is easy to follow. If you arrive with an SBB ticket, you will receive a 10 percent discount on your admission ticket.

More art and/or savoir vivre

You can fill up on art in one day at the fair. If you want to spend more than one day in Basel, it is a good idea not only to walk through the exhibition halls but also to stroll through the city. There are 24 works of art in the outdoor space alone, as part of the Parcours, outdoor space of the city that is part of Art Basel.

The city’s museums and galleries always put on interesting exhibitions during trade fairs. With the group exhibition “Out of the Box”, Schaulager Basel, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is showing works to the public that are otherwise reserved for art research in this building designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

Schaulager is so convinced by this anniversary show and everything that can be seen there that the admission ticket is valid for three days.

Our favorite museum, the Fondation Beyeler, is showing Wayne Thiebaud with his works on the American way of life and lots of cream cakes, pieces of cake and sweets that look irresistible in their pastel colors.

Afterwards, the restaurant in the baroque Villa Berower in the museum’s park, complete with terrace, invites you to enjoy a Sancerre Blanc or a Kombucha with a view of the sculptures by Calder and Fischli/Weiss.

City of pleasure in Switzerland

Basel in June is a delight with blossoming trees and the glistening Rhine. There are tables everywhere under plane trees and in squares, many along the river, where you can enjoy a coffee, cake or aperitif.

Thanks to its location on the Rhine and its ambitious merchants, Basel was an important trading city centuries ago and therefore also for spices such as cinnamon, saffron, cloves, pepper and much more.

The tradition for this can still be found today in the Basler Leckerly, which are distantly related to gingerbread, but are roasted rather than baked.

The oldest biscuit manufacturer in Switzerland, Jakob’s Basler – Leckerly, has already been recommended in the 1844 edition of the Swiss Baedecker and recently received an award for innovative company management.

In 2022, Basel was voted Switzerland’s City of Pleasure and many Basel residents believe that the culinary offerings are superior to those in Zurich. Here we take a diplomatic approach and refer you to the list of the 10 best restaurants in Basel, compiled by our Swiss colleagues at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Life is short. Click on

Convinced? The next art biennale in Venice will not take place until 2024. Off to Basel. Tickets for Art Basel are available here.

Anyone who has visited Messe Basel once usually comes back. To see and discover so much creativity, beauty and touching art positions in one place is something special.

The art market, whose turnover increased by 3 percent in 2021 compared to 2022 due to the pandemic, has a volume of 67.9 billion US dollars.

America will have the lion’s share of the art market in 2022 with 45 percent, followed by the UK with 18 percent, China with 17 percent and France with 7 percent (THE GLOBAL ART MARKET IN 2022).

That’s why Art Basel’s sister fairs in Miami Beach, Hong Kong and Paris are also worth a visit.

After the pandemic, the large and international galleries have recovered well. Many of the smaller and medium-sized galleries are still struggling. There is therefore much to be said for supporting them in particular.

But with an eye trained at Art Basel in combination with desire and mood, because you see the works of art in your own home almost every day. They must also appeal to your heart.

Cover photograph Art Basel © Courtesy Art Basel

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