The annual Swiss art spectacle is under way again. This is the first year, after three years, in which global travel has truly become unrestricted, and everyone in the art world seems determined to get to Europe—to make up, all at once, for the years that were lost. Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023. The main fair runs from June 12 to 18, for one week, with 284 galleries exhibiting, from blue-chip international dealers to emerging galleries from Southeast Asia.
Alongside the traditional public installations, performances, film screenings, and talks inside the fair, Basel is presenting 24 site-specific art projects and performances in the city center. The atmosphere of art has spread throughout the city. Louisiana Museum sculpture park, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Design Miami exhibition, 2023, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Shabala Self’s solo exhibition “Spaces and Places,” Eva Presenhuber Gallery, 2023. Design Miami, gallery exhibitions, museum surveys, sculpture-park shows, and all manner of art salons taking place alongside Basel have left collectors wishing they could split themselves into five.
We spoke remotely with three collector friends who were moving frantically from exhibition to exhibition in Basel, and asked them to describe what they were seeing. Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023. The first work Guandong Yuan acquired in Basel. On the first day of the fair, Guandong Yuan could not resist making a purchase.
“I acquired an installation by the Japanese artist Yuki Kimural. The marble pattern on the base was hand-painted by the artist. A number of objects sit on top, expressing confrontation—a collision between the artificial and the consumer goods of industrial production.” When he returned to the hotel that evening, he was still excited. “I saw so many friends: people from galleries, auction houses, and other collectors.
“Everyone had flown in from the mainland, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. It really is a grand occasion.” Hoda Kashiha’s work at Basel, photograph by Guandong Yuan. “I simply couldn’t stop myself. I acquired this work, too.” Unable to control his impulse to keep buying, Guandong Yuan had acquired another work—a diptych by the Iranian artist Hoda Kashiha—before noon on the second day in Basel.
On the way to the fair, he also encountered a march by Swiss women demanding equality and equal pay.
“Last night I went to an electronic-music festival. In Europe, there are so many little side episodes like that,” Guandong Yuan said with a laugh. Design Miami, 2023, photograph by Guandong Yuan. “This is my third Art Basel in Switzerland, and my first long journey in three years. The weather is so good it’s almost absurd.” He was eager to share his impressions. He also visited Design Miami, the leading collectible-design fair held alongside Basel; a solo exhibition by the American artist Tiona Nekkia at the Kunstmuseum Basel; and the VitraHaus campus, the celebrated German design company’s complex near the fair.
VitraHaus campus, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Interior of the exposed-concrete building designed by Tadao Ando. Design-furniture showroom at the VitraHaus campus, photograph by Guandong Yuan. “The VitraHaus campus is a whole cluster of buildings. The best-known were designed by Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid.” The Vitra complex was designed by leading architects of the present day. It includes a design museum, a documentary library, a conference center, showrooms displaying chairs, sofas, and tables dating from the 1950s onward, and five enormous factory buildings.
During Art Basel, the VitraHaus campus also opened special design exhibitions and its design museum to visitors. Fondation Beyeler exterior, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Doris Salcedo solo exhibition at Fondation Beyeler, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Guandong Yuan also visited the renowned Fondation Beyeler, one of the world’s most prominent art institutions, whose collection includes works by Picasso, Monet, van Gogh, Rothko, and other masters.
“The current special exhibitions include works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and a solo exhibition by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. They’re truly wonderful!” Guandong Yuan said. Fondation Beyeler’s outdoor sculpture park, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Few people may know that the famous Rhine River rises near Basel, and that the Fondation Beyeler, founded in 1982, stands beside it.
Under the already sultry June sun, Guandong Yuan noticed a charming little snowman standing on the foundation’s lawn, equipped with its own cooling system. It is a work by the artist duo Fischli & Weiss. The snowman’s “brothers” have also appeared at MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and other major museums and art institutions. The Rhine at Basel, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Snapshots from Guandong Yuan’s travels. In fact, Guandong Yuan had arrived in Europe ten days before the fair began, visiting exhibitions and museums in Denmark and at Zurich Art Weekend.
During his travels, we exchanged occasional messages across the time difference. Through his vivid descriptions, we followed him on a virtual tour of Europe, experiencing the brilliant early-June light in Scandinavia, skies an implausible blue, and an art season so busy it seemed almost unbelievable, with countless old friends reunited. The Little Mermaid bronze in Denmark. Outside the restaurant where Guandong Yuan ate—Europeans especially like dining outdoors in the sun—photograph by Guandong Yuan. “The main purpose of this trip is simply to enjoy the good things in life.”
Guandong Yuan told us this with a laugh, then sent a “check-in” photograph of himself with the bronze Little Mermaid from the Danish fairy tale. Grundtvig’s Church, photograph by Guandong Yuan. “Grundtvig’s Church is so beautiful it’s moving.” He praised the Expressionist landmark, completed in 1921 and made from six million yellow bricks. At the outdoor sculpture park of the world-famous Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, whose collection exceeds 4,000 works, stand sculptures by such modern and contemporary masters as Alexander Calder, Henry Heerup, Henry Moores, and Roy Lichtenstein.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art outdoor sculpture park, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Hauser & Wirth estate and Swiss gallery spaces, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Zurich Art Weekend also offers many exhibitions and events concurrent with Art Basel. Guandong Yuan was particularly struck by the collection of Ursula Hauser, founder of the world-leading gallery Hauser & Wirth. The estate contains three spaces: solo exhibitions by Cindy Sherman and Roni Horn, and a dialogue between Louise Bourgeois, Rothko, and Newman.
“All three artists began working in abstract painting at roughly the same time. They share many similarities and characteristics.” The art hotel where Guandong Yuan stayed, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Michelin-starred dishes relating to art and plants, designed around the same theme as the menu, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Throughout the trip, Guandong Yuan kept remarking on Europe’s artistic atmosphere—it was like air, visible everywhere and impossible to escape.
“Even the hotel where I’m staying has a sculpture exhibition. Contemporary art hangs everywhere, and even the food is inseparable from art.” Art collection at Uli Sigg’s castle, photograph by Guandong Yuan. Despite having stayed so long, Guandong Yuan said that even if he arranged his itinerary like a special-forces exercise, he could only skim each institution.
“My biggest regret on this trip is that there was too much to see and not enough time. Every museum was extraordinary, the quality of the work was so high, so good—there’s only one way to put it: an embarrassment of riches.” Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023. “I’m sitting on a sofa in the corridor at Fondation Beyeler right now, looking at the garden and talking with you. Seeing exhibitions in Basel is so comfortable. It isn’t as crowded as Paris.”
Aiqin, a Chinese collector living in Paris, sounded utterly at ease. Her route through Basel had the unhurried quality that seems embedded in Europe itself. She took a three-hour train the day before the fair opened and arrived in Basel late that evening.
“If you don’t know what to eat in Europe, just walk into an Italian restaurant. You probably won’t go wrong. My first meal after arriving was exactly that, and it was unexpectedly delicious,” Aiqin said with a laugh. Several works Aiqin especially liked at Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. This was Aiqin’s second Art Basel in Switzerland. Before coming, she had done her homework, hoping to see exhibitions beyond the main fair.
When she first came, in 2021, travel had not yet fully reopened, and almost no collectors from China had made the trip. This time, she said, she encountered many Chinese collectors and friends from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and European countries.
“The last time I stayed at a hotel very close to the fair. This time, when I booked in February, everything was already sold out. It’s incredibly popular.” Cocktails derived from artists’ works, photograph by Aiqin. The previous evening, she had attended a dinner organized by Art Basel Hong Kong, conducted entirely in Chinese. Speaking Chinese with friends from the art world in a foreign country felt especially intimate. Another dinner she attended also struck her as unusual: organized by Art Basel and a sponsor, it was held at a beautiful restaurant beside the Rhine.
Everyone drank champagne and animatedly discussed which exhibitions they had visited, where they had seen especially good work, and which exhibitions had made the strongest impression on them—recommending them enthusiastically to their friends.
“The dinner invited two young women artists, and each created a special cocktail based on her own work. A small card with the recipe was placed underneath. It was fascinating.” Art Basel Unlimited, Carlos Cruz-Diez work, photograph by Aiqin. Aiqin said that several large-scale installations in Art Basel Unlimited on the first day had stayed with her.
“Lisson Gallery had a light-and-shadow work that I found especially relaxing and joyful. Visitors could interact with the lines and the balls arranged there. When people entered the light, the resulting image was beautiful.” Art Basel Unlimited, photograph by Aiqin. Art Basel Unlimited, work by Augustas Serapinas, photograph by Aiqin. Among the performances at the fair was one featuring people lifting weights—except that the “weights” were made of plaster, which was hard not to find funny.
“The artist wanted to evoke the way people once repeatedly practiced drawing plaster casts, just as the story we heard most often as children was ‘Leonardo da Vinci drawing an egg.’ It has an affinity with the way people work out and lift weights today,” Aiqin told us. Günther Förg, Untitled, 2007. At the main fair, she also saw Antenna Space, Shangart, and other galleries from China.
“I acquired two works myself: a small oil painting on wood by Günther Förg and a work on paper by Georg Baselitz. I’m still considering two others—one painting and one small installation.” Clara Liedtke, Out to Lunch, 2018, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photograph by Tom Bisig, © Clara Liedtke. Aiqin also spoke enthusiastically about Schaulager’s special group exhibition Out of the Box, organized to celebrate the institution’s twentieth anniversary.
The German word “Schaulager” translates literally as “art warehouse.” It is a distinctive institution that brings together research, storage, exhibitions, and art events. Schaulager, Out of the Box, exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. David Claerbout, Wildfire, 2019–2020, photograph by Aiqin. “I used to think video works were difficult to connect with, but the video pieces I saw at Schaulager this time were genuinely powerful.”
Robert Gober, Untitled, Schaulager exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. Among Schaulager’s permanent installations is a sculptural installation occupying an entire white gallery. The room appears flat, but once you enter, you discover that the work extends through the whole space, even deep underground.
“I found it quite overwhelming. The work is made of different parts and has something of the feeling of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages. A red staircase at the back keeps pouring water downward with a ‘whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.’ Looking through what resembles a manhole, you see something like a flooded prison; beneath the cover, you can also see a sculptural work.” Katharina Fritsch, RATTENKÖNIG, 1993, Schaulager exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. Roni Horn, Opposites of White, 2006–2007, Fondation Beyeler exhibition view, photograph by Aiqin. Aiqin told us that this experience had shown her how much more varied and inventive art’s forms had become.
In Doris Salcedo’s exhibition at Fondation Beyeler, works concerning migration in Europe gave Aiqin a new understanding of—and interest in—a social issue that can seem solemn, even excessively politically correct. Doris Salcedo, Palimpsest, 2013–2017, Fondation Beyeler exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. “This work is made with water. Water rises from beneath the floor, forming names, and then, over time, leaks away, leaving only a trace.”
The shape of the water is controlled by a computer program. The names that surface on the floor belong to refugees and migrants who died over the past 20 years while attempting to flee their countries by crossing the Mediterranean or the Atlantic in search of a better life in Europe. The artist hopes to commemorate them in this way. Fondation Beyeler exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. Design Miami exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. Schaulager, Out of the Box, exhibition view, 2023, photograph by Aiqin. “I’m actually returning to Paris tonight. For me, this trip has no regrets.”
“I came to see exhibitions, and I saw the friends I wanted to see. I hoped that, with some luck, I would find works I liked and acquire a few. That wish was fulfilled, so the trip feels complete,” Aiqin said with a laugh. Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023, photograph by Olivia. Olivia hiking in Basel. “This is my first time in Basel, Switzerland. The weather was so good that I went hiking.”
Olivia told us this. She has devoted herself to cultivating an audience on Xiaohongshu and was the youngest of the collectors we interviewed. “We’re also planning to visit Vêves Castle in Belgium after the fair closes on the 17th.” Art Basel, Switzerland, 2023. Willem de Kooning work at Basel, photograph by Olivia. Martha Jungwirth, Untitled, 2017, photograph by Olivia. Because her schedule was so tight, Olivia spent only one day at the main fair, where she fell instantly for an abstract work.
“The work is very relaxed, with a sense of breath. Although the artist is already a woman in her eighties, the image remains intensely affecting and full of vitality. As a nationally revered Austrian artist, she is highly regarded in the Western market, with an impressive record of serious exhibitions and considerable scholarly value. Seeing the work in person is overwhelming.” When Olivia began talking about Martha Jungwirth’s work, she became, in her own phrase, a “chatterbox.” Martha Jungwirth, Untitled, detail, 2017, photograph by Olivia. The distinctive feature of the image lies in the paper beneath it.
The pale-brown paper was originally laid across the artist’s studio floor to protect it. Over the years, paint dripped onto the protective paper. The artist then tore it up, attached it to the canvas, and painted on top of it, giving the image a richer visual texture. Basquiat solo exhibition, Fondation Beyeler, 2023, photograph by Guandong Yuan. In addition to the main fair, Olivia also visited Fondation Beyeler.
“It was the first time I had seen so many monumental Basquiat paintings hung together. He was 21 at the time, and completed these eight paintings in a single week.” Olivia was deeply moved by the Basquiat exhibition. More than 40 years later, the eight works were being shown publicly together for the first time, because a major dispute had arisen between the artist and the commissioner, and they had never previously been exhibited as a group. Doris Salcedo solo exhibition, Fondation Beyeler, 2023, photograph by Olivia. But the exhibition that left the deepest impression on Olivia was Doris Salcedo’s solo show at the foundation.
“When I reached the work with the ‘shoes,’ I simply broke down. I was crying uncontrollably. It was oppressive, and heartbreaking. It was the first time I had felt art’s power to shake a person so deeply. It really can form an emotional connection with someone, create an echo, and move your feelings.” Even as she described the work to us, her voice remained strained with tears. The artist hollowed out the wall and placed a girl’s shoes inside, sealing them behind a hazy, translucent partition. The surrounding seams suggest a body marked by wounds.
Salcedo’s defense of women and her humanistic concern for war and violence possess a vast, silent force. View from the hill behind the hotel where Olivia stayed. “I’m staying directly in Zurich this time. The scenery is beautiful. When the weather is clear, you can see the Alps right behind us. You can go hiking, or simply have a little drink at the hotel.” She also experienced the gratification of being an art blogger on Xiaohongshu.
“I ran into many readers who follow me on Xiaohongshu. Meeting online friends in person was especially fun.” Throughout Basel, she shared her observations in real time with a fan group of several hundred people. She also asked her gallery friends about sales. “The Western blue-chip galleries, such as Gagosian and David Zwirner, all felt that sales were fairly good. And for some of the local European galleries, Basel, Switzerland, is even more their home ground.”
Olivia with Uli Sigg. A work by Liu Ye from Uli Sigg’s collection. It is worth noting that Uli Sigg, a major collector and witness to the development of contemporary Chinese art, opened his private villa during Basel to a small number of collectors.
“His four-story villa has a great deal of art on every floor. He has been buying for decades, and most of it is by Chinese artists—many major works. His collection has two stages. The first was shaped by his role as a Chinese ambassador: he wanted to use art to present the ecology of contemporary Chinese art. Once that mission was complete, he began collecting Western old masters and Korean art as well, gradually building those parts of the collection.” The Christ painted by Hans Holbein the Younger, for which many people visit the museum, Kunstmuseum exhibition view, photograph by Olivia. The Kunstmuseum also contains many paintings by Picasso. Kunstmuseum exhibition view, photograph by Olivia. “I really recommend that everyone who comes to Basel visit the Kunstmuseum. It is one of the ten great museums in the world, with an extraordinary number of works by modern masters.”
Olivia’s first visit to Basel also revised some of her assumptions. First, she saw many “old-money” galleries, displaying works that had been passed down as cultural inheritances through generations. They were a feast for the eyes, and in some cases more refined than what one sees in museums. Modern-master works brought by “old-money” galleries at Art Basel’s main fair, photograph by Olivia. “The galleries’ collections include works by Picasso, Gauguin, Monet, Auerbach, and Giacometti.”
“The gallery owners and staff were highly professional and exceptionally accomplished, with remarkable poise.” The second revelation concerned prices. “The galleries brought many works from the secondary market. Overall, I felt prices were slightly higher than in previous years.” Image courtesy of Art Basel and the collectors Guandong Yuan, Aiqin, and Olivia.