It is this unique perspective and approach to curating and institution building that has made Filipovic one of today’s most closely watched curators. After nearly 10 years of running the non-collecting, contemporary-focused Kunsthalle, she embarked on a new journey two months ago, becoming the director of the storied 17th-century Kunstmuseum Basel. A child of immigrants who grew up in Southern California’s Inland Empire, she is still somewhat of an outsider in Basel; she is the first non-European and only the second woman to lead the Kunstmuseum, the holdings of which span from the 15th century to today.

“I’d like to think I bring the best of both worlds with me,” Filipovic recently told ARTnews of her upbringing in the US and her adopted home of Europe, where she in 1998. During her tenure at the Kunsthalle, she organized more than 60 exhibitions, including acclaimed ones for artists like Michael Armitage, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Yngve Holen, Anne Imhof, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden. In 2022, she organized the Croatian Pavilion at that year’s Venice Biennale, and, prior to moving to Basel, she was senior curator at Wiels in Brussels, from 2009 to 2014, and she co-curated, with Adam Szymczk, the 2008 Berlin Biennale.

MoMA PS1 director Connie Butler once called Filipovic a “visionary,” adding that she had “one of the best curatorial programs anywhere.” When she was selected to lead the Kunstmuseum, the selection committee’s president Felix Uhlmann said, at the time, that Filipovic’s “infectious enthusiasm for the entire spectrum of art history, and her ability to inspire people for art” is ultimately what made the committee choose her for the position.

Filipovic is a conciliatory figure, whose new mandate includes strengthening the museum’s global standing and ushering it into the future, at a time when art institutions around the world strive for more inclusivity, both in terms of their public and in the telling of art history. With the support of the institution, Filipovic said she is also “pushing to go further and faster.”

She added, “It’s important that we all remember that this should not be a cemetery of beautiful dead things, but a spaceship. It should carry us into the future.”

A museum spaceship may seem like a concept out of step with a 17th-century institution, housing over 300,000 works spanning seven centuries. But Filipovic argues the Kunstmuseum was radical for its day: it became the world’s first public museum in 1661.

The question that animates her vision for the Kunstmuseum, which will also undergo a renovation beginning in 2027, she said, is “How can you run a very old museum that nevertheless has inscribed in its DNA the idea that it should still speak to generations in the future?”

One way Filipovic hopes to carry the institution forward is by exhibiting the work of underrepresented artists more frequently, including in a planned rehang beginning this summer in the museum’s newest building that draws on an expansive acquisition strategy that she has already implemented, adding pieces by Helen Frankenthaler, Julie Mehretu, and Cameron Rowland. “Every acquisition becomes a manifesto of sorts, and a chance to rethink what legacy we leave for future generations,” she said.

Filipovic recently commissioned Louis Lawler to create a work for the new building’s foyer. Lawler’s photographs can seem to swipe across, distort, or blur canonic artworks, questioning the systems and institutions that have lionized and valued them. Lawler’s work “becomes a commentary on what has been glorified in the museum and how we are taking steps to actually look at that,” she said.

But, Filipovic also wants to continue to activate works already in the collection, including some of the museum’s most famed ones, by pursuing and displaying new research, which is also already underway, about their historical contexts, subjects, and provenance. Part of her aim is to show how centuries-old work remains acutely relevant to the questions we face today. Take Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521–22), a life-size and somewhat jarring depiction of the deceased Jesus in the early stages of decay. The work, she said, “speaks to our present at a time of crisis and war and death. Our society has had some of the same problems and questions and yet resilience has carried us through.”

And in maintaining a permanent collection that dates back nearly 400 years, Filipovic will also have to navigate the Kunstmuseum through delicate situations like restitution claims, several of which have come up in the past few years. These include a 2020 settlement for an undisclosed sum over the museum’s purchase of 200 works once owned by a Jewish collector from a 1933 auction, and an ongoing claim over a Henri Rousseau painting a collector sold to support herself while in exile in Switzerland after fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany. (In a statement in January, the museum said it is negotiating a “just and fair solution” with the latter collector’s heirs.)

While Filipovic had not been involved in those restitution claims, she spoke more broadly about how she plans to address such claims going forward, including continuing to support extensive, proactive research into the provenance of artworks in the collection, begun by her predecessor Josef Helfenstein, and then finding ways to share that information with the public.

“Once that the research has been done, I think it is the responsibility of the museum—and it has already been committed to this before my time, and it will continue to during my time—to render this information accessible,” she said.

When it comes to the collection rehang, an exercise that has become something of a global trend of late, Filipovic said the initiative is less about following the lead of other institutions than it is a “feeling that there are so many stories that can be told,” she said. “By rehanging the collection, you’re demanding that the public notice. That every juxtaposition might provoke a new reading of each work.”

Her aim, she continued, is “not to give the public the feeling that [the collection] has been set up and is sleeping [nor] that these truths are inalienable. It is not so.”

As Art Basel enters its public days, Cruse spoke to ARTnews about the challenges of staging such a monumental art fair while the market is in a questionable state and interest rates are high, why Art Basel continues to be successful, and offers the slightest of hints at what might be in store for next year’s edition.

ARTnews: Opening day has come and gone. What can you tell me about the energy on the ground?

Maike Cruse: The energy has been great. You know the art market here in Basel has proven to be very resilient. We were very confident going in, but what we’ve seen so far has really exceeded our expectations, and, I think, also the expectations of many of the galleries. The pace is much more normal, as opposed to last year when little bit more cautious behavior than what’s happening right now.

That’s good to hear. There has been lots of talk about the market softening or losing its froth, euphemisms to say that people aren’t buying as much as even a few months ago. Many people were unsure what to expect, especially with the fair being so close to the May auctions in New York, which had less than stellar results. 

Absolutely. We were all aware of this and, as I said people were nervous going into the show, I think. But as we see, the market is about human-to-human relationships and about unique objects. And so those relationships can also change and develop very fast and that’s what’s happened here.

What were some of the approaches that you took this year considering that overall feeling of trepidation regarding the market?

We basically do what we’ve always done. We observe the art market very closely, and we adapt to it. That really involves more long-term planning as opposed to just reacting to the current state of the art market or what people are saying. The goal this year was to really further rejuvenate and diversify the fair. We have 285 galleries coming from 40 countries, and 22 of these galleries are newcomers to the fair, which is quite a high number. So it’s really interesting to see so many new faces and all new approaches on the show floor and so many high quality booths.

We also extended the citywide program this year by bringing [Agnes Denes’s] Wheatfield: A Confrontation (2024), where it takes up nearly the entire Messeplatz, as well as bringing the Parcours sector, which [this year] is curated by Stefanie Hessler, director of the Swiss Institute, closer to Messe Basel on Clarastrasse, the regular shopping street that connects the Messeplatz and the Rhine. There’s also a music and performance program at the Hotel Merian, which is very exciting.

What are some of the more under the radar things that people shouldn’t miss at the fair?

I think for me one of the big highlights of the show are the more tightly curated works in the Statements sector. This year presents very emerging artists like the Sandra Poulson from Angola with Jahmek Contemporary Art or the Norwegian-Sudanese artist Ahmed Umar, who brought 15 sculptural works that represent personal prayers; [Umar] is represented by a first-time participant to the fair, OSL Contemporary. The Features sector is also wonderful. There, we are showing 16 historical projects like Parker Gallery’s presentation of works by Gladys Nilsson or oil paintings by artist Irène Zurkinden, who was born in Basel, by the New York gallery Meredith Rosen Gallery.

Are you already thinking about next year, about things that you might want to change?

Oh yes, I’ve been thinking about next year for quite a long time [laughs], but I can’t tell you anything specific yet. I have a lot of ideas, I can say that. I’m really waiting to analyze what the re-contextualization of Parcours presents and how the [Denes] project works. I really look at every single detail, the conversations program, Hotel Merian, and then we really look into how we can further improve it or what new inventions we will bring next year. It’s too early to say, but there are a lot of ideas in my head.

The fair happens every year. How much prep time is involved in that on your end?

Here’s an example. When I first came on I had the idea to change the Parcours sector right away. And I’m so glad that I immediately had the thought and the support because it needed to be an implemented immediately for it to really work. It took the whole year. So, you really have to start changes well in advance, maybe one and a half years before the next show.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk, especially here in the States, that Art Basel Paris, launched in 2022, might be more attractive, particularly to American collectors, than Art Basel’s Swiss fair. What makes the two fairs unique?

Well, first I have to say that we’ve profited very much from Paris. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do it. [Laughs.] Every fair that works well for our galleries really broadens our network. We profit from that and vice versa. So since we launched the show in Paris, we have many more French collectors also coming to Basel. And that happens all over the place, especially since we opened Miami Beach [in 2002] and Hong Kong [in 2013]. Each fair attracts a different kind of crowd. The Paris show is more concentrated. It’s a little bit smaller. But of course it’s taking place in the major art metropolis of Paris. We’ll have around 190 galleries, and a third of those are from France. In Basel, we have 285 galleries, 60 percent  of which are European, with the rest coming from other countries from all over the world.

The program in Basel [this year] is very ambitious and complex. It won’t exist like this for a second time. It’s very modern and broad—and it should be. Basel is where we come from. It’s our mother fair, our flagship. It’s our center.

They were found at a residential development project at Calthorpe Gardens, on the outskirts of the historic market town Banbury in southern England. The contractor Orbit Homes, which is overseeing the development, announced the find in a press release.

A group of Mesolithic flint tools dating from 10000 BCE to 4000 BCE were among the oldest artifacts found.

The remains of a small settlement from the Late Bronze Age or the Middle or Late Iron Age was also unearthed, as was an Anglo-Saxon cemetery from the early Medieval period. There, the remains of 52 people have been identified, along with a variety of such goods as beaded necklaces, pendants, and weapons. Among those items was a gold pendant with an intertwined serpent design.

“This is a once-in-a-decade site … with once-in-a-lifetime kinds of finds that are coming up—it’s incredible,” BA field archaeologist Hayley Parsons said in video released by Orbit Homes.

“I think the potential of the site is to show people were here over a very long period of time, doing different things at different times,” McLeish said. “We’ve been so lucky at Calthorpe Gardens, we’ve been totally spoiled with the finds that have been recovered.”

St. Anne’s Anglican Church has the unique distinction of being a Byzantine revival style church containing more than 15 artworks by J.E.H. MacDonald, Frank Carmichael, Frederick H. Varley and other members of the Group of Seven. The rare works depict scenes from Jesus’ life, a departure from the group’s renowned scenes of nature. The church was designated a national historic site in 1997.

The four-alarm fire on Sunday, June 9, destroyed most of St. Anne’s, including all of the artistic works, The interior has been gutted and its central dome collapsed. Only the building’s front remains.

According to The Art Newspaper, there were no reports of injuries and police are still trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Alejandra Bravo, the Toronto city councillor for the ward where St. Anne’s is located, told reporters at a press conference on June 10 the works by the members of the Group of Seven were “something we cannot replace in Canada and in the world”.

Reverend Canon Lawrence Skey commissioned the church’s artworks in 1923. The Parks Canada website describes the artworks as “elaborate interior mural decorations” which “cover the walls and ceiling of the apse, the main arches, the pendentives and the central dome. The cycle combines narrative scenes, written texts, as well as decorative plasterwork and detailing accentuating the architectural lines of the building.”

The artistic project was led by MacDonald, a founding member of the Group of Seven. MacDonald brought in fellow members Carmichael and Varley as well as the artists Arthur N. Martin, S. Treviranus, H.S. Palmer, H.S. Stansfield, Neil McKechnie and his son, Thoreau MacDonald.

The result of the collaboration was St. Anne’s Anglican Church bestowed with more than a dozen large murals and paintings, as well as reliefs and medallions of the four apostles John, Peter, Mark and Paul by the sculptors Florence Wyle and Frances Loring.

The Parks Canada website also noted the church’s paintings belong “to the revival of mural decoration that emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century and is a manifestation of the Arts and Crafts movement which sought to ally architecture with the sister arts of painting and sculpture”

One of the church’s highlights was Varley’s Nativity, featuring a self-portrait of the artist as a young shepherd. The destruction of Nativity was even noted by Varley’s great-granddaughter, Emma Varley, through a post on X (formerly Twitter): “Such a loss.”

“We are witnessing a broadening of our collecting globally with new buyers entering the market, and securing a baseline of support for business alongside core audiences that continue to collect,” Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz said during a press conference. “At the same time, we recognize that the art market is undergoing a period of recalibration. … There is clearly a degree of caution in the market these days. However, I will say, given the energy in the halls today, that the art market is very much still here, and very strong.”

The fair’s opening teemed with people, and big sales seemed to follow. An untitled work by Ashile Gorky from 1946–47 sold for $16 million at Hauser & Wirth’s booth. Meanwhile, a Yayoi Kusama sculpture presented by David Zwirner in the Unlimited sector sold for $5 million.  

Museum directors and collectors, such as Charles Carmignac, Emma Lavigne, and Fabrice Hergott, were spotted walking by a new version of Agnes Denes’s Wheatfield – A Confrontation (1984). First shown in New York’s Financial District, the work reappeared at the fair as a long rectangular patch of wheat stems. Fairgoers could walk through a path cut into Denes’s Wheatfield, making it a hit early on.

Below, a look at the best art on offer at the 2024 edition of Art Basel Basel, which runs until June 16.

Red paint was splashed across the front door and windows of Pasternak’s home. Unfurled between two columns was a banner that read: “Anne Pasternak / Brooklyn Museum / White Supremacist Zionist.” Beneath that statement, in a smaller, red font, were the words “Funds Genocide.”

The residences of several Brooklyn Museum board trustees were also reportedly targeted, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on X.  

“This is not peaceful protest or free speech,” he wrote. “This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable antisemitism. These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason. I’m sorry to Anne Pasternak and members of @brooklynmuseum’s board who woke up to hatred like this.”

Adams added: “I spoke to Anne this morning and committed that this hate will not stand in our city. The NYPD is investigating and will bring the criminals responsible here to justice.”

ARTnews has reached out to the Brooklyn Museum for comment. 

On May 31, a large pro-Palestine march culminated at the Brooklyn Museum, where some 30 activists occupied the lobby for a demonstration, beating drums, waving banners, and calling for the museum to condemn the killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Activists also demanded that the institution disclose its financial ties to Israel and divest from them.

Amid a sizable police presence, approximately 1,000 protestors echoed their calls from outside. Some then climbed onto the ceiling of the museum’s glass pavilion, eventually unfurling a large banner from the museum’s roof that read “Free Palestine From Genocide.” According to Democracy Now, at least 34 demonstrators were arrested.

In the following days, activists decried the excessive force used against the crowd by riot police and members of New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Strategic Response Group onsite. In a statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum said that “the police brutality that took place [on May 31] is devastating.” The spokesperson said that the museum did not call the NYPD. As the building is city property situated on city-owned land, officers do not need permission to enter the premises. 

The museum stated that it would not press charges against the protestors and promised to work with NYPD leadership to focus “on de-escalation going forward.”

The Brooklyn Museum, like other major art institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, has faced calls from artists, activists, and cultural workers to sever financial ties to Israel and to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In many cases, activists have also called on these institutions to term Israel’s military actions in Gaza a genocide.

According to local health authorities, more than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 as a result of Israel’s air and ground campaign.

Protests at the Brooklyn Museum in December called out the institution’s corporate partnership with Bank of New York Mellon, which has investments in Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems and which has supported the Friends of Israel Defense Force Donor Advised Fund. (The Bank told the Financial Times in April that it invests in Elbit “as a result of requirements by its passive index investment strategies.”)

The Association of Art Museum Directors, an industry group for institutional leaders that counts some 240 members, including Pasternak, denounced the vandalism of her home in a statement issued on Wednesday. “We, the members of AAMD, unequivocally and forcefully condemn this antisemitic act,” the group wrote. “As cultural leaders—and also as people of different backgrounds and experiences—we understand the emotion and anger the Israel-Hamas war has wrought.”

“This,” the AAMD added, “does not mean that protestors have unencumbered rights to attack individual persons in pursuit of their cause. Whether at someone’s home or at a museum, this behavior is inexcusable. It does tremendous disservice to discourse and conflict resolution, and the ends simply do not justify the means.”

In April, Art in America visited Sikander at Pace Paper Studio in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she was preparing a new series of works on paper after sending other pieces off to the Palazzo Van Axel in Venice, where her retrospective is currently on view. While she added layers to artworks in various stages of preparation, Sikander talked about distilling ideas from around the globe, drawing as a navigational tool, and engaging history without glorifying it. Watch Sikander at work in the video above, and read more about her in Art in America’s latest “Icons” issue.

Video Credits include: Director/Producer/Editor: Christopher Garcia Valle Director of Photography: Daniele Sarti Second Camera Op: Alan Lee Jensen Sound Engineer: Nil Tiberi Interviewer: Eleanor Heartney

Goldsmiths’s Centre for Contemporary Art said on Wednesday that it had been forced to close because its staff could not resume operations as usual.

“We’re doing this because while the occupation continues, we are unable fulfil the terms required by our insurers for keeping artworks safe and unable to maintain health and safety standards for visitors and staff,” the art space said in a statement.

A show devoted to the German artist Galli will be rescheduled from this summer to early 2025. A residency program at the center was also put on hold.

The students’ occupation of the Centre for Contemporary Art was related to a larger protest at Goldsmiths surrounding the school’s ties to Israel. Students had occupied other buildings at the school, moving the university to make a set of commitments in May that included a scholarship fund for Palestinian students, a statement on the conflict, and a review of the school’s investments.

That set of commitments did not include a call for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 37,000 people have been killed since October 7, according to the local health ministry. As a result, students at the school announced an occupation of the Centre for Contemporary Art.

“We reject an institution that co-opts the student movement for Palestine whilst continuing to fund genocide,” a group representing the students wrote on Instagram in late May. The statement called on the center to cut ties with Candida and Zak Gertler, two donors who have been linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Outset, a British arts fund cofounded by Candida, has also been the subject of recent Palestine-related protests.

The center’s statement did not mention Israel and Palestine by name, and said the protest “prevents us from being able to operate properly as a public art gallery.”

“We want to express our extreme sadness and sorrow to stakeholders (artists, educators and audiences) and staff for this temporary closure, which is a decision we have taken with a heavy heart,” the center wrote. “We hope for an end to the occupation, so Goldsmiths CCA can return to supporting artists, making exhibitions, and hosting our Residents.”

A spokesperson for Goldsmiths said, “We have looked to work with the campaign group and are making progress on the College’s commitments to them, so it is very disappointing that they are occupying a campus building again. It’s also deeply regrettable that their presence in the gallery means it cannot operate normally which includes being able to insure works of art and meet health and safety guidance for visitors. The gallery is a very special place which provides a cultural space for students, staff and our local community through a dedicated outreach programme.”

Update, 6/12/24, 1:20 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a statement from Goldsmiths University.

Stefanie Hessler, director of the Swiss Institute in New York, curated this year’s iteration, and it focuses on themes of circulation and transformation. As fairgoers wander the city streets in search of the Parcours installations, it behooves them to pay close attention to distilleries, shops, and bridges for such art interventions.

To learn more about her approach to curating Art Basel’s public art sector, ARTnews spoke with Hessler ahead of the fair’s opening.

ARTnews: I know this is your first time curating Parcours, which was previously overseen by Samuel Leuenberger. What was your approach to curating Art Basel’s public art sector?

Stefanie Hessler: Yes! Parcours is accessible to the public without a ticket to the fair. And it really—this year, especially—will engage a lot of locations in the city along Clarastrasse, the street leading from the fair building toward the river Rhine. Alongside it, there are 22 projects in all sorts of different venues and locations, from empty storefronts—a former pharmacy, a former bakery, an empty restaurant, and a shop in a shopping center—to a functional hotel, a food court, a car ramp leading underneath the Congress Center, and a bunker, as well as some outdoor locations such as a public park and flags on the bridge leading over the river. It’s really interesting to think about public space in a way that is more expansive and about how people perceive artwork differently when they visit it in non-art spaces.

How has the public sphere influenced your curatorial approach?

For this project, in particular, it was important for me to have artworks that respond to the sites. There are certain challenges that come with exhibiting works in non-art spaces, but also really exciting challenges that make us engage and interact with art differently than we normally would.

Tell me about some of the most notable projects.

All of the works engage the sites they’re shown at. For example, Alvaro Barrington is creating a structure inspired by his grandmother’s house in Grenada and the Caribbean where he grew up. This “distracter” will, on the outside, be clad with paintings that he’s making for this occasion, and on the inside it will house the products that are usually on sale in the shop. There will also be an artwork in the window and large wallpaper in the back of the shop. Outside of this project, the shop is called tropical zone, and it specializes in importing products from Africa to Basel, Switzerland.

Rirkrit Tiravanija is making flags with pirate symbols that are going to line the bridge leading over the Rhine. He is of course interested in communication structures and how different symbols change meaning over time as they transfer from one culture to another. The pirate symbol has been, in the Western imagination, this symbol of a romantic outlaw, but it’s also been appropriated by the fashion industry. The pirate skull and crossbones, as well as lesser-known symbols, are printed on flags, with newspaper article backgrounds. This, combined with its location on the Rhine, which has played such an important role in the history of Europe, refers to travel and the circulation of information.

Another one that I’m really excited about is by Ximena Garrido-Lecca, who is an artist from Peru researching the oil-rich coastal town of Lobitos, known for petroleum extraction. In recent years, there has been a discussion about whether this town will be turned into a tourist resort. And Ximena made these sculptures from ceramic and steel, combining a traditional material and technique also used in pre-Columbian cultures with steel used in industrial processes like petrol extraction. There are also references to Minimalism. These sculptures are installed inside an artisanal distillery in Basel, creating a beautiful connection between the distillation processes for liquor and oil.

This is a pretty big undertaking, with a lot of moving parts. What are some of the biggest challenges that you faced?

It’s been such a joyful process thinking about these projects in all of these very diverse spaces. It’s like a puzzle finding the right match between the artists, galleries, and venues. Many of the artists also came for site visits so that we could have direct conversations, and look at potential places where their works could make sense and how they would be installed. We visited so many sites and offer such amazing selection for the 22 projects. Most people were really excited about partnering with us.

There are some really unique pairings. What are you most looking forward to?

I’m excited about Parcours night on Wednesday, where we’ll have three performances from 8 pm until midnight. The first performance is a major new commission by Madeline Hollander, a former choreographer and visual artist, who has taken inspiration from the Carnival tradition in Basel. During my visits to the city, I came across these spaces used by the Basel Carnival crews to practice their instruments and so on, some of which are in bunkers underneath the city. Madeline was inspired by the invisible forms of circulation underneath the city, and she made a connection between the people practicing for Carnival underground and the sewer system—these hidden infrastructures and performances [happening below the city]. For Parcours, she cast seven manhole covers to be passed back and forth by 14 dancers, while they’re leading a procession from the fair to the Rhine, in Basel’s cleaning crew outfits and masks made out of confetti, which the cleaning crews have to clean up after Carnival each year.

That performance will be followed by a karaoke bar night at the Merian Hotel, organized by Wendy’s Wok World, the alter ego of Sam Lui, an artist who’s been interested in the principles of Cantonese cooking. She’s collaborated with the Savory Project, which is a bar in Hong Kong, to create three specialty cocktails that will be available during the night. Visitors can perform two songs chosen by Wendy that reflect some of the works and concepts in her practice. There’s also a performance by Chuquimamani-Condori, hosted by Jan Vorisek and Mathis Altmann.

“We were all waiting. We were watching the auctions very intently, and they did well. We didn’t know how this was going to go,” Samanthe Rubell, the president of Pace, told ARTnews.

Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz similarly noted the art market’s “period of recalibration” and the atmosphere of caution these days. However, he said in a press conference that the energy of the crowd on Art Basel’s first day was evidence that “the market is very much still here, and very strong.”

Horowitz may not be far off. By the end of Tuesday, it was apparent that not only had the worst been averted, but there was enough sales activity to consider the day successful. Dealers told ARTnews with some surprise that, unlike previous years, more purchases were made in-person, rather via presale PDFs, suggesting a real desire to experience artworks in person and all that the fair and its surroundings have to offer.

Perhaps the most direct, and colorful, message about the market’s resilience was sent to press by Hauser & Wirth cofounder Iwan Wirth. “In spite of the ‘doom porn’ currently circulating in the art press and along gossip grapevines, we are very confident in the art market’s resilience and the first day of Art Basel has confirmed our perspective,” Wirth said in a statement.

“The advantage of the market returning to a more humane pace is that the most discerning international collectors are committing here and now to the very best of the best,” he continued.

There were certainly collectors galore taking advantage of that “more humane pace”—in other words, a time for good deals—including mega-collector Steve Cohen, who made the rounds with a colleague dressed in paraphernalia from the New York Mets, the baseball team Cohen bought in 2020. Despite Cohen’s prodigious art collection, he is not a usual sight at the fair.

Other dealers too were seeing some excitement in the air. By afternoon, news spread through the crowded halls that David Zwirner gallery had sold a Joan Mitchell diptych titled Sunflowers (1990–91), for $20 million. (ARTnews has heard disputing reports from well-placed sources that the actual selling price was closer to $18 million.)

“I would call that a very strong fair,” Zwirner told ARTnews, before pointing to works throughout the booth repeatedly saying “sold.” 

He continued, “And it really happened today. People want to see [the works], experience, talk about them. So, it’s happening here, much more this year than last year.”

Zwirner noted that, in some cases, advisers came on behalf of collectors from all over the world and used FaceTime or messaging to close deals.

“There’s been a narrative out there that the art market is weak and I feel like, when we do well, other galleries do well,” he said. “I assume this will be a very successful fair for the galleries. If the art market is not performing well in the auction environment, that’s one problem, but it’s certainly performing well right here.”

Zwirner also sold Gerhard Richter’s 2016 Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting) for $6 million, and Yayoi Kusama’s giant Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023) for $5 million in the fair’s Unlimited section.

For what it’s worth, secondary market markups seemed more reasonable than usual. At Gagosian’s booth, an Ed Ruscha painting, Radio 1, which last sold at Sotheby’s in May of last year for $2.1 million, was on offer for $2.8 million. Also at Gagosian, Andy Warhol’s Hammer & Sickle (1976), which last sold at Sotheby’s in 2017 for $5.5 million, was on offer for $8.5 million.

“Overall, most galleries are better off today than they were in 2019,” Alex Forbes, the vice-president of galleries and fairs at Artsy, told ARTnews, referring to the last pre-pandemic fair. “It’s always important for folks to zoom out and take in the longer trend, rather than just focusing on year to year. In my view the art market in particular tends to respond to uncertainty more so than, necessarily, the ups and downs of the S& P 500.”

The European Central Bank’s decision to cut interest rates last week, offers some of that needed sense of stability, according to Forbes. ”I’m optimistic in the long run, particularly as we’re coming out of maybe the period of peak anxiety around possible runaway inflation,” he said.

Despite the top line successes, many dealers told ARTnews of a “slow down” in sales at the fair, with dealers taking longer to close sales and having to “work harder” with their clients to get pieces sold.

A New York–based art adviser who wished to remain anonymous told ARTnews that a market slump, and what she called “disastrous” auction sales, have given her access to excellent artworks that were out of reach a few years ago.

“They will call you up, and before they didn’t have the time, because they had like 50 people calling them,” she said. “They are doing a really good job. They are the only people in the art world who put their money where their mouth is, [and] they are working harder.” When asked, the adviser echoed others who said primary prices have not changed, or gone down, despite concerns they have gotten too high.

“We do the very best we can, and when things do get quieter, it’s always also a moment of opportunity of getting even closer to the relationships you have, and build more there,” Marc Payot, president and partner of Hauser & Wirth, told ARTnews, while nevertheless noting sales are taking more time at the fair.

Basel is the mega-gallery’s home turf, and it had one of the fair’s stronger presentations, including mostly works by women and two artists of color.

“We have always done well when the market was not as hot,” Payot said, because the slower pace allowed them to spend more time “building relationships” with clients and artists. Despite any market cooling, by day’s end, the gallery said it sold more works Tuesday than on the first day of the 2023 fair.

In terms of sales, Hauser & Wirth placed its most expensive work brought to the fair, Arshile Gorky’s, rare 1946–47 large work on paper, Untitled (Gray Drawing (Pastoral)), for $16 million. The gallery also sold Jenny Holzer’s red granite benches to an Asian museum for an undisclosed sum, Blinky Palermo’s Ohne Titel (Untitled), from 1975, for $4 million, and Louise Bourgeois’s Woman with Packages (1987–93) marble sculpture for $3.5 million. Coinciding with their museum-caliber Vilhelm Hammershøi show in their new gallery space in Basel, a 1906 painting by the Danish painter, depicting a woman pinning up her loose hair, was sold for an undisclosed amount.

On Wednesday, the gallery reported selling the large Philip Guston painting Orders for $10 million, and Georgia O’Keeffe‘s serene white moonscape Sky with Moon for $13.5 million. (The price for the O’Keeffe is notable, considering that it sold for $3.5 million at Christie’s in 2018.)

“Almost everything was sold in-person today,” said Pace’s Rubell, calling the gallery’s first day at Basel “fantastic.”

She continued, “In years prior, there has been a good amount of pre-sales from previews, but this time we’re really trying to capture new interest, and this moment of suddenly engaging, and having that feedback and response—it’s really worked. The energy is very good.”

A sprawling Jean Dubuffet bench sculpture titled Banc-Salon, overhung with suspended kites, was a welcoming attraction for visitors who stopped at Pace’s booth. By early afternoon, the gallery had sold three editions of a total of six of them, priced at €800,000 ($860,000) each, in collaboration with Galerie Lelong & Co. 

Pace also sold its star Agnes Martin painting, Untitled #20 (1974), which last sold at auction in 2012 for $2.43 million. Though Pace would not share the price, a source told ARTnews that it was $14 million. In 2021, a similar work sold for $17 million at auction. Pieces by First Nation artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, whom the gallery recently took on, also sold: one for $250,000 and the other for $220,000. Kngwarray had a retrospective at Australia’s National Gallery, and next summer will be featured at Tate Modern in London.

Thaddaeus Ropac, which historically does not presell its offers, was humming early in the fair, with fast-paced sales from the get-go. “Like the old days,” one spokesperson told ARTnews. The gallery sold a major Robert Rauschenberg work from 1985 for $3.85 million, several editions of a Georg Baselitz bronze sculpture for €2 million each, along with other works by the artist, priced between €1.2 million and €1.8 million.

At White Cube, a Julie Mehretu painting from 1999 went for $6.75 million; it was last seen at auction six years ago, when it sold for $2.5 million. A “monumental” Mark Bradford, titled Clowns Travel Through Wires (2013), also sold for $4.5 million. Jeff Wall’s The Storyteller (1986) sold for $2.85 million, along with works by David Hammons, Tracey Emin, Gabriel Orozco, Antony Gormley, Howardena Pindell, and others. At the time of writing, the $1.75 million Richard Hunt sculpture and the $1.35 million Frank Bowling were not listed as sold.

“It’s neither the end of the world nor is it speculation,” Belgian collector Alain Servais told ARTnews. But that can make for a lack of newsy buzz. In fact, Servais says presales and a broader commercialization of the fair have helped sap the fair of its urgency so that, “the froth (or the buzz) is down, so the excesses are down, but you’re still selling.” Now, “80 percent of the reason I go to Basel is for the networking,” he added.

Others felt differently. Wishing away the preselling model is “nostalgia,” Madrid-based art adviser and curator Eva Ruiz, a friend of Servais, told ARTnews. She said she sees excitement in the way people share what they’ve seen and talk about in the early moments of the fair. “I still see collectors excited to be there the first day,” despite having seen a PDF in advance. “They still want to rush to see the work, and to be the first to buy,” she said.

As to whether Art Basel Paris might soon eclipse the Swiss fair, Ruiz said other regional fairs remain limited to their geographic locations. Basel is the exception. “Art Basel, Basel is seen as the prized, first art fair to visit,” she said, before adding that there is “room” for two European fairs. Americans, in particular, she said, are happy to come back to Europe for the Paris fair.

On the fair’s upper floor, where midsize and smaller galleries have their booths, New York’s Canada gallery featured color- and material-rich abstractions by Joan Snyder, which have attracted a lot of attention. They sold and reserved her pieces for $180,000 and $190,000. The artist is enjoying some overdue attention in her 80s, selling above estimates at auction and set for her first solo exhibition with Thaddaeus Ropac in November. Canada gallery also placed a 2013 painting by Joe Bradley for an undisclosed sum. Cofounder Phil Grauer agreed collectors were calculating and taking their time.

“They’ve got time, it’s not a rush,” he said. “But there’s still desire and interest and enthusiasm.”