Basel has returned to its most vibrant rhythm: museum openings, carefully curated satellite shows, and the flow of artists, collectors, and curators moving through the Swiss city that effortlessly hosts the global art world. At the heart of it all is Art Basel 2025, where over 290 leading galleries present works by more than 4,000 artists across the halls of Messe Basel – and beyond.

Here are a my personal highlights from this year’s edition.

Katharina Grosse, Messeplatz

Before you even enter the halls of Messe Basel, one of this year’s most striking works is impossible to miss: Artist Katharina Grosse sets the tone for the week. Her new site-specific installation unfolds across Messeplatz, wrapping the square and surrounding structures in sweeping fields of colour: bold, immediate, and impossible to overlook. Curated by Natalia Grabowska (Serpentine, London) the work transforms the public space into something between architecture and atmosphere.

Also read: Standout Installations Art Basel’s Unlimited, 2025

Michael Heizer, Sandblasted Etched Glass Window

Made from glass and aluminum and measuring 218.4 x 279.4 x 6.4 cm, the work (made in 1967) features abstract gestural markings sandblasted directly into the glass surface. Installed as a full wall between the fair’s corridor and the booth interior, the piece blurs the boundary between architecture and sculpture – typical of Heizer’s explorations during the 1970s. Known primarily for his monumental earthworks, Heizer’s glass works are rare and reflect his ongoing engagement with scale, space, and material. Originally created in 1976, this piece offers a rare chance to see his language applied to an interior, spatial context.

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale (Teatrino)

Presented by Helly Nahmad Galler, Concetto spaziale (Teatrino), 65 TE 4 (1965) by Lucio Fontana is a unique and striking example from his celebrated Teatrini series. Measuring 130 x 130 cm, the work combines water paint on canvas with a lacquered wood frame, creating a theatrical, dimensional border that enhances the iconic slashed surface. These pieces mark a pivotal moment in Fontana’s evolution from monochrome spatial cuts to a more architectural framing of space and void. With its vivid chromatic contrast and sculptural presence, this 1965 Teatrino underscores Fontana’s role in pushing painting beyond the canvas—into a spatial experience.

Enea, Flora Rennaisance

This week at Art Basel, visitors will find a quiet, living intervention rising in the heart of the fair: Flora Renaissance, an open-air installation conceived by landscape architect Enzo Enea, presented on the terrace of Messe Basel.

The work is part of the 15-year anniversary of the Enea Tree Museum near Lake Zurich, an ongoing project that fuses landscape architecture with contemporary art. With Flora Renaissance, Enea turns his focus to the high-stem orchard—a once-iconic element of the Swiss landscape, now largely erased. Fruit trees, vegetables, perennials, and a long communal table (tavolata) are brought together in a space that invites reflection on biodiversity, cultivation, and connection.

 

Historically, Switzerland’s orchard culture spanned millions of trees; by the mid-20th century, many were lost due to political shifts and agricultural policy. Enea’s installation doesn’t attempt to recreate the past, but proposes a future: rooted in ecological awareness, community, and the quiet strength of trees.

By bringing nature into the context of Art Basel, Flora Renaissance expands the fair’s vocabulary

Dimitra Charamandas, presented by GYPSUM at Art Basel’s Premiere Sector

In the Premiere sector at Art Basel 2025, Cairo-based gallery Gypsum presents Dimitra Charamandas. Charamandas’ large-scale paintings and low-lying sculptural panels, such as Mineral Bonds II and Carapace (both 2025), explore the geological language of landscapes – layered, sedimentary, almost tectonic in their stillness. Working with acrylic and shellac, her textured surfaces evoke both scientific cross-sections and dreamlike terrains, drawing viewers into a suspended moment between erosion and emergence. The presentation reflects Gypsum’s continued commitment to thoughtful, process-driven practices from the Global South.

Julian Charriere, Midnight Zone

At Perrotin Gallery’s booth during Art Basel 2025, two works by Julian Charrière stand out for their quiet intensity and conceptual depth (Midnight Zone – 98 Fathoms, 2025 and Midnight Zone – 152 Fathoms, 2025). Both pieces are part of the Midnight Zone series, which is the name of Charrière’s larger solo exhibition at Museum Tinguely (currently on view, till November 2, 2025). That’s where he traces the Rhine’s flow into global maritime routes and examines water as a carrier of ecological memory, movement, and consequence. Seen together, the works move between poetic and unsettling, offering a striking reflection on our entanglement with the natural world.

Friedrich Kunath, Tonight I will retire

Friedrich Kunath’s Tonight I Will Retire (2025), shown by Galerie Max Hetzler, brings his blend of melancholy and humor into a new landscape. An oil on canvas measuring 152.5 × 122.5 cm. The painting brings together Friedrich Kunath’s signature mix of idyllic landscapes and quiet unease. Set against a twilight backdrop, a solitary cute ghost appears almost out of place, an image both understated and unresolved. Kunath’s work often draws from German Romanticism, West Coast pop culture, and personal memory, using these references to explore themes of distance, longing, and contradiction. The result is a mood that feels familiar but never entirely understood – one that leaves space for reflection without insisting on it.

Ghada Amer, Black Suzy

Marianne Boesky Gallery presents Black Suzy (2025) by Ghada Amer. The work, made from cotton appliqué on cotton duck and measuring 152.4 × 114.3 cm, continues Amer’s practice of using embroidery as a primary medium. By working with materials traditionally associated with domestic craft, she challenges the historical marginalization of textile arts and repositions them within the context of contemporary painting. In Black Suzy, fine black thread outlines the figure of a woman in a pose that resists passive representation. Amer’s work often centers on female identity and agency, subverting the conventions of the male gaze through a technique that is as political as it is aesthetic.

Art Basel Shop

Located in Hall 1, the Art Basel Shop is open to the public (free entry) to explore a curated mix of artist editions, rare collaborations, and fair-exclusive design. Katharina Grosse debuts hand-painted soccer balls and translucent bags, while limited pieces by Kasing Lung, Sasha Stiles, Daniel Arsham, and Amoako Boafo offer something truly collectible.

You’ll also find playful new takes on the Art Basel logo across apparel and accessories, along with talks, signings, and in-store moments that bring you closer to the artists.

Art Basel Parcours

Curated by Stefanie Hessler, Director of the Swiss Institute in New York, this year’s Parcours places over 20 works throughout Basel’s city center, including along the riverfront and in everyday public and semi-public spaces.

Under the title Second Nature, the exhibition explores how we relate to repetition, interruption, and perception – blurring distinctions between the organic and the constructed. Many of the works are newly commissioned for the setting, offering a quiet yet powerful dialogue with the city. Parcours invites you to encounter art beyond the fair halls.