The criticisms of art fairs (and the art market they are a defining part of) are many. One of them is that though we might think of these shows as real-time events, where deals are made and multimillion-dollar artworks are sold to whoever gets to the gallery’s booth first, in reality some of the biggest-ticket sales are are quietly engineered ahead of time: the galleries email PDF previews to high-powered advisors and deep-pocketed collectors in the weeks leading up to opening day, such that some dealers have sold out their presentations before the first Louboutin makes contact with the convention center carpet.
Art Basel, launched in Switzerland in 1970 and now with annual fairs in Miami Beach, Hong Kong, Paris, and Qatar, aims to undercut that critique with its new initiative, dubbed Basel Exclusive, in which dealers pledge to withhold anywhere from one work to their entire presentation from those emailed previews. It will debut at this month’s edition of Art Basel (June 18–21, with VIP preview days June 16–17). Participating galleries will be labeled on floor plans, and selected works will be highlighted by plaques.
As of now, says the fair in an announcement to ARTnews, some 193 of the 232 exhibitors in the fair’s main sector, or some 83 percent, have agreed to participate. (That number has grown from when Exclusive was first announced, in April, when 170 had taken the pledge.) They include heavy hitters like Acquavella, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Lisson, Pace Di Donna Schrader, Perrotin, Almine Rech, Thaddaeus Ropac, and David Zwirner. Respected small and mid-size galleries like Bortolami, James Cohan, Sadie Coles HQ, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Kukje, Matthew Marks, Silverlens, and Sprüth Magers are also on board.
About 230 artists are covered by the no-previews stipulation. They include widely known contemporary figures and canonical historical artists, such as Etel Adnan, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Lucio Fontana, Helen Frankenthaler, Yang Fudong, Philip Guston, David Hockney, Arthur Jafa, Joan Mitchell, Bruce Nauman, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Hélio Oiticica, Nicolas Party, Pablo Picasso, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Xu Zhen.
“We all recognize the fact that we live in a digital world that is very much driven by the distribution of images and of artworks’ images,” Art Basel’s chief artistic officer and global director of fairs Vincenzo de Bellis told ARTnews in April. “But at the same time, we also know the importance of seeing things in person, and that’s true for all the different constituencies of our industry. And therefore, we wanted to make a point altogether about this.”
He added, “It’s great to remind people that if they don’t come [to Basel], they won’t see certain things in person.”
At the same time, the move could be seen as an attempt to shore up the original Swiss edition’s preeminence, after Art Basel Paris (launched in 2022 under the name Paris+ par Art Basel) has been widely seen as becoming the preeminent edition of the fair, taking place in a city with far more attractions than the fair’s birthplace. As ARTnews’s Maximilian Duron wrote in April, “Basel… appears to be waning in its ability to draw top collectors, especially Americans, to the Swiss city. Introducing a new form of scarcity that requires in-person attendance might be just what the fair needs to pull them back in.”
The full lists of galleries participating in Basel Exclusive and the artists selected follow below.
Galleries:
303 Gallery
A Gentil Carioca
Miguel Abreu
Acquavella
Applicat-Prazan
The Approach
Arcadia Missa
Alfonso Artiaco
von Bartha
Beijing Commune
elba benítez
Bernier/Eliades
Berry Campbell
blank projects
Tanya Bonakdar
Bortolami
BQ
The Breeder
Ben Brown
Canada
Gisela Capitain
Cardi
Casas Riegner
Pedro Cera
Chapter NY
Chemould Prescott Road
ChertLüdde
James Cohan
Sadie Coles HQ
Consonni Radziszewski
Contemporary Fine Arts
Continua
Paula Cooper
Pilar Corrias
Raffaella Cortese
Crèvecœur
Cristea Roberts
Chantal Crousel
Croy Nielsen
Thomas Dane
Massimodecarlo
Eigen + Art
Emalin
Larkin Erdmann
Experimenter
Konrad Fischer
Foksal
Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel
Peter Freeman
Frith Street
Gagosian
Christophe Gaillard
Galerie 1900–2000
Galleria dello Scudo
François Ghebaly
Gladstone
Gomide&Co
Elvira González
Goodman Gallery
Marian Goodman
Bärbel Grässlin
Gray
Greene Naftali
Karsten Greve
Cristina Guerra
Haas
Hauser & Wirth
Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert
Herald St
Hollybush Gardens
Pippy Houldsworth
Xavier Hufkens
hunt kastner
Taka Ishii
Martin Janda
Catriona Jeffries
Jenkins Johnson
Annely Juda
Kadel Willborn
Kalfayan
Casey Kaplan
Jan Kaps
Karma
Karma International
kaufmann repetto
Sean Kelly
Tina Keng
Kerlin
Anton Kern
Kiang Malingue
Peter Kilchmann
Tina Kim
knust kunz
David Kordansky
Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler
Andrew Kreps
Krinzinger
Kukje
Labor
Lahumière
Landau
Layr
Lehmann Maupin
Lelong
Lévy Gorvy Dayan
Lisson
Luxembourg+Co.
Magazzino
Magician Space
Mai 36
Marcelle Alix
Gió Marconi
Matthew Marks
Max Mayer
Mayoral
Mazzoleni
Greta Meert
Anthony Meier
Urs Meile
Mendes Wood DM
Mennour
Meyer Riegger
Massimo Minini
Le Minotaure
Victoria Miro
The Modern Institute
mor charpentier
mother’s tankstation
nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder
Nagel Draxler
Helly Nahmad
Carolina Nitsch
Franco Noero
Nordenhake
Nathalie Obadia
OMR
Lorcan O’Neill
Ortuzar
P.P.O.W
P420
Pace Di Donna Schrader
Maureen Paley
Perrotin
Plan B
Gregor Podnar
Prats Nogueras Blanchard
Eva Presenhuber
ProjecteSD
Almine Rech
Phillida Reid
Thaddaeus Ropac
Lia Rumma
Deborah Schamoni
Esther Schipper
René Schmitt
Rüdiger Schöttle
Thomas Schulte
Sfeir-Semler
ShanghART
Sies+Höke
Sikkema Malloy Jenkins
Silverlens
Jessica Silverman
Skarstedt
Société
Sprovieri
Sprüth Magers
Nils Stærk
Gregor Staiger
Stampa
Standard (Oslo)
Christian Stein
Take Ninagawa
Bene Taschen
Templon
The Third Gallery Aya
Tornabuoni
Trautwein Herleth
Travesía Cuatro
Tucci Russo
Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Van de Weghe
Tim Van Laere
Vedovi
Vielmetter
Offer Waterman
Oskar Weiss
Barbara Wien
Jocelyn Wolff
Yares
Thomas Zander
David Zwirner
Artists:
Rebecca Ackroyd
Karl-Heinz Adler
Etel Adnan
Henni Alftan
Francis Alÿs
Pawel Althamer
Kai Althoff
Ei Arakawa-Nash
Alexander Archipenko
Arman
John Armleder
Frank Auerbach
Caroline Bachmann
John Baldessari
Yto Barrada
Alvaro Barrington
Lenora de Barros
Geraldo de Barros
Hernan Bas
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Hans Op de Beeck
Katherine Bernhardt
Alighiero Boetti
Erwin Bohatsch
Soumya Sankar Bose
Louise Bourgeois
Katherine Bradford
Herbert Brandl
Cornel Brudascu
David Byrd
Alexander Calder
Antonio Calderara
Vlassis Caniaris
Patricia Fernández Carcedo
Enrico Castellani
Han Mengyun Cheng
Judy Chicago
Giorgio de Chirico
Tiffany Chung
William Copley
Joseph Cornell
Tony Cragg
Tania Pérez Córdova
Angela de la Cruz
Svenja Deininger
Diambe
David Diao
Anju Dodiya
Kees Van Dongen
Jean Dubuffet
Marcel Duchamp
Giuseppe Ducrot
William Eggleston
Olafur Eliasson
Tracey Emin
Nikos Engonopoulos
Zhang Enli
Max Ernst
Luciano Fabro
Márcia Falcão
Shao Fan
Zeng Fanzhi
Ângela Ferreira
Lucio Fontana
Helen Frankenthaler
Scott Fraser
Kira Freije
Yang Fudong
Gilbert & George
Vinicius Gerheim
Adrian Ghenie
Sam Gilliam
Beatriz González
Arshile Gorky
Laura Grisi
Wang Guangyi
Shilpa Gupta
Philip Guston
Keith Haring
Grace Hartigan
Hans Hartung
Cynthia Hawkins
Jeppe Hein
Sabine Hertig
Irma Hünerfauth
David Hockney
Ferdinand Hodler
Klára Hosnedlová
Peter Hujar
Leiko Ikemura
Yee I-Lann
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger
Arthur Jafa
Ann Veronica Janssens
Poppy Jones
Atsushi Kaga
Wassily Kandinsky
Mike Kelley
William Kentridge
Yves Klein
Julije Knifer
Dominique Knowles
Eleonore Koch
Jutta Koether
Joseph Kosuth
Jannis Kounellis
Antonia Kuo
Yves Laloy
Maia Ruth Lee
Jochen Lempert
Zoe Leonard
Dan Lie
Kim Lim
Duane Linklater
Hew Locke
Sophia Loeb
Lorenza Longhi
Amadeo Lorenzato
Morris Louis
José Loureiro
Sarah Lucas
Sammi Lynch
Liz Magor
Maruja Mallo
Marepe
Enzo Mari
Roberto Burle Marx
Soshiro Matsubara
Jan Merta
Meuser
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas
Joan Mitchell
Nour Mobarak
Lucia Moholy
Yuko Mohri
Giorgio Morandi
Sveta Mordovskaya
Sabine Moritz
Olivier Mosset
Matt Mullican
Lee Mullican
Juan Muñoz
Rei Naito
Bruce Nauman
Armineh Negahdari
Louise Nevelson
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Isabel Nolan
Asemahle Ntlonti
Albert Oehlen
Shinro Ohtake
Hélio Oiticica
Precious Okoyomon
Claes Oldenburg
Roman Ondak
Uriel Orlow
Laura Owens
Seung Ah Paik
Mimmo Paladino
Giulio Paolini
Clemen Parrocchetti
Nicolas Party
Henrique Pavão
Yan Pei-Ming
Niki de Saint Phalle
Francis Picabia
Pablo Picasso
Walter Pichler
Otto Piene
Tobias Pils
Joanna Piotrowska
Daniel Pitín
Wildredo Prieto
Robert Pruitt
Yao Qingmei
Martial Raysse
Marina Rheingantz
Gerhard Richter
Bridget Riley
Pamela Rosenkranz
Ed Ruscha
Robert Ryman
Amano Ryuichi
Christine Safa
Prem Sahib
Salvo
William Schaeuble
Chanakya School
Jan Schoonhoven
Thomas Schütte
Gerard Sekoto
Georges Seurat
Jamel Shabazz
Katharina Sieverding
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Keith Sonnier
Frank Stella
Jessica Stockholder
Myron Stout
Emily Sunblad
Eduardo Terrazas
Paul Thek
Guim Tió
Niele Toroni
Antoni Tàpies
Thu-Van Tran
Francisco Tropa
Antonio Társis
Janaina Tschäpe
Cy Twombly
Günther Uecker
Alvaro Urbano
Victor Vasarely
Erika Verzutti
Cecilia Vicuña
Oriol Vilanova
Raphaela Vogel
Andy Warhol
Gillian Wearing
Peter Fischli / David Weiss
Franz West
Cathy Wilkes
Rachel Eulena Williams
Hu Xiang
Su Xiaobai
Zhao Yang
Manoucher Yektai
Ding Yi
Tang Yongxiang
Yoo Youngkuk
Urban Zellweger
Xu Zhen
