Art Basel, the world’s top art fair, has received a new injection of blood. Its 2024 edition (June 13-16) will be the first led by Maike Cruse.
From 2013 to 2023, Cruise served as Director of Gallery Weekend Berlin (GWB). Her recent appointment is a big step: Berlin’s art market underperforms compared to its cutting-edge contemporary art scene, while Basel is known for its central role in the global art trade. But, as Cruise says, her previous role prepared her for liaising with galleries and collectors, “just on a much different scale.”
Cruise joins at a time when Art Basel is rebranding, part of her mission to refresh the image of its mainstay Swiss fair, for which her experience working in one of the world’s most exciting gallery scenes will prove to be useful. “There has been a lot of turnover among collectors and curators over the past few years,” she said. “We want to attract these new faces while maintaining our status as the most important show in the world.”
So how did one of the industry’s most respected brands go from classic to cool? Good party, for a start. Art Basel is launching a new venue this year at the Merian Riverside Hotel, just a five-minute walk from the fair, whose restaurant and terrace will be transformed into venues for performances and talks, as well as a bar that will be open “late into the night”. Its façade will be dominated by an installation by Petrit Halilaj When the sun disappears, we paint the sky (2022), illuminated as the sun sets.
Joy is as important as collection
Despite being advertised as “around the clock,” Cruise acknowledged that Merian will close at some point during the night. Still, in staid Basel, such adventures are likely to be popular with visitors, for whom art fairs are as much about collecting as they are about joy. If the concept sounds familiar, that’s probably because Basel Social Club, an art fair and hangout that held its second successful edition in a massive mayonnaise factory during Art Basel last year.
“The art market is undergoing a generational shift,” Crews said. “Social Club Basel is responding to this issue with the same urgency as we do.” These new initiatives join Art Basel’s long-standing initiatives and bring a new level of focus to a city notorious for exorbitant hotel prices during fair weeks. Tourists are more attractive. This year, that means two luxury cruise ships with around 100 rooms each moored on the left bank of the Rhine, near St Johanns-Tor, to help solve the problem that Basel, a city with a population of less than 200,000, has only one five-star ship. class hotel” issue. hotel,” Cruise said.
But if Basel’s compact size poses significant challenges, its intimacy is also one of its greatest strengths, Cruise asserts. “Basel becomes the center of the art world during the fair, in large part due to its size. You bump into people on the bridges, in the bars, walking along the river. Few art world destinations can Provide this.
To that end, the Parcours section of the fair’s outdoor and site-specific art is being revamped and will be curated by Stefanie Hessler, director of the Swiss Institute in New York. While the works were previously more spread out across the city, they will now be clustered along Clara Street near the fair “to create more of a dialogue with the surrounding environment and with the people of Basel,” Kruse said. Works in this section include a performance by Mandy El-Sayegh in a partially vacant shopping mall, and a series of pirate flags designed by Rirkrit Tiravanija that were installed on the Middle Bridge across the Rhine.
Reaffirming the uniqueness of each Art Basel location is a strategy CEO Noah Horowitz will launch when he takes over in 2022. This becomes even more important as discussions grow about whether Paris+ is comparable to Art Basel. Cruise worked at Art Basel for three years before joining GWB and said her knowledge of the city was a possible reason for her appointment, adding that “understanding the specificities of a city and doing something about it” It’s very important to respond.”
She draws from her experience as the brains behind Art Berlin and Art Contemporary Berlin (ABC), two Berlin art fairs. Both closed after just a few releases, which Cruise attributes to a weakening Berlin art market. “Nonetheless, the ABC responds well to what Berlin does well. It’s very interesting and has great galleries and artists. Meanwhile, during Cruise’s tenure, GWB has grown to become the largest in the German capital The market event is also arguably the most famous gallery weekend in the world. “What works in one city may not work in another,” she said.
With the new venture will come new galleries, including six from East Asia such as Geng Gallery in Taipei and MadeIn Gallery in Shanghai. Of course, Cruise will be bringing along a newcomer from Berlin, Noam, who, she said, will take part in the statement section of solo exhibitions by emerging artists, an area the fair has long relied on to help “revitalize and diversify itself.” change”.
• Art BaselJune 13-16, Messeplatz, Basel, Switzerland
