Since its debut almost a half-century ago in 1970, Art Basel has continued to attract the upper echelons of art collectors, opening up satellite fairs in Miami Beach and Hong Kong, and even debuting Art Cities in 2017. Yet it keeps things fresh for its ever-growing roster of visitors in Switzerland (nearly topping 100,000 in 2017) by including extracurricular programming to offset the inevitable art fair ennui.
These offerings range from Parcours, a city-wide public art installation debuted in 2010 that melds art with the history of Basel, to the hotly anticipated Unlimited, which brings the most ambitious contemporary art into Messe Hall 1: an open-plan hall extended by Herzog and de Meuron in 2013. Next door, Hall 2, a landmark building from the 1950s built by Hans Hoffmann, hosts the Galleries, Statements, Feature and Edition sectors.
With heavy-hitting political pieces by Elmgreen & Dragset and Richard Mosse alongside eye-popping paintings by Julio De Parc and works by Mexican sculptor Abraham Cruzvillegas, Elephant’s top eleven covers the most impactful presentations of Art Basel 2018. These span the free-for-all of Unlimited to more restrained presentations in the booth-laden land of the main fair, so get your art fair flats on for a big walk around. See you at the Messeplatz!
