300 leading galleries of all continents, over 2,500 artists represented, from undisputed masters such as Warhol and Picasso to emerging talents, 65,000 visitors from all over the world: they are the numbers of Art Basel, in programme Basel from 14 to 17 June, the most important exhibition in the world dedicated to the new artistic trends that has transformed the Swiss city into the Mecca of contemporary art.
An unmissable event for collectors, gallery owners, museum directors, curators and simple interested enthusiasts, as well as the art market, artistic research events and parallel exhibition projects.
To emphasize the role of Basel the capital of contemporary art and architecture also contribute to the most prestigious cultural institutions in the city, which in conjunction with Art Basel present a program of prestigious exhibitions, often housed in buildings signed by internationally renowned archistars.
Not even time to get off the train and it is immediately clear why Basel is considered a museum of contemporary architecture en plein air. Here the design is practically everywhere, so that even the cockpit that camping on the tracks is very griffy.
It is in fact a work of Herzog & De Meuron, the same architects who designed the Elsassertor from the unmistakable red glass facade that magnetizes the attention just out of the station. And the buildings that are strung on its mirrored surface are no less blasoned, since it is the Euregio, a complex of offices of the American Richard Meier, and the UBS training center signed by Roger Diener.
Nearby there is also the Peter Merian-Haus of Zwimpfer & Partner, recognizable by the spectacular emerald green facade by artist Donald Judd.
To exalt the union between architecture and art then contribute museums and art galleries where the container is no less intriguing than the content. In 1996, the Tinguely Museum was built by the Ticino architect Mario Botta to host the imaginative kinetic sculptures of the brilliant Swiss iron artist.
It was then the turn of the Beyeler Foundation, which commissioned Renzo Piano to build a building in red porphyry and glass immersed in the green of the suburb of Riehen, where to expose to the public the prestigious collection of contemporary art that boasts among other masterpieces of Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, Klee, Mirò and Kandinsky.
A museum outside each scheme is the monumental Schaulager in the Munchenstein district, which the "usual" Herzog & De Meuron conceived as a "place of creativity and activity" dedicated to visual art.
The site of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, the huge stone polygon is a middle way between a warehouse, an exhibition centre and a research centre on contemporary art reserved for professionals, but still open to the public with temporary exhibitions from May to October.
