A New Indie Art Fair Will Try to Muscle Its Way Into Basel This June, Promising a Calmer Setting to View Art

The fair, not confusingly at all, is called Basel in June.

Basel, Switzerland. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Basel is getting a new art fair this summer.

Basel in June—or “June” for short—will debut during the city’s busy fair week alongside stalwart shows such as Art Basel and Liste. The new event is cofounded by Christian Andersen, who runs an eponymous gallery in Copenhagen, and Esperanza Rosales, who owns the gallery VI, VII in Oslo.

Basel in June isn’t quite a fair, organizers say, but rather an “exhibition platform” that offers “a different mode of viewing, speed, and pace of reception.” The event will be held in a Herzog & de Meuron-designed building across the street from Art Basel that was formerly home to Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, which closed in 2017.

The list of 14 participating galleries includes a few first-timers to Basel, such as Hannah Hoffman from Los Angeles, Midway Contemporary Art from Minneapolis, and Misako and Rosen from Tokyo.

Until now, “there hasn’t been a real alternative outside of Art Basel and Liste because the power has always been consolidated in those two fairs and there hasn’t been a desire to rock that boat,” says Jeffrey Rosen of Misako and Rosen. “Generally our gallery has tried to participate in alternative initiatives more in line with our motives, like Paris Internationale or Paramount Ranch. There’s a sense of openness in terms of people’s approach to running their art business. If we’re going to develop things on the cultural side, we can’t put financial profit first.”

“June is a platform to promote the work of emerging artists and for re-discovering more established figures,” organizers said in a statement. “It is an inter-generational example of galleries radically rethinking existing options and working together to create their own flexible institutions and situations.”

See the full list of participating galleries below.

VI, VII, Oslo
Christian Andersen, Copenhagen
Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam
Erik Nordenhake, Stockholm
François Ghebaly, Los Angeles
Gaudel de Stampa, Paris
The Green Gallery, Milwaukee
Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles
Kai Matsumiya, New York
Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles
Lulu, Mexico City
Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna
Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis
Misako & Rosen, Tokyo
Stigter van Doesburg, Amsterdam

Basel in June will be open June 10–14, 2019, at Riehenstrasse 90, 4058, Basel.


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