From 16–22 June 2025, Liste Art Fair Basel will celebrate its 30th edition. What began in 1996 as a bold initiative by young gallerists has evolved into the leading international fair for contemporary art of a new generation. As in previous years, Liste 2025 will become a central meeting point for the international art world.

For this anniversary edition, Liste will bring together 99 galleries from 31 countries – including 48 first-time participants – showcasing the relevance and diversity of young, independent artistic practices. With a strong emphasis on focused solo presentations and spotlighting emerging galleries, Liste continues to fulfil its mission: to create platforms for pioneering artistic voices, often granting artists their first mo ments of international visibility.

Supporting young galleries has always been at the core of Liste. For three decades, the Liste Foundation Basel, together with the Friends of Liste, has supported particu larly ambitious presentations. This year, 11 galleries have received targeted produc tion support, including Bonny Poon / Conditions, Toronto; King’s Leap, New York; and Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca. This funding model significantly contributes to both the artistic quality and the international visibility experienced at Liste.

This 30th edition of the fair also marks the first under the direction of Nikola Dietrich, who previously held curatorial positions at Portikus in Frankfurt and Kunstmuseum Basel as well as served as the director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Alongside the curatorial selection of artists and galleries, she is responsible for Liste’s accompany ing programme, which serves as a platform for discourse, performance, publishing, architecture and education.

With new events each day, this year’s accompanying programme will offer multiple entry points. Artists, authors, publishers, collectors and curators will contribute with performances, readings, panel discussions and guided tours, while workshops for children and curated interventions will further expand the programme.

Galleries

In its 30th year, Liste will present 99 galleries from 31 countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

51 galleries will return with new programmes. Among them are Drei, Cologne, with a group presentation by Rosa Aiello and Matthias Noggler that explores social dynamics in urban environments; Blue Velvet, Zurich/Madrid, presenting sculp tures by François Durel that link personal obsessions to collective experiences;
Rose Easton, London, showing works by Arlette that blend Mexican and Swiss craft traditions into a playful reflection on art and commerce; Cylinder, Seoul, ded icating a poetic group show to Peru’s Nazca Lines, with Eusung Lee and Sunwon Chang asking questions about culture, myth and spatial perception; Laveronica, Modica, presenting Jonas Staal’s installation How to Make Yachts Extinct? (2022–ongoing), a political visual campaign against symbols of global inequality; Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca, showing figurative works by Nahum B. Zenil that explore queer identity and embodiment within a Mexican context; Silke Lindner, New York, featuring sculptural works by Gozié Ojini that weave together sound, materi ality and history through the lens of hip-hop sampling; and Suprainfinit, Bucharest, celebrating its 10th anniversary with a collaboration between Miruna Radovici and Man Yau – a dynamic position navigating the watery boundaries between con cept and figuration.

48 galleries will participate in Liste for the first time. These include Bar, Turin, present ing a sculptural installation by Sara Ravelli that consists of papier-mâché mechanical eyes inspired by carnival floats; Shower and Whistle, both from Seoul, showcasing works by Yonsok Yi and Kyoungtae Kim in a joint booth that explores housing and states of exception; Valerie’s Factory, Buenos Aires, presenting paintings and sculp tures by Trinidad Metz Brea and Valentina Quintero, who view nature as a queer, fluid dimension; Roland Ross, Margate, showing works by Sara MacKillop, whose precise formal interventions reflect on authorship, materiality and cultural tourism; Numano hashi, Tokyo, bringing together the two painterly voices of Paul Gondry and Itsuki Kaito; Turnus, Warsaw, showing a group presentation with Wiktoria Kieniksman and Mikołaj Sobotka, who use sculpture, graphics and installation to comment on societal notions of identity, femininity and time; and Chris Andrews, Montreal, showing Con nie Wilson’s sculptural “oil tanks"’ whose miniature interiors can be viewed through peepholes.

The full list of participating galleries can be found at the end of this text.

Friends of Liste

Friends of Liste continues to support ambitious projects by galleries and their repre sented artists. Each year, the association selects booths and works that stand out for their originality and relevance. In 2025, 11 galleries have received support: Bar, Turin; Bombon, Barcelona; Bonny Poon / Conditions, Toronto; Final Hot Desert, London; Harlesden High Street, London; King’s Leap, New York; N/A, Seoul; Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca; Shower and Whistle, Seoul; and Valerie’s Factory, Buenos Aires. The selec tions are made annually by an expert jury.

Featured guests

With its newly designed architecture, Liste launches Wall, a platform dedicated to project spaces and artist-run initiatives. Invited participants include The Wig, Berlin; Galerina, London; and Institut Funder Bakke, Silkeborg – all using the walls for specially curated artistic projects.

The spine book forum, curated by art book publisher Distanz, serves as the fair’s new bookshop, featuring around 100 new publications from 30 publish ers spanning the fields of art, literature, theory, architecture and film.

Helvetia Art Prize

Helvetia Insurance returns with its annual prize for an outstanding graduate of a Swiss art school. This year’s winner, Virginie Sistek (b. 1999), addresses so cial power structures and mechanisms of conformity in her installations, per formances and videos. With subtle narrative precision and subversive humour, she questions forms of control and domestication. The prize includes an award of CHF 15,000 and a solo presentation at Liste.

Daily programme

For its 30th edition, Liste will present a new series of daily events that activate various spaces of the fair hall. These include a performance programme featuring international artists and developed in collaboration with curator Jacob Fabricius; the Show and tell format, in which figures from the art world engage in talks and panel discussions; and five workshops hosted by artist Tina Braegger, who invites children to create their own versions of the iconic Grateful Dead bears. The full programme will be announced in early June.

Architecture

The fair’s exhibition architecture is based on a new spatial concept developed by Basel-based studio Martina Kausch Architektinnen for Liste 2025. Existing struc tures have been reconfigured and repurposed to create a new rhythm within the hall. The result is a variety of settings and unexpected sightlines that generate diverse visual and spatial experiences, engendering new encounters between art and audience.

The new layout creates a range of atmospheres – from intimate zones to open plazas – and invites visitors on a journey of discovery with high spatial quality. It is a dynamic framework that promotes exchange and makes space for the unex pected.

(Martina Kausch, Martina Kausch Architektinnen)

New directorship

Liste 2025 marks the first edition of the fair under the new directorship of Nikola Dietrich. In this position, Dietrich returns to Basel, where she led the Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Kunstmuseum Basel) from 2008–2013. She previously worked as a curator at Portikus, Frankfurt, and most recently directed the Kölnischer Kun stverein (2018–2023). Her sensibility for emerging practices and relevant dis course now shapes the future of the fair.

As a site of discourse, Liste has always been closely connected to both the pro duction and evolution of emerging as well as established or trailblazing artists. The fair explores young art scenes and evolving forms of expression – not merely by tracing trends but also by responding to shifts and disruptions. As a communal gathering space, it also offers a unique sensual dimension to contemporary art, fostering long-term connections between collectors, artists, gallerists and cura tors and strategically positioning them within the international art market.

(Nikola Dietrich, Director, Liste)

Main partner

For 29 years, E. Gutzwiller & Cie, Banquiers Basel has supported Liste as the fair’s main partner. Their long-standing commitment enables our galleries to partici pate in Basel’s art week under favourable conditions. We are proud to have such a confident, generous and engaged partner by our side.