Art Basel’s flagship fair returns in June this year, transforming the Swiss city into a hub for arts and culture. From the reopening of the Kunstmuseum Gegenwart, to major new public commissions, our curated guide will help you to navigate the unmissable moments of the week.

^{Image: Ola Rindal. © Pierre Huyghe/ADAGP, Paris (2026).}

Pierre Huyghe at Fondation Beyeler

In a major exhibition exclusively conceived for the Fondation Beyeler, Pierre Huyghe presents new works, featured alongside key pieces from recent years. Known for his boundary crossing works, his creations arise at the intersection of various disciplines, combining cinematic, technological, biological, physical and digital elements.

^{Image: Samuel Bramley}

Helen Frankenthaler at Kunstmuseum Neubau

The new building of the Kunstmuseum presents over fifty works spanning six decades offering an impressive insight into one of the most important artists of American abstraction. This comprehensive retrospective is the largest exhibition of her paintings to date in Europe and her first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland.

^{Image: © White Cube (George Darrell). Courtesy the artist, APALAZZOGALLERY and White Cube}

Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama Commissions 

For this year’s edition, Iranian-born, German sculptor Nairy Baghramian will take over the Messeplatz with an elaborate installation conceived for the square’s fountain. On the Münsterplatz, Ghanaian installation artist Ibrahim Mahama will unveil an installation entitled The God of Small Things (2026), a large-scale immersive environment composed of multiple sculptural elements.

^{Image: courtesy of the artist, Creative Vitamin Space and Spruth Magers}

Cao Fei at Kunstmuseum Gegenwart

Re-opening after a year of closure, Basel’s contemporary art museum presents Chinese artist Cao Fei’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland. Testimonies to the Future transforms the museum into a total work of art in the form of a city, where immersive installations and video worlds from her last thirty years of work merge.

^{Image: ARTOTHEK}

Max Beckmann at Hauser & Wirth 

Created in close collaboration with his granddaughter Mayen Beckmann, this exhibition spans the entirety of the artist’s career. Considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century, Beckmann’s brooding social allegories come together with his luminous landscapes and portraits, revealing a tension between intimacy and the brutality of the 20th Century.