As the international art world converges on Basel this week, a quieter yet deeply resonant current runs parallel to the fair’s spectacle—one that explores memory, spirituality, and the politics of place through powerful institutional shows across the city and region, from Jordan Wolfson to Dala Nasser.
At the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, “The Shakers: A World in the Making” examines how a radical 18th-century religious community shaped a legacy of minimalist design and collective living that still inspires contemporary artists and architects today.
Over at Kunsthalle Basel, two strikingly different yet thematically intertwined solo exhibitions unfold. Dala Nasser’s “Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI” turns the ruins of a Byzantine church in southern Lebanon into a meditation on loss, fragmentation, and displacement, using cyanotypes and soil-dyed fabrics to conjure what remains when monuments are erased. Meanwhile, Ser Serpas’ Of my life weaves painting and performance into a porous, poetic whole—where imprints, gestures, and repetitions blur the line between presence and disappearance.
Taken together, these exhibitions, and more on view at Kunstmuseum Basel and Fondation Beyeler, form an evocative counterpoint to the market-driven energy of Art Basel, offering visitors a chance to step into spaces where historical weight, material memory, and fragile acts of resistance take shape—quietly, powerfully, and with lasting effect.
Jordan Wolfson: Little Room
Fondation Beyeler
Riehen
Jordan Wolfson, “Little Room,” 2025, 3D scanning booth, VR headset, high-definition video, Dimensions variable, © Jordan Wolfson,courtesy of Gagosian, Sadie Coles HQ, and David Zwirner.
At Fondation Beyeler, American artist Jordan Wolfson unveils “Little Room,” a disquieting new VR installation that places visitors inside a surreal, shifting reality—where they inhabit the scanned body of a stranger. Blurring the lines between real, virtual, and imagined, the work probes consciousness, identity, and distortion in both form and thought. Known for his provocative explorations of technology and morality, Wolfson pushes VR beyond spectacle, crafting a psychologically charged encounter that disorients and confronts. Through immersive participation, Little Room invites viewers to reckon with the uncanny ways we see—and are seen—in a world mediated by digital perception.
What we love: Each participant sees themselves through the body of the other, leading to increasingly strange and disorienting physical and spatial distortions.
Jordan Wolfson at Fondation Beyeler
June 1—August 3, 2025
Vija Celmins
Fondation Beyeler
Riehen
Vija Celmins, “Untitled (Big Sea #2),” 1969, Grafit auf Acrylgrund auf Papier, 86,4 x 114,3 cm, Privatsammlung, © Vija Celmins, courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.
This summer, Fondation Beyeler unveils a rare and sweeping exhibition of Vija Celmins, bringing together 90 quietly powerful works spanning six decades. Known for her meticulous paintings and drawings of oceans, galaxies, deserts, and moonscapes, Celmins invites viewers into meditative states of stillness, scale, and subtle perception. From early depictions of domestic objects and war imagery to her iconic graphite renderings of natural vastness, each piece is an act of intimate reconstruction—rendered layer by layer with obsessive precision. The exhibition culminates in recent snow-filled nightscapes, evoking cosmic awe and silence. Organized in close collaboration with the artist, this is one of Europe’s most comprehensive solo shows of Celmins’ career—offering a profound, tactile encounter with her singular vision.
What we love: A new group of works that carry forward Celmins’ long-standing and intense engagement with surfaces and spatial depth.
Vija Celmins at Fondation Beyeler
June 15—September 21, 2025
Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban
Basel, Kunstmuseum, Medardo Rosso. Die Erfindung der modernen Skulptur.
This summer, Medardo Rosso’s “Inventing Modern Sculpture” brings the radical Italian-French artist back into the spotlight with a groundbreaking retrospective at Kunstmuseum Basel. Featuring over 50 sculptures and 250 photographs and drawings, the show explores Rosso’s ephemeral forms, fragmented figures, and experimental use of wax, plaster, and photography—mediums he wove into sculptural environments decades ahead of his time.
A contemporary of Rodin and a major influence on artists from Brâncuși to Bourgeois, Rosso challenged monumentality and permanence, instead capturing fleeting moments and human vulnerability. Organized with Vienna’s mumok, the exhibition also stages powerful cross-generational dialogues with over 60 artists, including Eva Hesse, David Hammons, and Meret Oppenheim, revealing Rosso’s enduring relevance.
What we love: With rooms devoted to “Anti-Monumentality,” “Process,” and “Forms Undone,” this landmark exhibition positions Rosso not just as a pioneer of modern sculpture, but as a touchstone for today’s most vital artistic conversations.
Medardo Rosso at Kunstmuseum Basel
March 29—August 10, 2025
Verso: Tales from the Other Side
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Vorstadt
Courtesy of Basel, Kunstmuseum.
What secrets lie on the backs of centuries-old paintings? “Verso: Tales from the Other Side” invites visitors into a rarely seen world—where altar wings, coats of arms, and inscriptions reveal forgotten histories and hidden meanings. On view through January 4, 2026, at Kunstmuseum Basel | Neubau, this unique exhibition presents 36 double-sided works from the museum’s collection, many displayed in specially designed frames that allow both recto and verso to be seen for the first time.
From medieval altarpieces and Renaissance portraits to inscriptions that rewrite biographies—like the posthumously outed heretic David Joris—the show explores the religious, political, and personal lives embedded in the backs of paintings. Organized in eight thematic chapters, “Verso” illuminates how artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Konrad Witz engaged with both surface and structure.
What we love: With rare works by Hans Baldung Grien, Pieter Snyers, and Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the exhibition offers a riveting look at the physical and symbolic layers of early European art—revealing that the back of a painting can be just as revealing as the front.
Verso at Kunstmuseum Basel
February 1, 2025—January 4, 2026
Pairings
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Vorstadt
Courtesy of Basel, Kunstmuseum.
“Pairings” at Kunstmuseum Basel | Hauptbau explores timeless themes and forms through surprising juxtapositions of paintings, sculptures, and photographs. Featuring works from the museum’s collection alongside pieces from the private Im Obersteg Collection, this exhibition celebrates 20 years of collaboration between the two.
Curated by Géraldine Meyer, “Pairings” encourages intuitive connections across eras and styles. Highlights include a dialogue between Hans Holbein the Younger’s Two Skulls in a Window Niche (1520) and Niklaus Stoecklin’s Coffin-Maker’s Shop (1919), contrasting views on death. Contemporary Basel artist Mireille Gros’s large-format painting sits alongside a small Cézanne oil sketch, united by their exploration of nature.
What we love: The exhibition changes throughout its year-long run, with artworks rotating to create a dynamic experience. Short texts by diverse voices—from a schoolgirl to a poet—offer fresh perspectives on the pairings.
Pairings at Kunstmuseum Basel
August 17, 2024—July 27, 2025
The Shakers: A World in the Making
Vitra Design Museum
Weil am Rhein
Amie Cunat, “2nd Meetinghouse,” 2025, installation view of “The Shakers,” photo by Bernhard Strauss, courtesy of Vitra Design Museum.
“The Shakers: A World in the Making” at Vitra Design Museum reveals how an 18th-century religious sect helped shape modern design. With over 150 original objects—from iconic furniture to tools, textiles, and architectural elements—the exhibition dives into the Shakers’ radical approach to community, equality, and labor-as-worship.
Designed by Formafantasma, the show pairs historic artifacts with new commissions by seven contemporary artists and designers, creating a compelling dialogue between past and present. Works by Christien Meindertsma, Finnegan Shannon, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and others explore themes of spirituality, sustainability, and inclusion through a Shaker lens.
What we love: By placing aesthetic simplicity in its full social and spiritual context, “The Shakers” challenges minimalist clichés and celebrates one of history’s most visionary experiments in communal living.
“The Shakers” at Vitra Design Museum
June 7—September 28, 2025
Dala Nasser: Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI
Kunsthalle Basel
Vorstädte
Dala Nasser, MCCCLXXXVI, 2025, installation view, in: Dala Nasser, Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI, Kunsthalle Basel, 2025, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
In “Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI,” artist Dala Nasser transforms Kunsthalle Basel into a haunting meditation on memory, loss, and cultural displacement. Her first institutional solo show in Switzerland centers on a spectral reconstruction of the ruined Church of St. Christopher, a sixth-century Byzantine site in southern Lebanon. Once home to a rare mosaic depicting rural life, the site was looted during colonial excavations, its mosaic now housed in the Louvre.
Using cyanotype prints, sound, and earth-dyed textiles, Nasser reimagines the church as absence made tangible. Across three rooms, her immersive installation and evocative soundscapes—created with Mhamad Safa—trace echoes of war, migration, and spiritual rupture. The title, “Xíloma,” meaning “to rip,” speaks to the violence of cultural erasure, while “MCCCLXXXVI” marks the 1,386 years the mosaic remained embedded in its homeland.
What we love: Through material, light, and voice, Nasser offers a moving reckoning with the past—and a poignant reflection on what remains.
Dala Nasser at Kunsthalle Basel
Until August 9, 20205
Ser Serpas: Of my life
Kunsthalle Basel
Vorstädte
Ser Serpas, “Untitled,” 2018, oil and mixed media on wood, vitrine, 48 × 48 inches (121.92 × 121.92 cm)., Hall, Swiss Institute, New York, 2023, Installation view, Courtesy of the artist, Swiss Institute, New York, and Maxwell Graham, New York.
In “Of my life,” artist Ser Serpas transforms Kunsthalle Basel into a fugitive landscape of painting, performance, and poetry. Spanning five rooms and the foyer, her most expansive institutional solo show in Switzerland is a meditation on imprint, disappearance, and repetition. Paintings are made by pressing wet canvases together—capturing fleeting moments of contact as smudged, mirrored traces.
Each doubled surface suggests memory as distortion, not documentation—where the act of transfer alters what was. Performances embedded within the exhibition further this exploration of vanishing. In looping, slow-motion sequences, Serpas reimagines four historic pieces from Tbilisi’s Margo Korableva Performance Theatre, reducing gestures like spinning a spoon or kissing goodbye to pure presence.
What we love: In Serpas’ hands, image and movement blur, memory becomes material, and loss becomes form. “Of my life” is a quiet, aching study of the fragile marks we leave—and how quickly they fade.
Ser Serpas at Kunsthalle Basel
Until September 20, 2025
