From New York to Basel - Between Spectacle and Strategy: Where Are We Headed?

By Valentina Gioia Levy

A few weeks have passed since the end of New York Art Week, one of the most dynamic moments in the city’s cultural calendar, where some of the most engaging international fairs — from Frieze to TEFAF to 1:54 — converge to offer a selection of artworks with a fresh and compelling edge. The recent spring edition reaffirmed New York’s role as a global art capital, capable of bringing together diverse voices, formats, and market strategies.

What we found particularly compelling this year was the presence of younger, more agile initiatives that seem to be actively reshaping the tone of the week. These platforms not only introduced new artistic proposals but also expanded the horizons of the art market, offering more accessible price points and alternative modes of engagement.

Frieze itself, through its Focus section — curated this year by Lumi Tan — once again led the way with a compelling balance of established names and emerging talent. The section is increasingly becoming a key space to observe the fair’s evolution, particularly in how it embraces new voices and challenges conventional hierarchies within the art market. Among the standout participants was King’s Leap Fine Arts, a young gallery based in the Lower East Side, which we discovered through a conversation with its director, Alec Petty. Founded just a few years ago, King’s Leap has rapidly gained attention for its commitment to showcasing early-career artists based in New York, who are still developing their practices — individuals whose work may not yet align with blue-chip expectations but who offer fresh perspectives and a rigorous commitment to demonstrate both aesthetic strength and intellectual depth.

In the same section, we were particularly touched by the striking booth of Yeo Workshop from Singapore, founded and directed by Audrey Yeo. Since establishing the gallery in 2013, Yeo has played a pioneering role in promoting Southeast Asian contemporary art on an international stage. For this edition of Focus, the gallery presented the powerful work of Indonesian feminist artist Citra Sasmita. Her practice, deeply rooted in Balinese heritage, unearths matriarchal narratives and pre-Hindu belief systems through a vivid visual language that merges figuration, symbolism, and ritual. Sasmita’s richly layered paintings challenge patriarchal mythologies and colonial historiographies, drawing viewers into a cosmology where ancestral memory and female agency reclaim centrality. 

Yeo Workshop’s booth at Frieze New York 2025, featuring works by Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita

Meanwhile, beyond Frieze, other platforms such as Independent Art Fair and, above all, NADA New York embraced experimentation with unapologetic energy.

It was in these spaces — the smaller booths, the intimate encounters, the refreshing curatorial visions — that the true pulse of the week could be felt. NADA, in particular, stood out for its democratic spirit, bringing together a diverse constellation of emerging galleries and artist-run spaces that offered a breath of fresh air to collectors, curators, and curious viewers alike.

Among our coup de foudre this year was the work of Nina Surel, a Buenos Aires-born artist presented by Spinello Projects. The gallery’s booth stood out with Surel’s stunning stoneware vessels, relief murals, and sculptural works, which blended a distinct material sensuality with mythopoetic resonance. Her lava-like surfaces and vivid blue glazes evoked the alchemical qualities of ceramics while also recalling the Mediterranean heritage of terracotta — a connection made even more meaningful by the artist’s own training in Italy. Surel’s work seemed to channel both ancestral memory and contemporary myth, situating the body as a sacred site of transformation.

Nina Surel’s stoneware vessels on view at Spinello Projects’ booth at NADA New York 2025

Equally worth noting was the solo show of Ren Light Pan presented by Jessamin Gallery, a recent addition to NADA and a promising new voice on the Texan scene. Based in Dallas and committed to inclusivity and experimentation, Jessamin’s selection for the fair explored identity, gesture, and spirituality through performance-infused installation and photography — signaling the rise of galleries that understand visibility not only as market access but also as cultural responsibility. 

Ren Light Pan’s solo presentation at Jessamin Gallery, NADA New York 2025. Exhibition view.

Fast forward a few weeks, and the spotlight shifted to Art Basel — the most prestigious fair in the art world — unfolding in the Swiss city that has become synonymous with market excellence. If New York Art Week offered experimentation, accessibility, and fresh curatorial energy, Basel 2025 reaffirmed its position as the market's stronghold — where structure, legacy, and financial depth define the landscape. But is this dominance truly unshakable ?

The fair, which closed just days ago, confirmed a cautious yet resilient high-end market. Blue-chip galleries reported solid results during the VIP preview, with seven- and eight-figure sales recorded by major players such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner. Among the notable early sales: a Picasso for $30 million, a Calder mobile for $8 million, and a Louise Bourgeois bronze for $4 million. These transactions signal that serious collectors remain active — though noticeably more selective — in today’s volatile economic climate.

While New York sparked conversations around new models of collecting and more inclusive price points, Basel positioned itself as the bastion of market confidence, bringing together major institutions, influential advisors, and seasoned collectors from across the globe. The atmosphere felt less speculative, more strategic: a place to make long-term acquisitions rather than discover emerging practices — though even that, this year, began to shift.

In fact, one of the most talked-about novelties of this edition was the newly introduced “Premiere” section, curated to highlight mid-career artists engaging with pressing social, political, and ecological concerns. From climate trauma to post-colonial memory, the themes echoed those explored in more radical settings, yet Basel’s execution was decidedly more measured — framed by institutional validation and market maturity. This curatorial gesture — small but significant — suggested that even the upper echelons of the market are no longer immune to the broader cultural shifts reshaping the art world. 

We met Gabriele Gaspari from the gallery Magazzino and asked him his impressions of this year’s fair:

Crossover – installation view of the exhibition at Gallery Magazzino’s booth, Art Basel 2025.

ALL FAD: Art Basel once again seems to confirm a certain resilience in the mature (high-end) market, with thoughtful purchases rather than impulse buys. What was your perception on the ground? Have you noticed changes in buying behavior or in the type of audience compared to previous editions?

Gabriele Gaspari: “Art Basel consistently maintains high standards despite a shifting fair landscape even as the fair landscape has opened up to scenarios that didn’t exist 15–20 years ago. The attendance is broad, but compared to a few years ago Basel has lost some of the ‘must-attend’ aura it had until the mid-2010s. It has become a fair—and a destination—you can skip. Paradoxically, the biggest competition now comes from within, namely the new Paris edition, which, for obvious reasons, attracts much more than the Swiss context. This has led to a downscaling of the audience: it is no longer global. It’s hard to tell what the future holds—whether there will be a reversal or not—but the sense is that Basel’s audience is not renewing itself. On the market side, global conditions and concurrent events have certainly had an impact, and the mood is not optimistic. Naturally, this reflects in purchasing behavior.”

AF: Can you tell us about your selection? What guided your choice of artists to present, and do you think it was a good decision?

G.G. : “In line with our recent participations since 2021, we curated a selection that dialogues between historical works and contemporary artists represented by—or affiliated with—the gallery. Starting from a painting by Andy Warhol and a piece by Joseph Beuys, we built, in collaboration with Graziano Menolascina, what you might call a 'Crossover' stage: allowing chronologically and conceptually diverse works to live together in a choral ensemble. This created unexpected but, I believe, clearly successful dialogues and correspondences. The reception was very positive, and we saw good sales, albeit within the context of my earlier comment.”

AF: With the introduction of the new “Premiere” section, Art Basel appears to be opening up to more urgent themes such as ecology or post-colonial identities. Do you think there’s room—even within a fair traditionally oriented toward market stability—for a more critical approach?

G.G. : “I haven’t studied the new section in depth. In general, the current market is heavily influenced by recent critical trends, which sometimes, in my view, reward patterns and artist pools that were until recently ignored—but perhaps somewhat blindly. I honestly don’t know to what extent this phenomenon (market-related but not only) is creating a bubble that will inevitably lead to a reset, with all its consequences. This goes beyond the urgency of certain themes. For example, talking about ecology at a fair that, arguably, operates with a significant carbon footprint — potentially comparable to that of its host city over the course of a year — raises important questions about the coherence between messaging and practice, especially within broader debates on sustainability in the art world to that of its host city in a single year—what sense does that make?”

From these considerations, several questions arise: Did Art Basel make a wise choice in decontextualizing with its Paris edition? Has the fair truly succeeded in opening up to a wider, younger public, or is it merely repositioning itself within the same established (and tired) networks? Is the Swiss fair doing enough to renew its visibility and attractiveness in an increasingly competitive and rapidly evolving global art scene?

Collectors today are younger, more global, and increasingly shaped by the dynamics of digital culture. Tastes are shifting rapidly — driven not only by evolving cultural sensibilities but also by the immediacy of social media. In this landscape, Instagrammability has emerged as a new form of value, where the visual impact of a work — its ability to circulate, attract, and resonate online — plays a crucial role in shaping desirability.

As a result, art fairs are challenged to respond to this dual demand: honoring tradition while embracing transformation. They must appeal to seasoned collectors who seek historical depth and market stability, while also engaging newer audiences attuned to aesthetic immediacy, bold presentation, and immersive experiences. A compelling visual identity — from booth design to the artwork itself — becomes not just a curatorial choice, but a strategic imperative.

In this hybrid context, success lies in creating environments that are both critically relevant and visually magnetic — spaces where legacy and innovation coexist, and where aesthetic appeal serves not only commerce, but also cultural resonance in a hyper-mediated world.