To see and be seen: Basel Social Club
Exhibiting and drinking tea – Finnish artists at the art fair week in Basel
Art Basel, held in its namesake city, has friends and foes. It’s considered to be the most important art fair in the world, and for many in the cultural sector, it’s one of the most eagerly awaited events in the annual calendar – not only as a commercial space for expensive works, but also as an industry gathering, a spectacle, a temporary museum with a catwalk, and a marathon of parties. For others, the whole thing feels rather exhausting and overcrowded, a place where art is openly traded as a commodity and loses some of its aura. The Finnish collector Timo Miettinen recently said in an interview with the magazine Monopol that he doesn’t particularly like art fairs and has only been to Art Basel twice in his life. However, those who can afford it and have enough credibility are still present: some buyers simply send staff and consultants to represent them in the gallery booths.
Even as the online showrooms of art dealers have become more professional and commonplace since the pandemic, even as the traditional art market is currently experiencing insecure times and Instagram is being used as a platform for artists and potential collectors to find each other: Art Basel remains one of the most important hubs of the contemporary art world, where visibility is a hard-hitting currency. “For us, the importance of Art Basel has actually increased in recent years,” said PACE gallery founder Arne Glimcher to the NZZ in June 2025. “In the past, the big collectors would fly out to us in New York several times a year. That’s less the case now, so they come to every art fair.”
But not everyone can afford to attend Art Basel, either as a visitor or as an exhibitor. For galleries that want to apply to participate in the fair, the selection process is extremely rigorous and the financial burden is immense. There were no galleries from Finland on the 2025 list of exhibitors, and for the country’s artists, a major appearance at the fair is more the exception than the rule.
As being in Basel during the week of the fair is both literally and metaphorically worth its weight in gold, an entire art ecosystem has grown around Art Basel. For the travelling ‘circus’ of museum professionals, collectors, curators and journalists, the satellite events running parallel to Art Basel are now almost as relevant as the core events in the fair halls. The smaller sales platforms Liste and Volta have established themselves as places for discovery, institutions put on their best programmes, and the Digital Art Mile promotes virtual art as an equal form of contemporary expression. All of these components combine to create a temporary cultural epicentre unlike anywhere else in the world.
A newcomer to the Swiss summer is Basel Social Club, which coincided with Art Basel for the fourth time in 2025. The idea behind it, as simple as it is effective, was conceived by a group of gallerists, artists and curators: Basel art week doesn’t simply need more art, but rather a social space where art brings people together.
This year, the artistic Club was held in a former bank building in the city centre, and it was an absolute must-see for many visitors in Basel – a popular hybrid of party, networking, performance festival, and refuge. For artists, the well-attended exhibition (which saw 50,000 visitors within a week) was also an opportunity to be present without being represented by one of the major blue chip galleries in the context of the larger fair.
In 2025, there were three concepts by Finnish artists in the midst of the Club’s hustle and bustle: Jaakko Pallasvuo, Nestori Syrjälä and Bogna Luiza Wiśniewska. With the support of the Finnland-Institut and the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, they were able to create new works on the theme of value systems.
“There are certainly countries of origin where it’s easier to be recognised internationally as an artist than in Finland,” says Nestori Syrjälä, whose practice includes sculpture, performance and video. “But we have good institutions here that help in various ways.”
When asked, Syrjälä recounts that what interested him most about the Basel Social Club was the physical space, the labyrinthine feeling for visitors, and the building’s history as a former bank. His project consisted of a performance in which the actor David Attenberger played an alleged former employee of the bank, spreading “rumours, urban legends and outright lies.” “I gave David a lot of freedom so that he could come up with his own rumours,” says Syrjälä. “So it became a pretty chaotic project that wasn’t under my control – which I really liked.”
Jaakko Pallasvuo also sent an ambassador of sorts to Basel. His work consisted of stickers in the shape of avant-garde poker chips as well as an audio installation entitled Fortune, narrated by the artist Colin Self. The monologue is about risk, friendship, fate, and the song ‘The Joker’ by the Steve Miller Band, among other things. Pallasvuo says that the invitation to Basel Social Club came at almost the same time as another commission for a work in a Malmö casino. He took advantage of this chance and produced a second version of Fortune right away. Fittingly, he decided which version was to be used in which space by tossing a coin.
Jaakko Pallasvuo has over 120,000 followers on his art comic account @avocadoibuprofen. So he’s what you might consider a digitally highly connected artist. Nevertheless, he says that online presence is difficult to convert into tangible resources. This is another reason why physical mobility and gatherings like those in Basel are important. “I believe that everything in the art world happens through personal relationships,” he says. “So it feels necessary to have events where people share the same space and have these encounters, as they can potentially act as a counterbalance to the alienating, machine-like, sloppy state of current social media platforms.”
The third member of the Basel group, artist Bogna Luiza Wiśniewska, echoes this sentiment: “The Finnish art scene is vibrant but relatively small,” she says, “so exhibition opportunities abroad can help reach a wider audience and build connections that can be valuable for the future.” For the Social Club, the artist created a work that also emphasised the aspects of coming together and hospitality: a tea fountain entitled May fortune smile upon you, a series of cups and a painting. “It’s important to meet people, offer tea and create space to slow down together – something that’s not entirely possible online.”
How much peace and quiet the guests actually found at the Basel Social Club can only be answered by each individual themselves. Mirjami Schuppert, Programme Lead at the Finnland-Institut in Berlin, says that such a huge turnout and boisterous atmosphere would be unthinkable at an art event in Finland. And while the art circus has long since moved on to its summer getaway – ideally on the Greek island of Hydra –, Basel will likely leave a lasting impression on many. Not only as a new picture on the wall, but also as a memory of artistic hospitality and encounters.
—————–
The project was created as part of pARTir – Creating a Cultural Roadmap Towards Responsible Internatiional Mobility funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. pARTir is a collaborative initiative of the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes aimed at promoting sustainable international mobility during the years 2024–2025.
Translated from German by Ramona Tyler