Switzerland’s first international art fair dedicated to photography-based art returns from June 13 to 18. In conversation with Sven Eisenhut, Photo Basel Founding Director
Photo Basel, in conversation with Sven Eisenhut
From June 13 to 18, Basel will be the place to be if you are a collector or an art and photography enthusiast.
During those days, in fact, the Swiss city will not only host the much-anticipated 2023 edition of Art Basel but will also offer the opportunity to explore and discover photography through the eighth edition of Photo Basel, a relatively young boutique fair that in a few years has become well recognized on the international photo collecting scene.
Co-founded in 2014 by Sven Eisenhut, currently the fair’s founding director, it features a mix of young and renowned galleries, representing both emerging and established artists and photographers. As Sven explained, the fair was launched in 2015 by a «a group of colleagues and friends all born and raised in Basel».
«If you are from Basel, you go to the football club, you do the Carnival Fasnacht and you have two great weeks of fair: one was a watch and jewelry fair, no longer exists, and the other is Art Basel and when you are a kid your parents literally take you by the hand to go to those fairs. My colleagues and I were just thinking out loud ‘Is there something we can do during that period of time, is there something missing, is there something that we would like to experience more?’ And then we quickly realized that a photography art fair could be interesting. We started doing some research, we visited some fairs like Paris Photo, MIA Fair in Milan and, basically, that was how we started. After we did the first edition, we already had eighteen international galleries. So, we realized the potential, we realized that the audience, the visitors, even the collectors, really liked the fair».
The Photo Basel DNA
According to Sven Eisenhut, the three words that best describe Photo Basel’s DNA are boutique, high quality, and intimacy. «Boutique, in terms of quality and price. Photo Basel is not a mega fair with a hundred galleries. It is a boutique fair with roughly forty exhibitors. Moreover, it is a personal fair: the team is like a big family, with a lot of personal relationships with gallerists, artists, collectors, institutions, aficionados, lovers of the photography art world. The fair includes local people, local artists, and Swiss galleries. It’s an international fair this year; so, we are also trying to see Swiss artists. That’s why it’s personal».
The key visual designed by PUTPUT duo
The key visual of the eighth edition of Photo Basel is the playful and colorful image of a popsicle made of sponge.. The subject, unchanged from the first edition in 2015, is designed by PUTPUT, a Swiss/Danish artist duo. The light and fun visual brings with it the flavor of summer and June, but at the same time has the strange effect of an object disjointed from its usual context, giving us a clear idea of the power of photography.
Each year the colors are different: from red to green or orange. Moreover, this year’s image, which plays on complementary colors, with a blue background and a yellow sponge, was chosen by the public on the Instagram profile.
The circles of experts and the selection process
One of Photo Basel’s missions is to guarantee high quality and excellence, which is precisely why, as of 2021, the management team is supported in the direction by two circles of experts: the advisory circle and the curatorial circle. «For us the forefront is quality, that’s about everything. So how can we ensure good quality? We figured it out and we created three circles of experts: the management team (us and artistic director), the advisory circle and the curatorial circle (collectors, festival directors and institutions)».
The advisory circle, composed exclusively of galleries, is essential to put them at the center of attention and to gather and listen to their suggestions and feedback. The curatorial circle, on the other hand, is responsible for the selection of galleries, special projects, and special exhibitions.
It consists of Sarah Girard, director of the Biel/Bienne Festival, Danaé Panchaud, director of the Centre de la photographie in Geneva, Heinz Stahlhut, director of the Hans Erni Museum in Lucerne, collectors M. and M. Sigg, Ben Füglister, artistic director of Cap Prize and Images Afrique Initiator and Assistant Editor of European Photography in Berlin. About forty galleries from around the world were selected this year, in keeping with the desire to maintain a boutique dimension to ensure the high quality of the show and the experience.
The galleries at Photo Basel
In addition to Swiss galleries, there are exhibitors from foreign countries including France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, Texas, and California.
Some are young, others already recognized, as are the artists exhibited: international masters such as Sabine Weiss, Elliott Erwitt, are joined by more contemporary artists. Among them, we can mention «the solo show by Ming Smith, the first African- American female photographer that currently has a show at MOMA in New York; the solo show by Janice Bond, it is a gallery from Huston, Texas.
«We’re happy to see works by Thomas Hoepke at Buchkunst, Berlin, Roger Ballen, a solo show by an artist called Shen Wei from Asia, a much anticipated show by a young gallery called Foreign Agentin Lausanne. I’m looking forward to seeing the works by the Swiss artist Ester Vonplon. She has a solo show by a gallery from Paris Galerie S., and then, of course, it is fantastic to have Peter Fetterman Gallery from California with those masterpieces like Eliott Erwitt, but also Cig Harvey, Michael Kenna, Robert Doisneau, Sarah Moom. Those are masters of our industry and having a gallery joining our fair from California really shows the significance that Photo Basel had over the past years».
Special Exhibition and Special Project
One of the aims of the fair, emerging as a spotlight on the international scene, is to build a strong community around photography, sharing ideas, and creating synergies among exhibitors, collectors, enthusiasts, and visitors. In this sense, the role of the new artistic director, Alessa Widmer, is fundamental.
Alessa, curator and art historian with a focus on photography, has assumed this function for the 2023 edition of the fair, joining the Photo Basel management team.
The special exhibition and the special project will be the other two focal points of the fair.
The special exhibition of Photo Basel 2023 will be ‘Pure Photography: 20th Century Floral Masterworks’, curated by the WBB Galerie (Zurich), featuring names such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, or Imogen Cunningham.
«We do this wonderful show with the West coast and East coast photographers of the last century. There are big, big names: it’s a black and white flow of photographs and it is so different from what emerging talents can do today. I’m curious to see and get feedback from visitors, and curious when they see the show. It’s a boutique show, a stringent and dedicated show, in good contrast to what is offered by the galleries».
Esther Woerdehoff Gallery and the Alex Kayser Foundation
Furthermore, the Esther Woerdehoff Gallery and the Alex Kayser Foundation will present a special project about Alex Kayser, a Swiss photographer, born in Basel.
«Alex Kaiser was a Basel artist, who passed away a couple of years ago and who has been living actively in New York in the Seventies. I think he has a little bit forgotten over the last decade or two. Now he has been rediscovered again, so we dedicated a rather big show to him. We are an international fair; however, our roots are in Basel, and we are proud that our roots are here. So, it is a vow and an honor to show some great talents that come from this town».
These two exhibitions clearly reveal the dual soul of Photo Basel, which looks to the international scene while keeping its roots firmly in the renewed and emerging photography scene in Basel and, more generally, in Switzerland.
The Future of Photo Basel
The future of Photo Basel will certainly continue to be in Basel, with the purpose of growing the stakeholder family, while maintaining the scale of a boutique fair, and continuing to offer excellent, quality experience.
«Before the pandemic, we had the idea of also going to other cities, for instance during the pandemic we were invited to go to Berlin, which is phenomenal. However, the challenge is that we only live for one week during the year, so we would like to entertain our galleries and our collectors also a bit during the year. In this sense, I can imagine a few, handful, selected initiatives where we would probably recreate a boutique salon for photography. That’s something we’re always thinking about. If we do something somewhere else, it must be of great quality.
I have personally been co- founder of the second art fair in Zurich, called Art Salon Zurich, is a fair in Zurich for contemporary art, not just photography. So, I like to combine those worlds.
I hope that the family becomes even bigger, sort of a stakeholder family with gallerists, artists, and institutions that we collaborate and work with».
Sven Eisenhut
Sven Eisenhut is the Founding Director of Photo Basel, Switzerland’s first and only international art fair dedicated to photography-based art.
