Something new happened at Art Basel (Switzerland) this year.
For its 2025 edition in Basel, a new sector called “Premiere” was launched. By showcasing works by artists made in the past five years and limiting it to three artists per gallery, “Premiere” curates a dialogue between emerging galleries and newly recognized voices in contemporary art—those operating at the intersection of culture, technology, and social transformation.
By setting a clear time-frame of five years, “Premiere” fostered works that dealt with current issues and global narratives. While few galleries signed up, ten in total, the result was a fresh look at a volatile art market that had relied mostly on works by heavily established names.
Jacky Strenz Gallery dedicated its entire booth to a posthumous solo presentation of Lin May Saeed’s recent works. Saeed was a german-iraqui artist who passed away in 2023 at the age of 50. She was known for addressing the human-animal relationship where animals called the shots and humans stayed in the background. Her work at this year’s Art Basel showed animals less in control: a deer stands in garbage, an anteater on the edge of extinction, and creatures dance beneath a rainbow after their release. Selma Feriani Gallery presented new works by Sara Ouhaddou, a French artist born into a traditional Moroccan family who reinterprets Islamic
geometry, M’barek Bouhchichi, a multidisciplinary Moroccan artist showcasing woven alphabets and carved copper poems and Tunisian Nadia Ayari’s floral paintings.
Something new happened at Art Basel (Switzerland) this year.
For its 2025 edition in Basel, a new sector called “Premiere” was launched. By showcasing works by artists made in the past five years and limiting it to three artists per gallery, “Premiere” curates a dialogue between emerging galleries and newly recognized voices in contemporary art—those operating at the intersection of culture, technology, and social transformation.
By setting a clear time-frame of five years, “Premiere” fostered works that dealt with current issues and global narratives. While few galleries signed up, ten in total, the result was a fresh look at a volatile art market that had relied mostly on works by heavily established names.
Jacky Strenz Gallery dedicated its entire booth to a posthumous solo presentation of Lin May Saeed’s recent works. Saeed was a german-iraqui artist who passed away in 2023 at the age of 50. She was known for addressing the human-animal relationship where animals called the shots and humans stayed in the background. Her work at this year’s Art Basel showed animals less in control: a deer stands in garbage, an anteater on the edge of extinction, and creatures dance beneath a rainbow after their release. Selma Feriani Gallery presented new works by Sara Ouhaddou, a French artist born into a traditional Moroccan family who reinterprets Islamic
geometry, M’barek Bouhchichi, a multidisciplinary Moroccan artist showcasing woven alphabets and carved copper poems and Tunisian Nadia Ayari’s floral paintings.
