Fondation Beyeler, Basel
‘Jordan Wolfson: Little Room’ (June 1–August 3, 2025)
‘Presentation of the Collection’ (May 25–August 31, 2025)
‘Vija Celmins’ (June 15–September 21, 2025)

This summer, Fondation Beyeler fuses quiet contemplation with high-tech disorientation and a masterclass in art history. First up is a presentation of new and existing works by Vija Celmins, a Latvian-American artist renowned for her meticulous, monochromatic drawings and paintings of night skies, seascapes, and stones. In stark contrast to Celmins’s meditative practice is Little Room, a new VR installation by Jordan Wolfson that invites visitors to swap bodies in a disorienting virtual universe. Topping it all off, Beyeler showcases some of its most canonical works in ‘Presentation of the Collection’: a fresh look at the museum’s best-known holdings, including pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, and Gerhard Richter.

Schaulager, Basel
‘Steve McQueen: Bass’ (June 15–November 16, 2025)

Visitors will hear a low hum emanating as they approach Schaulager – the Laurenz Foundation’s innovative storage space-meets-contemporary art gallery in Basel. Bass (2024), by British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, is an immersive light and sound installation comprising 60 stacked LED columns and speakers. As the lights slowly cycle through rainbow hues to drench the room in color, layers of sound – pulses, bass lines, reverbs, and riffs – fill the air. The effect – hypnotic and all-encompassing – makes the gallery feel like a club without dancers. The work was co-commissioned by Schaulager and Dia Beacon, where it debuted last year, with music recorded on-site in response to the space.

Kunsthalle Basel
‘Ser Serpas: Of my life’ (June 13–September 21, 2025)
‘Dala Nasser: Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI’ (May 16–August 10, 2025)

Two young women artists take over Kunsthalle Basel this summer with strong solo presentations. In her exhibition ‘Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI’, Lebanese artist Dala Nasser transforms three galleries into an atmospheric landscape of dyed and cyanotype-treated textiles. At its heart is a haunting re-creation of a sixth-century floor mosaic uprooted from south Lebanon and relocated to the Louvre Museum, Paris, in the late 19th century. In a separate solo offering, ‘Of my life’, Ser Serpas presents sculpture, painting, and a series of performances – developed in collaboration with Margo Korableva Performance Theatre – which will be staged alongside the show from June 12–22.

Kunsthaus Baselland
‘Whispers from Tides and Forests’ (April 11–August 18, 2025)

Curated by Ines Goldbach, ‘Whispers from Tides and Forests’ is a group exhibition of video, sculpture, and installation that weaves together themes of ecology, memory, and migration. Featuring works by 11 international artists including Sandra Mujinga, Nohemí Pérez, and Thu-Van Tran, the show explores how natural phenomena – tides, forests, mists – become conveyers of cultural knowledge and trauma. Highlights include Angola-born artist Ana Silva’s new series of colorful embroideries on transparent gauze, which depict intimate scenes of humans among nature, and Belén Rodríguez’s hanging textiles dyed with natural materials, such as pheasant feathers, leaves, and rainwater.

Kunstmuseum Basel
‘Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture’ (March 29–August 10, 2025)
‘Pairings’ (August 17, 2024–July 27, 2025)
‘Verso: Tales from the Other Side’ (February 1, 2025–January 4, 2026)

A triple treat awaits visitors to Kunstmuseum Basel. ‘Pairings’ marries works from the museum’s collection with objects from the Im Obersteg Foundation. With artworks continuously swapped out during the exhibition’s run, however, repeat gallery-goers are unlikely to see the same show twice. Also on view is ‘Verso: Tales from the Other Side’, which offers a rare glimpse of the backs of artworks from the 14th to 18th centuries. Rounding out the exhibition trio is a landmark retrospective of the Postimpressionist Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso, an artist long-eclipsed by his contemporary Auguste Rodin, which features 50 sculptures and hundreds of photographs and drawings in dialogue with works by more than 60 other artists.

Museum Tinguely, Basel
‘Scream Machines: Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez’ (May 22–August 30, 2025)
‘Suzanne Lacy: By Your Own Hand’ (April 9–September 7, 2025)
‘Julian Charrière: Midnight Zone’ (June 11–November 2, 2025)

All aboard! This summer, Museum Tinguely is operating a full-sized ghost train in its own front yard. Artist duo Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez have transformed the Wiener Prater Geisterbahn – a travelling fairground ride built in 1935 – into a carnivalesque artwork on wheels, inspired by Jean Tinguely’s flair for theatrical mayhem and absurd machines. The train will operate in Solitude Park during opening hours through August 30. Inside the museum, Suzanne Lacy’s six-channel video installation By Your Own Hand (2014–2015/2019), filmed in a bullring in the Ecuadorian city of Quito, features men reading out letters written by women affected by gender-based violence. Also on view is Julian Charrière’s three-floor exhibition ‘Midnight Zone’, a haunting meditation on oceanic ecologies and planetary collapse.

Kunsthaus Zurich
‘Monster Chetwynd: The Trompe-L’oeil Cleavage’ (May 31–August 31, 2025)
‘Roman Signer: Landscape’ (May 10–August 17, 2025)
‘Suzanne Duchamp: Retrospective’ (May 31–September 7, 2025)

A trio of solo shows offers three distinct viewing experiences at Kunsthaus Zurich this summer. Monster Chetwynd’s ‘The Trompe-L’oeil Cleavage’ is a delirious exhibition of painting, performance, and sculpture by the British artist, known for her absurd, hyper-saturated, and joyfully grotesque prosthetic trickery. This playfulness carries into Roman Signer’s ‘Landscape’, which invites gallery-goers to wander through a sculptural terrain of new and archival works by the Swiss artist. Also on view is a retrospective of paintings by Suzanne Duchamp – a Dadaist long eclipsed by her famous brothers. Her politically charged, formally inventive works finally take center stage in this show, which offers reappraisal of her role in shaping early avant-garde art.

Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich
‘Accumulation – On Collecting, Growth, and Excess: Second Sequence’ (June 14–July 27, 2025)
‘Screen Recordings: Intervention at Löwenbräukunst’ (November 9, 2024–June 30, 2025)

Humans have too much stuff, and Migros Museum’s group exhibition ‘Accumulation – On Collecting, Growth, and Excess’ asks what it’s costing us. In its second iteration, the show examines the cultural and ecological fallout of overconsumption. Works by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Yuri Pattison, and Raqs Media Collective challenge capitalist value systems and imagine more sustainable ways of living, supplemented by essays and performances. Also well worth a visit on the ground floor of the Löwenbräukunst is Swiss artist Linda Semadeni’s Screen Recordings (2024–2025) – an interactive sculpture which toys with viewers’ perceptions.

LUMA Westbau, Zurich
‘All of Us Together’ (June 13–September 7, 2025)

At Luma Westbau, ‘All of Us Together’ marks the long-overdue Swiss institutional return of Gustav Metzger, the late artist and activist known for his response to the destruction of postwar Europe. Organized by his longtime friend, Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, this expansive archival show honors Metzger’s enduring legacy as an eco-conscious artist, activist, and thinker. Historic works like Liquid Crystal Environment (1965) and Drop on Hotplate (1968) sit alongside personal letters, handwritten notes, hours of recorded interviews, tribute posters, and previously unseen materials that frame the deeply collaborative nature of Metzger’s practice. 

Kunsthalle Zurich
‘Klara Lidén: Over out und above’ (June 14–September 7, 2025)

Klara Lidén brings the city indoors as she takes over both floors of Kunsthalle Zurich with a solo exhibition of new and existing works. Known for her anarchic sculptures, videos, and spatial interventions, the Swedish-born artist repurposes salvaged urban materials – posters, plywood, concrete fragments – in her multimedia works that comment on urban life and social norms. For this show, Lidén draws directly from Swiss infrastructure, transforming familiar objects into unexpected forms that challenge how we navigate and perceive public space.