What does it take for a gallery to show at an Art Basel fair?

For a commercial gallery, gaining an exhibitor’s spot at one of Art Basel’s fairs can be a gamechanger. Whether in Basel, Paris, Miami Beach, or Hong Kong, the shows bring together thousands of collectors, artists, representatives of cultural institutions, and art lovers, ensuring significant exposure for participating galleries. But how does one secure a green light to exhibit at an Art Basel fair, and what concrete steps go into preparing an impeccable showing on the fair floor?

Becoming an Art Basel exhibitor starts with a bulletproof application. ‘We work very hard on our application,’ explains Nicola Vassell, a New York-based artworld veteran. After working for other galleries early in her career and then operating a successful art advisory business, Vassell opened her own eponymous gallery on New York’s Tenth Avenue in 2021 with a roster of artists now including Ming Smith, the first Black female photographer to be included in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and emerging British artist George Rouy.

Once gallerists and their staff have completed and submitted their applications, a selection committee composed of their peers – there are four such committees, one for each fair – reviews them during dedicated meetings that can last up to four days. ‘We want to make sure that what we’re showing is exciting, a little novel, and thought-provoking,’ says Vassell. ‘Half the fun is coming up with interesting ideas to captivate our artists and audience.’

Vassell’s Art Basel Miami Beach presentation this year revolves around ‘the Blues’ – as interpreted by gallery artists Julia Chiang, Alteronce Gumby, Che Lovelace, Kapo, Ming Smith, Uman, and Alberta Whittle. It will be Vassell’s third appearance at the American show, but this edition will be her first time in the show’s main sector, ‘Galleries’, where exhibitors can showcase the full breadth of their program. 

It is a graduation of sorts. Art Basel fairs are divided into different exhibition sectors, each with its own focus, and galleries can apply for more than one sector in each fair. So-called project-based sectors come with a specific premise and rules. Art Basel Miami Beach's Positions sector, for example, focuses on solo presentations by a single, emerging artist. This segmentation effectively creates curated, thematic areas on the show floor. For galleries, project-based sectors can function as entry points: In Basel, galleries often first appear in Statements and Features; Paris has Galeries Émergentes, while in Hong Kong there are Insights and Discoveries. Miami Beach has the aforementioned Positions, as well as Nova (focusing on recent work by up to three artists) and Survey (shedding light on historical rediscoveries).

New York’s Meredith Rosen Gallery is participating in the latter, for the second year in a row, showing eight paintings by the late Swiss artist Rudolf Maeglin. (Rosen also showed in the Unlimited sector of Art Basel in June in a collaboration with Galerie Nagel Draxler.) ‘We did Maeglin’s first US exhibition in the gallery last year and we had overwhelming success,’ says owner Meredith Rosen. Since its founding in 2018, Rosen has become known for recontextualizing the works of established artists like Charlemagne Palestine (on view in the gallery from November 4 to December 23), as well as introducing international emerging ones, such as Berlin-based Swedish artist Anna Uddenberg, to the American art audience.

Saturated, flat depictions of factory workers that Maeglin made in his hometown of Basel between 1932 and 1948, the paintings are linked through the use of the color red, which not only indicates the heat of the machinery but also hints at a subtle homoeroticism. Maeglin, who died in 1971, worked in dye factories and construction to support his artistic career, as well as cofounding Gruppe 33, an anti-Nazi artist collective, in 1933. The canvases, which have never previously been shown together, will be hung in a crimson-walled booth. ‘I put my everything into the application,’ says Rosen. ‘And every presentation is a representation of our gallery program. Whether it’s painting or installation, I always want to push the dialogue and make it interesting in the context of the fair.’

Once they have been selected, galleries pay a participation fee. In 2019, Art Basel introduced a sliding-scale price model: In essence, the smaller the booth, the lower the price per square meter, and vice versa. This ensures that larger, blue-chip galleries can indirectly support their peers. Galleries then have a few months to perfect and adjust their presentations. (The accepted proposals must be adhered to, but specific artworks can shift, because many artists make new pieces specifically for the fairs.) Both Rosen and Vassell create digital mock-ups of their booths, in which they can virtually move around miniature renderings, experimenting with how best to choreograph and highlight the works to attract the attention of potential buyers or interested art-lovers strolling past on the fair floor. Both women and their teams also generate pre-fair buzz about what they’re bringing, arranging meetings and dinners with their clients and media contacts.

The next step is getting the physical artworks to Art Basel, which has become more routine as art transporters have professionalized and streamlined their processes. (The days of packing paintings into the trunk of a car, which more than a few veteran gallerists admit to doing, are long gone.) In September, Rosen was already shipping Maeglin’s work from Europe, much of it gleaned from private collections in Switzerland. ‘Shipping is something I deal with every day and, when you use experienced shipping companies, it’s pretty seamless,’ she explains. Maeglin’s paintings will remain in storage in Miami until it’s time to hang them in the booth a few days before opening. Once the crates are on site and exhibitors have access to the fair, gallerists assemble their booths alongside white-gloved art handlers. (The world of art handling – which can involve clever, last-minute problem-solving – has gained notoriety through social-media accounts such as @arthandlermag.) ‘I book my preferred art handler the day we find out we’re in the fair. A good art handler is like gold,’ says Rosen.

In the days or even hours before an Art Basel preview, the fair floor is a humming beehive of activity: Art handlers, gallerists, gallery directors, and assistants unbox, unwrap, paint walls, hammer, drill, hang, and rehang. ‘The anticipation is a mix of nerves and excitement,’ says Vassell of the moments just before the first VIPs appear. ‘We want to do well for our artists, and to make sure that what we’re trying to say is well received and understood.’ Rosen also enjoys the pre-fair atmosphere, and sometimes uses the pre-audience lull to view other booths. ‘I like to walk through and see what other galleries are showing – especially the historical works that might be in private collections which you rarely, if ever, have the chance to see,’ she adds.

Once the audience arrives, it’s about ensuring sales, forging connections, and making impressions. Last year, at Art Basel Miami Beach, Rosen showed the Belgian artist Guillaume Bijl, a septuagenarian whose work had rarely been exhibited in the US, in a booth that featured a single installation in the form of a full-size casino. The quirky presentation – and the presence of the equally quirky artist near the booth throughout the fair – was a crowd-pleasing hit.

Both Rosen and Vassell qualified for Art Basel early in their solo-gallerist careers. Although one of Vassell’s former employers, Jeffrey Deitch, said in a 2015 article in The New York Times that it took his gallery, Deitch Projects, seven years to gain entry to an Art Basel fair, Art Basel Miami Beach’s 2022 edition was Rosen’s first-ever fair. Vassell took part in Miami’s Nova sector in her very first year of operation. (Her presentation, ‘Color Vaults’, featuring Gumby and Fred Eversley, secured her gallery’s identity and direction.) Despite these rapid successes, showing at any Art Basel fair is a journey. ‘There’s the idea,’ explains Vassell, ‘but then there is the point at which we have to articulate it and work with our artists to assemble the right works. We lay the concept out point by point in the application, and consider the logistics of bringing it all together for the fair. It’s a long process.’

Next up in ‘The Road to Art Basel’: How do art advisors prepare for a fair, and what is it that these key members of the art world actually do?

Nicola Vassell (New York) will participate in the Galleries sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2023.
Meredith Rosen Gallery (New York) will participate in the Survey sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2023.
Art Basel Miami Beach will take place from December 8 to 10, 2023. Discover the full list of exhibitors here.

Kimberly Bradley is a writer, editor, and educator based in Berlin. She is a commissioning editor at Art Basel Stories.

Published on October 31, 2023.