Sarfo Emmanuel AnnorParalleled Paths, 2024. The Bridge Gallery In a world increasingly saturated with images, photo basel remains a rare space for slowing down and truly seeing. As Switzerland’s first and only art fair dedicated exclusively to photography, it has spent the past decade shaping thoughtful conversations around the medium’s past, present, and future. This June, photo basel celebrates its 10th edition with an ambitious program showcasing over 450 photographic positions by more than 150 artists.
Held in the iconic Volkshaus Basel, a space reimagined by Herzog & de Meuron and located just steps from Art Basel, the fair offers an intimate yet globally resonant platform. From cyanotypes rooted in Japanese wabi-sabi to sonograms of bats, and from war-touched landscapes to luminous burlesque stages, this year’s edition reaffirms photography’s capacity to witness, transform, and transcend.
This year's edition brings together 39 galleries from 15 countries, offering a broad yet considered snapshot of contemporary photographic practices. The mix of returning names and new voices reflects photo basel’s growing international resonance and its commitment to both continuity and discovery. Among the first-time participants are Miami's Momentum Fine Art, known for its bold, contemporary lens-based works, and Galerie Sophie Scheidecker from Paris, whose program bridges historical depth and aesthetic experimentation. Vienna's OstLicht and Amsterdam's Rademakers Gallery join with distinct curatorial focuses—ranging from 20th-century classics to emerging conceptual positions—while Zurich's Galerie & Edition Stephan Witschi and Seoul's AB Gallery introduce perspectives from Switzerland and East Asia respectively.
Some galleries return with expanded programs that challenge conventional definitions of the photographic image. Antwerp's IBASHO presents Japanese artist Mika Horie, whose cyanotypes on handmade washi blur the line between printmaking and photography. Madrid's Camara Oscura brings a new series by Roger Ballen, while Ljubljana's Galerija Fotografija continues its commitment to strong female voices in Eastern European photography with work by Sara Rman. Zurich's Blackprint Gallery, known for its material-forward, sculptural approach to photography, presents several artists across different sections of the fair, including the Beyond Photography and novum strands.
At the heart of this anniversary edition is Beyond Photography, a curated parcours that challenges the traditional limits of the medium. These works expand photography's boundaries through tactile materials, scientific methods, and sculptural forms.
Among the highlights is Sophie Zénon (Galerie XII), whose Rémanences traces the legacies of war through photograms of invasive plant species and rubbings of damaged bark. Her layered approach interweaves memory, history, and ecological transformation.
Swiss artist Silvio Maraini (Galerie Monika Wertheimer) replaces the camera with an ultrasonic microphone in Round Midnight, recording the nocturnal calls of wild bats and rendering them as abstract sonograms—a spectral portrait of the unseen.
Other notable works include Diego Brambilla's (Blackprint) sculptural interventions on stone, questioning the human imprint on nature, and Mika Horie's (IBASHO) delicate cyanotypes on handmade paper, meditations on impermanence inspired by her native Yamanaka Onsen. Together, these artists—and many others—invite viewers to reconsider what photographic art can be and do.
Continuing its commitment to discovery, photo basel introduces novum, a section dedicated to works never before exhibited. Whether freshly completed or newly rediscovered, these projects mark important thresholds in their artists' practices.
Chris Tille's Mythos Licht (Galerie WOS) revisits the landscapes of the Impressionists, capturing their light with a spectrometer. Anna Lehmann-Brauns (Galerie 94), known for her evocative images of empty interiors, now turns her lens to burlesque performance, exploring presence, sensuality, and the theatre of the body.
In collaboration with annabelle magazine, photo basel foregrounds photographic works by women artists through annabelle's choice, a special marking throughout the fair. The initiative amplifies the diversity and perspective of women in photography, offering a curated route through the fair that highlights female creativity and vision.
In partnership with Baubüro In Situ, the fair presents Martin Zeller'large-format images of industrial sites in transition, on view at Franck Areal from June 13th until 27th. Zeller’s high-resolution photographs trace the layers of architecture and memory in repurposed buildings, accompanied by poetic texts by Sou Vai Keng. The project is both document and elegy, revealing the quiet afterlives of labor and space.
As always, photo basel supplements its exhibition program with a robust series of talks and guided tours. From discussions on emerging markets to in-depth artist dialogues, the fair extends photography beyond the visual—into the social, the political, and the personal.
photo basel will take place at Volkshaus Basel in Basel from June 17th until 22nd, 2025. The doors of the fair will be open from Tuesday to Saturday from 12 pm to 8 pm and from 12 m to 6 pm on Sunday.
