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THE WEEKENDER<br />
(aka the Bird’s Nest) among its<br />
works, is headquartered here.<br />
Many of its ideas have been<br />
realized around the city, the<br />
latest of which will be unveiled<br />
this April when its mammoth<br />
makeover of the Messe Basel<br />
exhibition site, which is as big<br />
as a suburb, is completed in<br />
time for the 2013 Baselworld<br />
watch and jewelry fair.<br />
The art tour<br />
Each year over six days in<br />
the second week of June the<br />
population of Basel grows by<br />
25%. The world’s largest art<br />
fair runs June 11–16, with the<br />
fi rst two days of Art Basel 2013<br />
set aside for VIPs. Book your<br />
fl ights and hotel rooms early.<br />
www.basel.artbasel.com<br />
The city’s most prestigious art<br />
museum, Fondation Beyeler,<br />
sits on the outskirts of town –<br />
not unlike Denmark’s Louisiana<br />
Museum – in a pastoral idyll<br />
populated by grazing cattle.<br />
This is precisely what the<br />
owners Ernst and Hildy Beyeler<br />
had in mind when they commissioned<br />
Renzo Piano, the<br />
Pritzker Prize-winning Italian<br />
architect, to build the museum<br />
in 1997. Natural light pours into<br />
this beautiful building through<br />
a glass ceiling. The new year<br />
sees a retrospective of the<br />
Swiss avant-gardist Ferdinand<br />
Hodler’s late works (January<br />
27-May 26). Admission: $25.<br />
Baselstrasse 101, Riehen.<br />
www.fondationbeyeler.ch<br />
One of Basel’s most important<br />
galleries, the Von Bartha<br />
Garage, owned by the family<br />
of the same name, stands right<br />
next door to a gas station<br />
at the streetcar stop Kannenfeldplatz<br />
in a former Saab<br />
workshop. Stefan von Bartha<br />
puts on fi ve major exhibitions<br />
of modern art here every year,<br />
most recently by Swedish<br />
conceptual artist Christian<br />
Andersson. “Lots of customers<br />
come in expecting to pay<br />
for a tank of gas. Instead they<br />
get a free art experience. It is<br />
important for Basel to have<br />
active galleries that can hold<br />
Museum Tinguely<br />
The tram in the old town<br />
their own internationally,”<br />
says Stefan, who rates Nicolas<br />
Krupp (Rosentalstrasse 28.<br />
www.nicolaskrupp.com) and<br />
Stampa (Spalenberg 2. www.<br />
stampa-galerie.ch) among the<br />
city’s other must-sees.<br />
Kannenfeldplatz 6.<br />
www.vonbartha.com<br />
The Museum Tinguely,<br />
designed by Switzerland’s<br />
own Mario Botta, stands on<br />
the banks of the Rhine. Jean<br />
Tinguely’s kinetic art sparks<br />
the imagination of children and<br />
adults alike – colorful works in<br />
which the artist communicates<br />
and interacts with the viewer,<br />
both seriously and ironically.<br />
“Art arises when machinery<br />
is set in motion,” Tinguely<br />
says, and wandering among<br />
his remarkable creations is to<br />
be fi lled with nostalgia for a<br />
time when machines oiled the<br />
wheels of progress. From the<br />
museum café you can watch<br />
swimmers being carried along<br />
by the strong currents of the<br />
Rhine, only to emerge a kilometer<br />
or so downstream which<br />
is a popular pastime in Basel.<br />
Admission: $15.<br />
Paul Sacher-Anlage 2.<br />
www.tinguely.ch<br />
Grand Hotel<br />
Les Trois Rois<br />
Once taken lightly, the comic is<br />
now recognized as an art form<br />
in its own right. The Cartoon<br />
Museum takes its subject –<br />
satirical art – deadly seriously,<br />
with an unrivaled collection<br />
ranging from caricatures to<br />
comic strips.<br />
Admission: $10.<br />
St. Alban-Vorstadt 28.<br />
www.cartoonmuseum.ch<br />
Kunstmuseum Basel became �<br />
100 DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013 SCANORAMA
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