
“Little Room” by Jordan Wolfson
Where: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen
When: Through August 3
Why It’s Worth a Look: Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live in someone else’s body? Jordan Wolfson makes this common daydream a reality with his latest VR installation, currently on display at the Fondation Beyeler. Upon entry to the gallery, a pair of viewers receive a full-body 3D scan before donning VR goggles that place them inside their companion’s body.
Know Before You Go: On June 18, the artist will be at the foundation for a conversation with curator Beatrix Ruf to discuss his new work and larger practice across installation, animatronics, virtual reality, and more.
“Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture”
Where: Kunstmuseum Basel
When: Through August 10
Why It’s Worth a Look: A contemporary of Auguste Rodin, the Impressionist sculptor and photographer Medardo Rosso was deeply influential but is far from a household name. The Kunstmuseum Basel’s wide-reaching retrospective—featuring over 50 bronze, plaster, and wax sculptures from Rosso, as well as hundreds of photographs and drawings—reasserts the Italian-French artist’s place as a revolutionary in turn-of-the-century Milan and Paris.
Know Before You Go: On the Neubau building’s second floor, a wide array of Rosso’s works are also put in conversation with pieces by artists including Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, Marcel Duchamp, Louise Bourgeois, and Mary Cassatt.

“Meret Oppenheim”
Where: Hauser & Wirth, Basel
When: Through July 19
Why It’s Worth a Look: This expansive showcase stretches over four decades—from the 1930s to the 1970s—bringing together familiar works like Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined beer mug, alongside highly personal drawings from the post-war years and oil paintings that lure viewers in with rich abstraction (as well as a rarely exhibited early watercolor).
Know Before You Go: Although she is often associated with the Surrealist movement, the artist was resistant to the prospect of being limited to just one scene or style. In that spirit, this tribute to her portfolio emphasizes a lifetime of work that defied categorization.
“Air Service Basel 2025”
Where: Lo Brutto Stahl, Basel
When: Through June 22
Why It’s Worth a Visit: Basel’s private airport might be a rather unorthodox place to envision a fine art showcase this summer, but savvy travelers should be on the lookout for the second annual group show hosted by Lo Brutto Stahl, tucked intriguingly between the hangars and private lounges.
Know Before You Go: Following the success of last year’s show at the airport, the gallery has opened a permanent space on site, now filled with the work of 29 artists. Curious viewers should note the works by the likes of Adam Alessi alongside 20th-century painter and gallerist Betty Parsons, whose practices fashion two ends of an artistic time capsule filled with emotional poise and material diversity.
“By Your Own Hand” by Suzanne Lacy
Where: Museum Tinguely, Basel
When: Through September 7
Why It’s Worth a Visit: A pioneering figure in feminist art for over five decades, Suzanne Lacy’s work incorporates an ever-timely assertion of social action. This video installation, De tu puño y letra (By Your Own Hand), 2014-15/19, draws upon the original staging of the work, where 400 men in a former bullfighting arena in Quito, Ecuador, read victim statements from women who have experienced gender-based and domestic violence.
Know Before You Go: Lacy’s choice of a male-dominated bullfighting arena offers a nod to the atmosphere at large perpetuated by the men described in these statements. Circular projections of the video transport visitors in Basel back to this original setting.

“Of my life” by Ser Serpas
Where: Kunsthalle Basel
When: Through September 21
Why It’s Worth a Look: In the tradition of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade sculptures, Ser Serpas mines discarded objects for reimagined meaning. Her scavenged assemblages—alongside smudgy, embodied paintings—made waves last year with a sprawling installation at the Whitney Biennial, and this exhibition deepens that inquiry, tracing how ruin, memory, and identity entangle in mercurial spaces.
Know Before You Go: Serpas’s show is accompanied by a week of performances in the space, in collaboration with the Margo Korableva Performance Theater from Tbilisi. One of the troupe’s shows will be mounted twice daily, and all four presentations will be staged back-to-back on June 18.
“Bass” by Steve McQueen
Where: Schaulager, Münchenstein
When: Through November 16
Why It’s Worth a Look: In this light-and-sound installation, viewers are plunged into a site-responsive light and sound installation unlike any other. Combining oozing colors and reverberating music, the artist and filmmaker’s piece features improvisational performances from legendary bassists Marcus Miller, Meshell Ndegeocello, Aston Barrett Jr. (of the Wailers), Mamadou Kouyaté, and Laura Simone-Martin.
Know Before You Go: Steve McQueen returns to Schaulager after 12 years, with this meditative experience—one of the artist’s most abstract to date—originally co-commissioned with Dia last year. Bass‘s tilted reality is less about narrative than resonance, both sonic and emotional.
“Repose – Extended Play” by Deborah Joyce Holman
Where: City Salts Garage, Birsfelden
When: June 19–September 14
Why It’s Worth a Visit: Here, Deborah Joyce Holman continues their incisive exploration of how visual culture and capitalism shape identity and representation—and invites viewers to join the conversation. Expect sharp-edged aesthetics and sly references to mass media and music video tropes, all housed in City Salts’s industrial garage space.
Know Before You Go: As much a mood-setting tool as it is a meditation, this solo captures the emotional residue of image-making in a post-Internet world. It debuts to festive reception at the Salts Garden Party on June 19.

“The Shakers: A World in the Making”
Where: Vitra Design Museum, Rhein
When: Through September 28
Why It’s Worth a Look: The Shakers’s Christian communes, which flourished for the first 200 years of American colonization, were radical utopian experiments that are being given new attention at the Vitra Design Museum. The show explores the resonance of the Shakers’s hand-crafted furniture, architecture, and material culture within an ecosystem that was both aggressively insular and remarkably innovative.
Know Before You Go: The exhibition features Shaker artifacts such as chairs, cabinets, garments, instruments, and radios alongside work inspired by the group from contemporary artists including Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Finnegan Shannon, and Amie Cunat.
“Science Fiction Design: From Space Age to Metaverse”
Where: Vitra Schaudepot, Rhein
When: Through May 10, 2026
Why It’s Worth a Visit: What does the future look like? From Olivier Mourgue’s Djinn seating series featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Eero Aarnio’s Tomato Chair included in Men in Black, Vitra Schaudepot’s new exhibit explores how the aesthetics of science fiction inform design past, present, and future.
Know Before You Go: The show features future-forward works from both Andrés Reisinger and Joris Laarman, who incorporate digital technologies like 3D printing and NFTs into their furniture.
“Whispers from Tides and Forests”
Where: Kunsthaus Baselland, Münchenstein
When: Through August 17
Why It’s Worth a Visit: In the face of environmental catastrophe, mass extinction, and climate migration, 11 artists—including Caroline Bachmann, Johanna Calle, and Lena Laguna Diel—use their practice to explore new relationships between people and a changing planet, as well as places around the world where environmental catastrophe has struck with long-lasting impact.
Know Before You Go: Pay close attention to the work of Ana Silva, who embroiders narratives and memories onto an almost transparent gauze fabric, and produces similar storytelling through photographic prints on canvas.