After the cancellation in February of this year’s edition of Design Miami Basel, the long-running design fair held concurrently with Art Basel, a group of mostly French galleries have come together to stage a new venture and continue a design presence in Basel.
Maze Design Basel is made up of 11 dealers and is the brainchild of Charlotte Ketabi-Lebard, a partner at Parisian gallery Ketabi Bourdet. “Basel is the epicenter for us, for the art world. We can’t just not be in Basel,” Ketabi-Lebard says. “When the organisers of Design Miami called us to tell us the fair was cancelled, all of the dealers were super upset, and we felt kind of abandoned by the fair.”
Design Miami Basel was reportedly cancelled over financial difficulties. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the website still lists Design Miami Paris as going ahead in October.
Struggle to find a suitable venue
Ketabi-Lebard came up with the idea to stage their own fair, but as she looked into the venues available during the week of Art Basel, they were “small or ugly or not central”, she says. Then she remembered Offene Kirche Elisabethen, a 19th-century church next door to Basel’s Kunsthalle.
The Elisabethenkirche, as it is known, is the venue for the annual Wednesday night party thrown by French art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin, a “historical rager” of the week, as Ketabi-Lebard describes it. She called the City of Basel, which owns the church, and was able to book the space for three days. She began to contact galleries. “The main idea was to have a fair that was organised by galleries and run by galleries,” Ketabi-Lebard says.
The exhibitors had to approve each gallery that joined in the fair, and even drew numbers from a hat to determine which gallery would get which space. While most of the 11 stands are lined up the church’s nave, some spaces are tucked into staircase mezzanines, built on the chancel, wrapped around the pulpit and even along the second-floor clerestory gallery, offering a sweeping view of the Gothic Revival church.
The mood during Monday’s (June 16) vernissage was playful and relaxed. Guests took turns draping themselves across a silicone foam chair by Urs Fischer at Salon 94 Design’s stand, and pet the six Moutons by François-Xavier Lalanne at Galerie Mitterrand.
A partnership with Maze, the firm that puts on intimate luxury fairs across Europe, allowed for sponsors like Swiss watchmaker F.P. Journe and Parisian perfume house Memo Paris to help keep stand fees at around €10,000, far less than the hundreds of thousands Design Miami can charge, Ketabi-Lebard says.
“Nowadays, you really need something with a magical touch,” says Thomas Hug, the founder of Maze. “It’s not only about using huge exhibition halls and a repetitive format, even if the art inside is obviously wonderful. Here we offer something more intimate.”
Even at a smaller scale, organisers say the fair is still pulling substantial visitor numbers. About 1,000 guests attended the Sunday evening preview, according to the fair, and all exhibitors made sales. “Collectors are happy, and dealers are excited,” Ketabi-Lebard says. “That made me so happy. The fact that last night they all sold, I had a good night’s sleep.”
