While Art Basel‘s halls command much of the attention during the week, some of the city‘s most rewarding art experiences happen beyond the fair itself. Across Basel and neighboring Riehen and Weil am Rhein, Germany, museums and galleries are presenting ambitious exhibitions that offer a slower, more intimate way to engage with art and design.
This season, visitors can step into Pierre Huyghe‘s immersive worlds at Fondation Beyeler, explore the psychological terrain of fables and folklore at von Bartha‘s newly reopened gallery, and discover sweeping retrospectives dedicated to design visionaries Verner Panton and Hella Jongerius at the Vitra Design Museum. Whether you’re seeking contemporary experimentation, historic design, or thoughtful reflection away from the crowds, these six exhibitions offer some of the most compelling cultural experiences of Art Basel week. From immersive installations and psychological explorations to landmark retrospectives of design icons, these are the exhibitions worth stepping away from the fair to experience.
Barry Flanagan and Ursula Reuter Christiansen: “Fable and Form”
von Bartha
St. Johann
Exhibition view, “Fable and Form,” von Bartha, Basel, 2026, view f. l. t. r.: Ursula Reuter Christiansen, “Vases and Roses,” 1997; Barry Flanagan, “The Guns Never Won,” 2009; Ursula Reuter Christiansen, “Tear Jar/ Tårekrukke,” 1997. Photo by Philipp Hänger / von Bartha.
Following an extensive renovation, von Bartha reopens its gallery just in time for Art Basel 2026 with “Fable and Form,” an exhibition pairing the work of Irish-Welsh artist Barry Flanagan and German-born Danish painter Ursula Reuter Christiansen. Bringing together two distinct artistic languages from the same period, the exhibition places Flanagan’s expressive bronze sculptures in dialogue with Reuter Christiansen’s large-scale paintings, creating a shared landscape where narrative, symbolism, and emotion converge.
As its title suggests, “Fable and Form” is rooted in storytelling. Much like traditional fables, the works operate as allegorical vessels, using animals, figures, and imagined worlds to explore deeper truths about human experience. Flanagan’s rough-hewn sculptural animals appear perpetually in motion—leaping, prowling, or pausing mid-stride—while Reuter Christiansen’s vividly colored paintings reveal psychologically charged human subjects suspended between dream and reality.
Together, the works evoke the logic of fairy tales, where the familiar and the uncanny coexist. Yet beneath their playful surfaces lies something more unsettling. Reuter Christiansen’s figures seem exposed, confronting inner fears and desires with remarkable vulnerability. Flanagan’s animals, despite their physical presence, rarely feel threatening. Instead, they function as symbols or companions, allowing the exhibition’s true tension to emerge from within. The greatest danger here is not the creature lurking nearby, but the emotional and psychological terrain each figure must navigate.
What we love: At its core, “Fable and Form” examines the enduring role of fables as a means of expressing what is often left unsaid. Through animals, allegory, and imagination, both artists reveal the fears, desires, and truths that are difficult to confront directly.
Barry Flanagan and Ursula Reuter Christiansen at von Bartha
June 15–Aug 7, 2026
Pierre Huyghe
Fondation Beyeler
Riehen
Pierre Huyghe, Installation view “Camata” at Fondation Beyeler, 2024, robotics driven by machine learning, self-directed film edited in real time, sound, sensors. Collection Maja Hoffmann / Luma Foundation.
For those looking to venture beyond the fair during Art Basel 2026, Fondation Beyeler presents the first solo museum exhibition in Switzerland by Pierre Huyghe. Featuring newly commissioned works alongside films and earlier pieces, the exhibition transforms the museum into a liminal environment where biology, technology, and matter continuously evolve.
Visitors first encounter Apnea (2026), an artificial breathing organ submerged underwater that inhales and exhales at a human rhythm before slipping into moments of suspended breath. Elsewhere, a worm-like form guides viewers toward a symbolic threshold, while Liminals (2025) introduces a faceless figure that appears to have crossed into our world from another realm. The journey culminates with Adversary (2026), where a closed gate both restricts and invites passage, framing machines engaged in a ritual around an unburied skeleton in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Rather than presenting a traditional exhibition, Huyghe creates an environment suspended between reality and fiction, where each work feels connected to a larger, unknowable system.
“Victions are vehicles that give us access to other possible worlds, to a counterfactual imagination,”
-Pierre Huyghe
What we love: The exhibition’s psychological tension lingers long after leaving, prompting reflection on consciousness, mortality, and humanity’s evolving relationship with technology
Pierre Huyghe at Fondation Beyeler
May 24–September 13, 2026
Helen Frankenthaler
Kunstmuseum Basel
Altstadt Grossbasel
Helen Frankenthaler, “Salome,” 1978, acrylic on canvas, 239 x 409.8 cm. © 2026 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / ProLitteris, Zurich. mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Leihgabe der Österreichischen Ludwig-Stiftung, Inv. ÖL-Stg 67/0
Among the standout museum exhibitions to visit during Art Basel 2026, “Helen Frankenthaler” offers a sweeping overview of one of the most influential figures in American abstraction. Bringing together more than 50 works spanning six decades, the exhibition fills the gallery with vibrant large-scale paintings while highlighting Frankenthaler’s enduring impact on postwar American art.
Best known for pioneering the soak-stain technique, Frankenthaler helped propel the Color Field movement by pouring heavily diluted paint onto unprimed canvases laid directly on the floor. Working from all sides, she manipulated the paint using brushes, sponges, scrapers, and other tools, allowing pigment to seep into the fabric itself. The result was a radical fusion of canvas and color, where painting became as much about process as image. The exhibition also explores Frankenthaler’s engagement with art history, placing her abstractions within a broader visual conversation.
What we love: Frankenthaler’s work strikes a rare balance between control and chance. Even as gravity and pigment shape the final image, each composition feels deliberate, demonstrating her extraordinary ability to find order within spontaneity.
Helen Frankenthaler at Kunstmuseum Basel
April 18–August 23, 2026
Cao Fei: “Testimonies to the Near Future”
Kunstmuseum Basel
Altstadt Grossbasel
Installation view Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart; “Cao Fei: Testimonies to the Near Future – The Playground,” 2026. Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space, and Sprüth Magers; commissioned by Fondazione Prada. Photo by Samuel Bramley.
Working across video, photography, digital media, installation, and sculpture, Cao Fei has emerged as one of the most influential artists of her generation, chronicling the rapid transformations of China. At Kunstmuseum Basel, her first solo exhibition in Switzerland unfolds as an immersive city-like environment, bringing together works from the past three decades.
For more than twenty years, Cao Fei has explored the impact of technology, urbanization, labor, and globalization through video installations, virtual worlds, and digital simulations. Blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, her works transport viewers into dreamlike environments that feel both futuristic and strikingly familiar.
Throughout the exhibition, speculative narratives intertwine with documentary observations, creating alternate worlds that reflect the complexities of contemporary life. Questions of identity, economic growth, and technological progress emerge through playful yet deeply considered works, where avatars, virtual spaces, and imagined futures become tools for examining the present.
What we love: Spread across four floors, the exhibition transforms the museum into an immersive universe where the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds dissolve, allowing visitors to step directly into Cao Fei’s cinematic vision.
Cao Fei at Kunstmuseum Basel
May 30–October 11, 2026
Verner Panton: “Form, Colour, Space”
Vitra Design Museum
Weil am Rhein, Germany
Verner Panton, Installation View of “Verner Panton: Form, Colour, Space,” 2026. Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum and the artist.
Over in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Vitra Design Museum celebrates the 100th anniversary of Verner Panton with one of the most comprehensive retrospectives ever dedicated to the visionary designer. Widely regarded as one of the defining creative forces of the second half of the twentieth century, Panton transformed furniture, interiors, and exhibition design through his fearless use of color, form, and material.
Alongside iconic works such as the Panton Chair, the Cone Chair, and the Flowerpot lamp, the exhibition also presents rarely seen furniture, architectural projects, and immersive interior environments. A particular highlight is the reconstruction of Panton’s legendary Fantasy Landscape, in a ⅛ edition, allowing visitors to step inside one of his most radical spatial concepts.
Rejecting the restraint often associated with Scandinavian design, Panton embraced a bold visual language where color, light, textiles, and organic forms shaped entirely new ways of inhabiting space. Organized chronologically, the exhibition traces the evolution of his practice from early furniture designs to the immersive environments that cemented his legacy as a pioneer of experiential design.
What we love: Beyond the iconic objects, the exhibition reveals the depth of Panton’s vision, showing how individual designs evolved into complete worlds where furniture, architecture, and atmosphere became inseparable.
Verner Panton at Vitra Design Museum
May 23, 2026—May 9, 2027
Hella Jongerius: “Whispering Things”
Vitra Design Museum
Weil am Rhein, Germany
Installation view of “Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things,” 2026. © Vitra Design Museum. Photo by Bernhard Strauss.
For design lovers visiting Art Basel 2026, the Vitra Design Museum presents the first major retrospective dedicated to the work of Hella Jongerius, bringing together more than three decades of her influential practice. Spanning over 400 works, the exhibition offers a comprehensive look at her multidisciplinary oeuvre through furniture, textiles, ceramics, sculptures, sketches, prototypes, films, and material experiments.
Since emerging as part of the Dutch avant-garde collective Droog Design in the 1990s, Jongerius has developed a distinct visual language rooted in layering, tactility, craftsmanship, and an ongoing dialogue between industrial production and the handmade. Organized into four thematic chapters, the exhibition traces the evolution of her thinking and practice. Dirty Hands explores her experimental beginnings with Droog, while Business Class highlights collaborations with brands including Maharam, IKEA, Nike, Camper, Vitra, and KLM. Elsewhere, Feeling Eye focuses on her research into color and perception, while Cosmic Mind examines humanity’s relationship with non-human life and the natural world.
What we love: The accompanying catalogue, designed by Dutch graphic designer Joost Grootens, serves as an extension of the exhibition itself, featuring essays, archival materials, and deeper insights into Jongerius’ remarkable career long after visitors leave the museum.
Hella Jongerius at Vitra Design Museum
March 14, 2026—September 6, 2026