{"id":84581,"date":"2026-06-15T12:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/84581\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:41:12","slug":"its-a-nightclub-a-book-fair-a-sauna-an-art-show-and-more-its-basel-social-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/84581\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a Nightclub, a Book Fair, a Sauna, an Art Show, and More. It\u2019s Basel Social Club!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you feeling jaded about the machinations of the art industry? It may be time for a visit to Basel Social Club. Last year, the fourth edition of the free-wheeling event restored my faith in the art world, filling more than 100 rooms of a grand old bank with art from scores of venturesome international dealers. There were food stands, and quite a lot of alcohol, and\u2014why not?\u2014a barbershop. As always, it was free. The lines were, at times, considerable.<\/p>\n

The multifarious event has also occupied a farm and a private villa in the past, and this time<\/a> it has taken over a former UBS office building that was designed by the storied local firm Diener & Diener, right by the Basel SBB railway station. The offerings are at least as ambitious as last time. Programming will run from 4 p.m. until\u2014no joke\u20143 a.m., every day through Saturday (Sunday morning, technically speaking).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started off this year thinking about doing something underground and doing a sort of night edition,\u201d one of the event\u2019s cofounders, Yael Salamunovitz, said during a video call on Friday evening. \u201cThere was a vision at a very early stage that we\u2019re only open at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

An earlier performance of Alicia Framis\u2019s The Walking Ceiling (2018), which was staged on the opening day of Basel Social Club . Courtesy the Artist and Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij<\/p>\n

While the building\u2019s above-ground floors are integral to the affair, there is an underground garage that will operate as a nightclub. Salamunovitz had just been there witnessing a \u201csmoke test\u201d and was now outside.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the week, there will be performances in the garage by artists like Jade Kuriki-Olivo (Puppies Puppies) and Ernestyna Orlowska \u201cwho takes apart a MacBook to the sound of the Bol\u00e9ro in one of her performances,\u201d Salamunovitz said. There will also be a bevy of concerts, including a stand late on Tuesday night by Robin S., whose debut single, \u201cShow Me Love,\u201d<\/a> rocketed to number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993. \u201cWe have an ongoing theme that we always have a one-hit wonder,\u201d Salamunovitz said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a fitness center with a sauna and a cold plunge; private dining from the local chef Pascal Steffen, whose Roots restaurant has two Michelin stars; spray tans from something called Pureaurastudio; and a game show from the Zurich space Suns.Works that will apparently allow a lucky participant to win an Andy Warhol. Also, I Never Read, Art Book Fair Basel has taken up residence in the building. An outfit called Hotbling2go is offering live tooth-gem applications. And again, there is art, from dealers like P21 of Seoul, Soft Opening of London, 4649 of Tokyo, and many more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably couldn\u2019t pull this off in any other place, to be honest,\u201d another Basel Social Club cofounder, Robbie Fitzpatrick, said on the call. Thanks to grants and other forms of generosity\u2014they got the venue free, as always\u2014the organizers are able to keep costs down for exhibitors. \u201cThey\u2019re not strapped by the pressure to make a profit after spending a considerable amount on a traditional fair booth,\u201d Fitzpatrick said of those dealers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A promotional image for Basel Social Club.<\/p>\n

The team has hired senior citizens in the area, through a program called Seniors at Work, to serve as docents and guards. \u201cSeamlessly, this becomes a commentary on aging and on being somebody elderly within an office context,\u201d Salamunovitz said.<\/p>\n

It all sounds even more action packed than last time. \u201cThe building itself is considerably larger\u201d than last year\u2019s bank, Fitzpatrick said. (And that bank was not exactly small.) This time, we \u201cwill never reach the max capacity,\u201d he said. \u201cWell, I say that\u2014but who knows? There will probably still be a line, but we can accommodate more people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one, with this size of this building, is more than ever an invitation to just be\u2014and experience the work, the social life, the bar, whatever it is,\u201d Salamunovitz said, \u201cand not try to find something or get somewhere, but to just go into it, get lost, go into the experience, and see where that takes you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you feeling jaded about the machinations of the art industry? It may be time for a visit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[43209,1377,43204,1476,27391,27390,77,43202,43210,43201,43206,43207,43208,43211,43203,43205],"class_list":["post-84581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-alternative-art-fairs-2025","tag-art-basel","tag-art-basel-week-events","tag-art-fairs","tag-art-news","tag-artnet-news","tag-basel","tag-basel-art-fair-alternative","tag-basel-nightclub-art-event","tag-basel-social-club-2025","tag-basel-social-club-tickets","tag-contembasel-social-club-2025","tag-contemporary-art-basel","tag-diener-diener-basel-building","tag-free-art-events-basel","tag-underground-art-fair-basel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116754179337816960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}