The Best Large-Scale Works at Art Basel Unlimited 2025
This year’s edition of Art Basel in Switzerland kicked off Monday with the opening of the fair’s Unlimited section, taking over a 172,000-square-foot hall reserved for monumental installations that would dwarf a traditional booth.
Curated by Giovanni Carmine, the director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, this year’s Unlimited is host to 67 projects supported by 92 galleries, a small decrease from the 76 projects in 2024. Older works have been reactivated for the occasion, including Martin Kippenberger’s METRO-Net Transportabler U-Bahn Eingang [METRO-Net Transportable Subway Entrance] (1997), a manifesto for his vision of a globe-spanning subway network; Mario Merz’s Evidenza (1978), a metal dome structure with various found objects affixed to it; and Yayoi Kusama’s Let’s go to a Paradise of Glorious Tulips (2009), consisting of seven sculptures of a girl, flowers, and animals in the artist’s colorful, polka-dot style.
There is also no shortage of performances. The 2024 work Sham3dan (Candelabra), choreographed by the Cairo-based collective nasa4nasa, explores the themes of labor, tradition, legacy, control, and corporal limits via the movements of seven dancers who wear candelabras on their heads. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s 1991 “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform) comes to live when a male dancer in silver briefs graces the public with his presence.
Below, a look at some of the most impressive works on display in Art Basel’s Unlimited section.
