The fair’s latest showing for fresh art is propelled by socially engaged work, from Lonnie Holley’s retelling of civil rights history to Lin May Saeed’s vision of animal liberation.

There aren’t many gaps left to fill in the voracious art market but Art Basel’s latest section for art made in the past five years, called “Premiere”, seems to have hit a sweet spot. “Curated sections of fairs tend to focus on new work by emerging artists or the rediscovery of historical positions. This new section provides an opportunity to present a mid-career or established artist with institutional momentum to the global market,” says Jeremy Epstein, co-founder of London’s Edel Assanti, one of the 10 selected Premiere galleries. It is the gallery’s first showing at Art Basel, to which it brings a solo booth of work by the multidisciplinary American artist Lonnie Holley. Epstein describes Holley as “the archetypical artist for this section, a generational linchpin”. Holley, who was born in 1950, worked alongside the likes of the groundbreaking assemblage artist Thornton Dial and has since proved an inspiration to today’s practitioners. Edel Assanti’s booth will be anchored by Holley’s “Without Skin” (2024), an installation of thick fire hoses coiled around a pile of wooden chairs. The work references the water from hosepipes used to disrupt non-violent civil rights protesters in the US. “The spray was so strong it literally stripped the skin off people’s backs,” Epstein says. It is in keeping with what Maike Cruse, director of Art Basel, describes as a loose but recurring theme to the Premiere section of “socially relevant topics, such as resistance, ecology, justice”. These seem likely to appeal to the shifting mindset of collectors in an increasingly politically charged environment. The latest Art Basel & UBS Art Market report finds that younger collectors, expected to inherit considerable wealth over the next 20 years, are “increasingly driven by personal values and a desire to make meaningful impact” with trends such as social justice and the environment in mind.

Sections that highlight emerging galleries are typically restricted to solo presentations in small booths. Premiere is an opportunity for emerging galleries to showcase their overall programme

–Lucas Casso, Sweetwater Gallery, Berlin

For one gallery, the Premiere opportunity is bittersweet — Frankfurt’s Galerie Jacky Strenz brings work by Lin May Saeed, who died of brain cancer aged only 50 in 2023. “She was an artist’s artist in the beginning, and pretty much unknown even in Germany [where she was from], but just two weeks after she died her first solo show there opened at the Georg-Kolbe-Museum in Berlin,” Strenz says. The artist, whose practice centred on seeing animals as equal to humans, is increasingly relevant in tumultuous times, Strenz says. “Ultimately she wanted to promote a peaceful coexistence between all species, including human to human, so now is a pertinent time.” She finds that younger curators in particular are “drawn to the theme”. The gallery brings some of Saeed’s brightly coloured, styrofoam reliefs — including one of a group of animals and humans celebrating their liberation under a rainbow — as well as a large bronze of a pangolin, smaller animal sculptures and some works on paper. Strenz describes the Art Basel showing as “a good opportunity for the estate”. While Edel Assanti and Jacky Strenz are opting to bring just one artist, Premiere is unusual on the art fair circuit, including at Art Basel, as a dedicated section that permits up to three artists, provided their work was made in the past five years. “Sections that highlight emerging galleries and artists are typically restricted to solo presentations in small booths, which can be a risky proposition,” says Lucas Casso, founder of Berlin’s Sweetwater gallery. Premiere, he says, “is an opportunity for emerging galleries to showcase their overall programme.” He is taking full advantage and is bringing three artists — Alexandre Khondji, Kayode Ojo and Megan Plunkett — all of whom “are concerned with the nature of common objects, how they are perceived, how they are constructed and what happens when they’re brought into a fine art context”. Ojo’s sculpture features two transparent chairs adorned with white clothing from Zara, a high street chain turned high art; Khondji provides an industrially produced flood barrier, part of his Dams series, which will cordon off a corner of the booth (as it did at Maureen Paley’s Studio M space in London last year); Plunkett’s photographs turn items such as rubbish bags and drinks cans into cinematic, significant objects. The Tunis and London gallerist Selma Feriani also brings three artists — Nadia Ayari, M’barek Bouhchichi and Sara Ouhaddou — who all have studios in north Africa and all, she says, “use, preserve and then transform ancestral techniques by working with artisans”. A highlight are the woven works that Bouhchichi has made in collaboration with communities of women in Mali and his home country of Morocco. Ouhaddou’s panels made of clay were inspired by Moroccan architecture while Ayari’s thickly applied paintings are inspired by the flora of Tunis. “Art Basel is a big fair and there will be so many galleries [a total of 289 this year] but a north African contemporary art presentation doesn’t happen that often so we should stand out,” Feriani says.