Marc Spiegler Steps Down as Director of Art Basel, as Noah Horowitz is Announced as the Art Fair’s New CEO

After a decade of leading Art Basel, Marc Spiegler will step down from the international art fair next month.

Horowitz smiling at camera in art gallery
Noah Horowitz in 2019.
(Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Art Los Angeles Contemporary)

Art Basel will have a new leader next month, with Noah Horowitz taking the helm as CEO in November.

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Horowitz will succeed Marc Spiegler, who has been the international art fair’s global director since 2012, according to a press release. Art Basel, founded in the Swiss city in 1970, is reportedly the world’s largest art fair, and stages international annual events for modern and contemporary art.

After holding the position of Art Basel’s Americas director from 2015 to 2021, Horowitz left the fair in Sept. 2021 to serve as head of gallery and private dealer services at Sotheby's. Meanwhile, Spiegler, who first became the fair’s co-director in 2007 when he joined MCH Group, Art Basel’s parent company, will stay on with the firm in an advisory capacity for the next six months. His departure comes on the heels of Art Basel’s first Paris art fair, called Paris+, which opened earlier this month.

“Following the successful premier of Paris+ and with the imminent 20th anniversary of Art Basel Miami Beach, I am leaving Art Basel on a high note,” said Spiegler in a statement. “Having launched new shows in Hong Kong and Paris, staged 43 fairs, and led Art Basel through a global pandemic, it has come time to pass the baton.”

Marc Spiegler Steps Down as Director of Art Basel, as Noah Horowitz is Announced as the Art Fair’s New CEO