Reaffirming its reputation as the launchpad fair, Liste opened yesterday (June 16) in Basel with the usual tightly curated selection showcasing a geographically and culturally diverse roster of emerging galleries and artists. The 2025 edition offered several standouts on the younger end of the gallery spectrum, with strong showings from across Europe but especially the east. By midday, the aisles were packed, and despite a generally sluggish market, sales were reported throughout the day. European collectors dominated the floor, while American and Asian buyers were notably absent—perhaps skipping this edition or arriving later and eschewing early bets on some of the fair’s most promising booths, a few of which had already sold out by evening. “Reports from galleries have been overwhelmingly positive—some even told us they sold out within the first three hours,” director Nikola Dietrich told Observer late that evening.
Among the standouts, Turnus Gallery from Warsaw made its Liste debut this year with a striking two-person show featuring Polish artists Wiktoria Kieniksman and Mikołaj Sobotka, reporting several on-site sales closed by the day’s close. The booth functioned as a kind of altar to trauma, collective memory and the grotesque, with Kieniksman‘s works exploring the instinctive and emotional terrain of female experience, confronting societal pressures and intimate wounds with raw, confrontational energy. Sobotka, meanwhile, presented artifacts of desire that evoked primordial forms—objects suspended between the symbolic and the formless, echoing ancient rituals and subconscious impulses.
Suprainfinit from Bucharest drew attention with a group of oneiric and hauntingly ominous paintings by Romanian artist Miruna Radovic, which soon sold out in the €5,000-10,000 range to institutions, including a museum in Italy and the Rubell Collection. Her visceral, expressive takes on feminine power and myth conjured misty landscapes, conjoined bodies and archaic vegetal forms that evoked prehistoric fungi or wilting flowers as she reframed questions of reproduction, desire and decay. These enigmatic works were shown alongside Man Yu’s ceramic sculptures resembling bones, creating a layered dialogue around the body, transformation and constructed histories.
Lest we forget that Liste is also a platform for rediscovery, there was a powerful presentation by Parallel Oaxaca dedicated to visionary artist Nahum B. Zenil, whose work draws a profound connection between the body and the cosmos. Active in the ‘70s, ’80s and ’90s and considered part of the so-called “New Mexicalism,” Zenil explored themes of suffering, bodily transformation and political oppression through a lens that was both deeply personal and broadly collective—often positioning the self-portrait as a mirror of social experience and community identity. Working in ink and acrylic on canvas, his pieces reflect a fusion of Indigenous knowledge and spiritual cosmology, channeling Indigenous culture and ancestral pre-Colombian symbolism in a raw, urgent language of resistance that is at once physical and metaphysical.
Vienna-based gallery Vin Vin reportedly could have sold out its booth of paintings by young Sicilian artist Giuseppe Francalanza three times over, but held back to secure the best placements, finalizing at least two institutional acquisitions by evening. Covered in sand, the booth became a stage for an existential struggle, with bodies attempting to materialize in the diaphanous, formless atmospheres of Francalanza’s canvases. Titled “Siménza,” the presentation aimed to evoke the sensation of intense light reflecting off Sicilian soil, borrowing its name from the local word for sowing. “How can one think of sowing within the fragility of an inner land?” the artist asks, questioning whether it’s truly possible to put down roots while still longing to be part of the wider world. The works were all priced within an accessible €3,000-16,000 range.
Also selling out by the first day despite higher prices ranging from €7,000 to €50,000 was Tiwani Contemporary, which presented gestural, bodily abstractions by Zimbabwean artist Virginia Chihota. Drawing from personal experience, Chihota’s intuitive marks evoke the torment of displacement and a deep existential inquiry into the essence of body and soul, while simultaneously asserting an alternative vision of femininity and belonging. Her relevance was reconfirmed by new institutional acquisitions, building on an already strong résumé that includes works in the Centre Pompidou, Tate London, Fondation H in Madagascar, FRAC Picardie and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
Making its Liste debut, New York-based Magenta Plains reported strong interest in a standout series of uncanny collage paintings by Matt Keegan, The Measure of Things, which subtly questions objecthood and the shifting meaning of materials. His works layer photographic fragments with painterly and malleable gestures to explore how objects and images are assigned value, presence and memory. Alongside the paintings, Keegan showed a single-channel video paired with a custom-made sculptural component, further complicating the boundaries between media. Works were priced around €5,000, and at least six were placed with European collections by lunchtime.
Also successful was the debut of New York–based gallery Yve Yang, which paired a group of playful, cartoon-inspired floor sculptures by Huidi Xiang with two visionary cosmological embroideries by Wang Ye. While the gallery had planned to present additional works, the artist could not complete more pieces in time as he prepared for his upcoming New York show in September. Still, the debut exceeded all expectations, founder Yve Yang told Observer, citing the remarkable caliber of collectors, a steady stream of engaged visitors and exceptional support provided to exhibitors. “We’ve connected with the right collectors here and are well on track for a sold-out booth,” she added.
Collectors at this edition are also responding to more ambiguous and ambitious works, as confirmed by the placement of at least one sculpture featuring taxidermied rats and futuristic wall-hanging works by Magdalena Petroni presented by Mexico-based gallery General Expenses. Priced under $10,000, Petroni’s work confronts themes of life, death and decay with wit and playfulness, inviting viewers to reflect on the porous divide between the organic and synthetic in modern ecosystems.
Also ambitious was the booth of New York-based gallery Margot Samel, which paired Annie Hémond Hotte’s meticulous, mythology-inspired paintings with a series of uncanny sculptural creatures by Colombian artist Gina Proenza. Expanding on a recent series shown at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Proenza’s worm-like sculptures with mechanized tongues and abacus-inspired wall pieces draw from 15th- and 16th-century ecclesiastic trials against insects held responsible for crop failures. Drawing connections to today’s ecological crises and contemporary legal efforts to grant rights to natural entities, the works explore shifting systems of authority, judgment and inter-species accountability. Priced at $7,000, all Hémond Hotte’s works were sold or on hold by the evening.
G Gallery from Seoul presented a focused pairing of Woo Hannah and Huang Sueyon. Priced at €17,000, Woo’s work drew early interest ahead of her upcoming solo show in September and perhaps fueled by her inclusion in the extensive exhibition on Korean art organized by ADMF around the notion of medium at Manarat al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi. Huang’s delicate yet conceptually charged pieces interestingly explore the tension and fragility of paper, crafted to resemble technological or metallic devices, with prices between €5,000 and €7,000.
Also based in Seoul, N/A presented two enigmatic works by the young but already internationally sought-after Korean painter Son Woo, both of which sold despite being priced at €38,000. The gallery paired the paintings with a group of mysterious glass containers and bottles by Jiyoon Chung, featuring suspended worms cast in epoxy resin, serving as metaphors for the existential condition and the paradox between resistance and acquiescence, decay and preservation, reflecting the tensions that arise when navigating ambiguous collective agreements, from social conventions to fleeting cultural trends.
Another name worth watching at this Liste and beyond is Franco‑Tunisian painter Ines de Falco Jemni, presented by Marseille-based gallery Sissi Club, which brought a poetic body of work that weaves together personal memories of transient places, 19th-century symbolism and ancestral references. Blurring the boundaries between the intimate and mythical, her paintings read as both a self‑portrait and a social and spiritual mirror of collective experiences. Priced between €3,500 and €22,000, the presentation drew early interest for its intimate yet historically resonant visual language.
Similarly promising and already enjoying significant institutional and collector traction are the gestural, ever-evolving abstract entanglements of Slovenia-born, London-based painter Katarina Caserman. Her work gives form to thoughts, memories and time by translating them into dynamic, labyrinthine abstractions that trace cybernetic networks of emotion through color, movement and form. With prices at Liste ranging from €5,000 to €25,000, her rising profile was recently affirmed with a solo show at Marquez Art Projects in Miami during Art Basel. Her work has already entered prominent collections, including ICA Miami, Deji Art Museum (Nanjing), The Cloud Collection (Nanjing) and Nanjo Art Museum (Okinawa).
These and other early sales suggest Liste remains a platform where emerging artists can gain vital exposure and initial traction, laying the groundwork for future growth and recognition. Across booths, there was good activity on the lower and emerging ends, confirming that collectors here are eager to place early bets on promising talent—particularly when galleries priced works in an accessible range, which most strategically did, conscious of the current state of the art market.
Liste continues through Sunday, June 21, 2025, in Basel, Switzerland.
