The director of Art Basel in Basel, Maike Cruse, joins us to reveal how the fair is celebrating 30 years of collaboration with global lead partner UBS. Together they commissioned artist Petrit Halilaj who has created a special installation for the façade of the former Hotel Merian. Plus: UBS Group CMO John McDonald explains why the bank’s partnership with Art Basel continues to make an impact after 30 years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Bulletin with UBS on Monocle Radio.
Each week, the sharpest minds and freshest thinkers in finance take you beyond the numbers and hype right to the heart of the big issues of the day.
This week, the Art Basel Art Fair takes place in Basel.
The original Art Basel Fair has of course inspired a global brand, its other international outposts, and so much more besides.
But there remains something quite unique about the fair that began it all.
There's also a milestone this year as 2024 marks 30 years of UBS's partnership with Art Basel.
The new director of the Fair in Basel is our guest today and she'll tell us how the fair is celebrating that special relationship with UBS this year, including with some inspirational works from Kosovo visual artist Petrit Halilai.
We will also hear from the global CMO of UBS who will tell us what the partnership means to the bank, why art is so enduringly important to ubs, and what the future might hold.
Let's start this special edition then with Micah Cruz, Director of Art Basel in Basel.
Micah, welcome to the program.
We'll talk about the 30th anniversary celebrations in a second, but before that, just tell us a bit about, well, about how the relationship with UBS has evolved over those three decades.
UBS and Art Basel's partnership has grown over the past 30 years and yeah, really became a collaboration, creating great moments of connection and bringing together the global art ecosystem, really.
And over the past two decades, as you know, Art Basel has really expanded its presence, became truly global.
Now we span across three different continents and we have four shows.
And in 2002 we launched a fair in Miami beach and then in 2013 a fair in Hong Kong.
And at the same time, UBS became the global lead partner of Art Basel.
So the UBS really was on our side for the last 30 years.
There are many developments in the show that were only possible thanks to this collaboration.
Just giving you some examples.
In 2000, UBS expanded their partnership to include the unlimited exhibition platform which was then launched, is still taking place since 2000 and it enables artists to realize large scale projects in the fair.