Art Basel Basel, Basel

So this was it, the (give or take) 54th edition of the original Art Basel, in Basel. In spite of the somewhat shaky sales dynamics, there were several expressions of delight at the weather, which was much better than announced, and a slight sigh of relief that the fair in Paris will soon be called "Art Basel Paris" and will not become the new flagship of MCHnext year, devouring its Swiss predecessor.

The city and canton of Basel were also in a positive mood. In the run-up to the week of the fair, two of the city's most annoying major construction sites were quickly closed or reduced in size; the mass of advertising flags flying over the city centre was hard to miss; there were dozends of people in yellow waistcoats pointing out the right connections from the airport to Messeplatz. Noise control and authorisation checks, for example at Mittlere Brücke in the new hotspot Dupont/Merian, at the Liste party at Kaserne, which was completely overrun with people, or on St. Johanns-Rheinweg at Bronx Bodega/Basso seemed deliberately lax.

I couldn’t help but wonder: What may, what should, what MUST the state and public administration actually do for private companies in order to promote an area (i.e. Basel) as a business location? In a global context, it may seem absurd to be upset that the purely decorative, non-infrastructure-related building site in front of the newly most relevant Basel gallery Hauser und Wirth (as successor to and in continuity with Galerie Knöll) cannot be suspended for the short period of these three or four most important days of the year and that instead the biggest works took place exactly the day after the opening of the new exhibition. The main tasks of an administration and government are to maintain a peaceful community, to ensure social prosperity, to operate a functioning infrastructure and to uphold laws and regulations that have been democratically agreed upon. But does this also apply to Basel? Does it count for this cosmopolitan city en miniature, which last year, despite its generous spending policy, had a budget surplus of no less than 434 million Swiss francs? (Do the maths: that's 2120 francs per person......). Furthermore we must consider that the city’s massive prosperity is based on just a few pillars, squeezed in between the aggressively competing major global powers and therefore extremely fragile.

From a purely economic point of view, it is very understandable that Basel is cherishing and nurturing its four main economic sectors. And since culture - unlike pharma/biotech, wholesale/goods shipping and architecture - is very difficult to analyse in terms of profitability, broad and flexible subsidisation is certainly appropriate here. Perhaps even more important than the already highly controversial question of the extent to which a community should be involved in the market economy is the discussion about the definition of culture. Is the art market part of culture? Are museums also part of the market economy? It is a agreed-on public secret in the city that the Kunstmuseum Basel could not even begin to put on the exhibition programme it boasts of if it were not for the tens of millions of Francs being donated by the canton and well-known families from the above-mentioned pharmaceutical and cultural sectors. It is currently rumoured that the budget under the new Kunstmuseum management looks more like Detroit than Los Angeles and that the excellent social-democratic financial minister Ms Tanja Soland will probably have to help out the department of her liberal council colleague Cramer (you know, the ones that are supposed to know their way around finances but never actually show it). Everyone involved knows that the support of the big museums is vital and elementary for the city of Basel - the political climate still allows such expenditure, regardless of the growing inequality in the population and the continuing price increases in the wake of inflation and late capitalism.

Back to topic: Apart from art, music, theaters, aren't there other parts that belong to culture and should be susidized? What about food culture?

As already mourned in another QUICHE article, the famous, third-generation family-run Krebs bakery will soon be closing. The bakery has distinguished itself with its typical Basel baked goods, which will soon no longer be available anywhere else in this quality and at a price which even the less well-off residents of the neighbourhood could afford. You might ask cynically: is it correct that millions of euros of state money are spent on exhibiting, installing or buying American monumental sculptures and giant paintings, while in what will soon be the whole of Grossbasel West you will no longer be able to buy a Fastenwähe, a Käskiechli or a Schoggi-S without spending half your monthly wage in the (excellent) Holzofenbäckerei or without having to choke down Sutter's dust-dry industrial nonsens? Ought food and drink culture really to be left completely to the market, so that Barfüsserplatz loses the last independent restaurant to a pizza chain alongside Dunkin Donuts, cheap bubble tea and MacDonalds? Should there really be 11 burger chains (count them, no hyperbole!) between Heuwaage and Schifflände, but no more healthy local cuisine at low prices?

What about fashion and clothing culture, which is completely left to the clutches of Temu, Shein and other companies that owe their market power to the enslavement of workers in the global South? Not to mention sports culture (think of what FIFA has done to football...), memory culture, language culture, discourse culture.

And the worst question of all: am I a conservative boomer who simply finds these displacements and supply shortages scary because they are new in this form, or is there really just a lot going wrong with the way our preferred economic system is working out?

And to complete the circle: Respite from all the gloom can perhaps only be found in art, in museums, the glittering bustling halls of art, literature, cinemas and computer screens, financed by the long way of big business. My goodness. Perhaps (state funded?) philosophy has some answers, but that's another topic........

(HE)