Art Basel Awards, the prizes that celebrate those who build the future of art

For the first time in its history, Art Basel launches the Art Basel Awardsan annual international recognition destined to celebrate artists, curators, institutions, patrons and cultural professionals who are shaping the future of contemporary art. The award is not limited to honoring individual excellence, but aims to enhance transformative practices and collective impacts that cross disciplines and geographies.

An important international jury – chaired by Vincenzo De BellisChief Artistic Officer and Global Director of Art Basel – select 36 winners, or Medalistsamong hundreds of applications. The medals will be assigned on the basis of four criteria: vision, involvement, quality of execution and cultural impact.

The goal is to reward not only creativity, but also the ecosystem that makes it possible: from logistics to publishing, from preservation preparation, to digital communication. One of the distinctive elements of Art Basel Awards It is the strong link with interdisciplinary practices and with the expansion of artistic language towards fashion, design, music, cinema and architecture.

The prize then does not represent only a recognition, but offers concrete opportunities: custom -made mentoring, access to the international network of Art Basel, strategic partnerships and visibility on a world scale.

“This prize is a love letter to artists and their allies,” said Vincenzo De Bellis. “It is an invitation to our community to dream bigger and contribute to the birth of a world in which transformative art can grow, inspire and last over time”.

The interview with Vincenzo De Bellis

Why did you feel the need to establish an Art Basel Award?
“Because there was no” Industries Award “in the world of art, no recognition, that is, that he rewarded workers in the sector. In reality, it is not even a prize, but a series of prizes, a bit like the Oscars, like the Grammy or Golden Globes for the cinema. We have identified 20 observers, who, as happens for the Michelin guide, went around anonymously for the five containing. They are the ones who have chosen 120 people, to “submit” to a jury of 9 experts, who then restricted to 36 names. These will define who, among them, will have to receive the “Gold” prizes. We have tried to develop a mechanism that guaranteed a good geographical distribution and that would give space to everyone, from the very young to the art icons, responsible for the chosen ones: each emerging receives 50 thousand dollars, the artists “Established” in addition to the 50 thousand dollars have a production of public art in prize, while the winner of the “ICON” category will always have 50 thousand dollars, who, however, will have to pay a charity to an association Pleasure”.

If you, looking Art Basel, should identify a tendency which would indicate?
“Art Basel is a fair not only of contemporary art, but also of modern art, therefore there is a massive presence of works produced before the last 60 years, from Pablo Picasso to Paul Klee, from Giorgio Morandi to Lucio Fontana. Instead, as regards contemporary art, in addition to the artists who work with traditional means such as painting, sculpture, photography and installations, there are many who have started looking at the latest technological found. After Covid there was an explosion of all the art produced in the studio, since it could not be released. Now, slowly, since we have started to move again, they have started to appear more and more videos and digital works. The NFTs were born and died immediately because until now they have been a financial product, but I would not exclude that they returned as a more artistic phenomenon. Today the trends are the most disparate, there is no one. “

Art Basel is also a great commercial event as well as artistic. But, given the unstable period, could art be considered as a good refuge?
«Art is not a good refuge, it is indeed with a high risk rate: it can have a great possibility of returning, but it could also be a gamble. It cannot be considered a economic investment only, because it has an important emotional component: one buys not only to make a deal, but because he wants to live the work, he wants to enjoy it. Then, of course, it is clear that there is also someone who does it for business, but they are certainly not the collectors ».

We know that Art Basel, in February 2026, will arrive in Doha, for the first edition of Qatar. Why did you want to widen in the Middle East too?
«That is a strategic region. Many think that it is because there are petrodollars there, and certainly the economic one is a decisive aspect, but this is not the reason. That part of the world is rich in an artistic production of great importance, but, for geopolitical reasons, it has not yet been explored as it deserves. There is ample artistic and cultural potential, which goes from North Africa to the South Asian and is a region in which we want to invest “.