To ring in the 2025 edition of Art Basel, Berlin artist Katharina Grosse has spray-painted the entire Messeplatz precinct in vivid magenta tones. Titled CHOIR, the ephemeral work welcomes visitors to the Herzog & de Meuron-designed exhibition hall with liberal splashes of rousing colour — as if, says the artist, ‘a vast painting has flown through, landed briefly and left its residue behind.’

Under the curatorship of Natalia Grabowska, Grosse has used an industrial spray gun to transform the venue into an outdoor artwork, the first time a painter has been invited to take over the 53,800 sq ft space. Changing the spatial rules of painting, the work becomes a membrane through which all festival-goers will pass, becoming part of the installation.

‘CHOIR is my largest work in an urban setting and the first Messeplatz Project at Art Basel to take the form of a painting,’ Grosse wrote on Instagram. ‘It explores our obsession with control – and desire for freedom. I wanted to defy what could happen within a tightly regulated environment, and from the start, I took the possibility of painting everywhere for granted, including over the Art Basel logo.’⁠
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She added: ‘It’s as if a vast painting has flown through, landed briefly, and left its residue behind. CHOIR is transient and unrepeatable. It belongs to everyone and no one. It gathers people into a fleeting collective – a choir of distinct voices, momentarily held together in a shared, shifting experience.’

To create the colossal, site-specific installation, Grosse emblazoned splashes of acrylic colour onto a thin layer of asphalt that will be peeled off and recycled once the fair is over. Grosse hopes that Choir disrupts familiarity and encourages viewers to engage with the Messeplatz and the surrounding area with fresh eyes.

‘Moving freely across surfaces and structures, I dissolve boundaries and reveal reality as liquid – open to being seen and felt differently,’ she said. ‘Colour, especially magenta, grabs your attention and alters how you relate to your surroundings. It becomes a tool to disrupt habits and provoke change. I want people to feel so destabilised, positively or negatively, that something moves.’

Choir is currently on view through 22 June at Messe Basel, Messeplatz 10, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

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