Two worlds converge in Basel
Something seismic is unfolding at Art Basel in 2026.
For the third iteration of the Swiss fair’s digital art initiative, Zero 10, curated by Eli Scheinman and Trevor Paglen, a number of established blue-chip galleries are sharing space for the first time with prominent media art galleries. The inclusion of international houses such as Hauser & Wirth and Marian Goodman feels like a show of faith in a post-medium art world liberated from historical demarcations. At last, two parallel universes have started to converge.
In his new book, How to See Like a Machine: Images After AI, Trevor Paglen reflects on two major revolutions in how humans relate to images in the past 15 years: computer vision and generative AI. Now, for the first time at Art Basel, artists engaged with those revolutions are exhibiting alongside wider contemporary art practices.
William Mapan is showing two new series with Art Blocks as part of Zero 10, Paysages Plausibles and Dances on Shadows. By grouping together the artist’s paintings and drawings together with the plotter itself in the space of the booth, the display spotlights the way digital and analog approaches now live together in a generative feedback loop.
When asked by Alex Estorick, Founding Editor of Right Click Save, to assess the significance of this moment, the artist Jan Robert Leegte, showing with Office Impart and Upstream Gallery, opined: “After 30 years, [it feels] unreal. This field has been kept outside of the art world for a very long time … So this is miraculous to be in Basel.”
— Danielle King, Head of Community at Right Click Save
Features
Jan Robert Leegte’s work on show at the Art Basel Zero 10 stand shared by OFFICE IMPART and Upstream Gallery. Via x.com. Courtesy of the artist, OFFICE IMPART, and Upstream Gallery
Installation view of Paysages Plausibles (2026) and Dances on Shadows (2026) by William Mapan at Art Blocks. Photography by Right Click Save
Images After AI | Trevor Paglen and investigative journalist Manisha Ganguly discuss how machines see
Trevor Paglen, Near Highway 80 (undated), 2024. © Trevor Paglen. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Pace Gallery, New York
Stan VanDerBeek and Kenneth C. Knowlton, (Still from) Poemfield No. 1 (Blue Version), 1967. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund. Courtesy of the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek. Digital images courtesy of The Box, Los Angeles
Installation view of “No Limits” at Art Gallery of Ontario, with works: Asteroid 3033 X1 (2025, foreground) and Odyssey (2025) by Ranbir Sidhu. Photography by AGO. © Ranbir Sidhu. Courtesy of the artist.
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Happening
Lap-See Lam’s solo exhibition, “Ombres”, at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, celebrates the artist becoming the fourth recipient of The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award. Courtesy of the artist and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo
Erick Antonio Benitez, Gengar Precolombino, 2025. “time is a flat circle” is the second exhibition in a series of collaborations between Rip Space and bitforms gallery, featuring work by Benitez, Ricardo Cabret, Lou Fauroux, and Umber Majeed. Courtesy of the artist, bitforms, and Rip Space
“Chris Dorland — Chrome Shelter”, is at Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, Germany, June 28 to October 4, 2026
With “Chrome Shelter” the New York-based Canadian-American artist Chris Dorland is holding his first institutional show in Europe. The exhibition, at Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, near Hamburg, is curated by Wilko Austermann, the museum’s director, and examines the intersection of painting, digital culture, and contemporary systems of technological mediation. Courtesy of the artist
The LAN Party Summer School webinars are led by Alice Bucknell, Chia Amisola, Side Quest, and Janne Schimmel. Courtesy of LAN Party
Appointment
Before assuming her role at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Florence Ostende was Head of the Artistic Department at Mudam — Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg). Before that she was Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London. Photograph courtesy of Florence Ostende and Guggenheim Bilbao
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