Market and stock exchange Art fair Volta moves into new home in Basel next to Art Basel

Twenty years after it was founded, the Volta art fair is moving to the immediate vicinity of Art Basel. From June 19 to 22, the galleries attending the fair will present their works at the Basel Congress Center, as the fair announced on Thursday.

The Volta Art Fair has an eventful history behind it. The term "eventful" can be taken quite literally, as the secondary art fair has had a veritable odyssey behind it.

The side fair made its first appearance in 2005 in the Volta Hall, which soon proved to be too small for the growing number of galleries. The name Volta remained, but not the location.

A marathon relocation throughout Basel followed. In its second year, the fair pitched its tents at the Basler Hafen in the north of Basel, later moving to the centrally located Markthalle before finding a new home at the Kunstfreilager on the Dreispitz site on the southern outskirts of the city.

After another stopover in the Markthalle, the fair moved to the halls of the former Coop distribution center in the Lysbüchel district in the north of Basel, before settling in the premises of the former canteen of the Novartis chemical company on the Klybeck site in 2024. And now, in its anniversary year, it is moving to the immediate vicinity of the parent fair Art Basel.

A conglomerate of secondary fairs has thus been created around Art Basel on the Basel exhibition grounds. After the Design Miami fair, the Liste Art Fair discovery fair, founded in 1996, also moved to one of the exhibition halls in 2021. And now the Volta art fair is following suit.

The Volta Art Fair, which also sees itself as a discovery fair, wants to be able to grow at its new location. There will be space for up to 65 galleries in the new 4,000 square meter premises, it is said.