Basel will host Botero’s monumental sculptures

Botero's monumental sculptures will be in Basel next year Keystone-SDA

An open-air exhibition of monumental sculptures by Colombian artist Fernando Botero will take place next year in Basel.

The event featuring giant sculptures by the Colombian sculptor, who died last year, will be freely accessible and open to the public, announced the exhibition organisers on Wednesday. The works will be on display on Münsterplatz from May 12 to July 21, 2025 – including during the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC).

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Pasqualine Gallacchi, a former member of the Basel city council who is a friend of the Botero family, is the initiator of the exhibition. The Fernando Botero Foundation is financing the event. “These sculptures quickly went all over the world and it is an honour for us to bring them to Basel next year,” Fernado Botero Zea, son of the artist, is quoted in the press release.

Interruption due to Art Basel

There were no objections but the Botero exhibition will be interrupted from June 10 to June 25. Art Basel has reserved Münsterplatz for this period, a spokeswoman for the art fair confirmed to the news agency Keystone-SDA. Art Basel will provide more detailed information about its plans for 2025 at a later date.

In January 2023, the organisers had already submitted an application for a Botero exhibition for June of the same year, according to the canton gazette. However, the event did not materialise at the time.

Fernando Botero, born in Medellín in 1932, is celebrated as one of the most important and influential artists in Latin America. He was known for the voluminous people and animals in his work. This year, eight of his bronze sculptures – some weighing several tonness – were exhibited in Rome.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac

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