2023-05-04 12:05:05
Maike Cruse becomes director of Art Basel
Maike Cruse
Source: Debora Mittelstaedt/Courtesy of Art Basel
The Gallery Weekend Berlin has developed into one of the most beautiful and successful art festivals in Europe. Maike Cruse is now to lead the world’s most important art fair into the future. Why this isn’t good news for everyone.
Vart fair takes place four times a year under the name Art Basel. In winter in Miami Beach, in spring in Hong Kong, in summer in Basel and in autumn in Paris. With the launch of the French event, a restructuring of the management level of the important art trading platform became necessary.
Long-standing Global Director Marc Spiegler, who launched Paris+ last year only to announce his retirement shortly thereafter, was followed by New York art historian Noah Horowitz as CEO and Italian Vincenzo de Bellis as overall director of the fair quartet. In future, each individual trade fair will also be managed by its own director. The most important position has now been filled: Maike Cruse will be in charge of Art Basel in Basel from July 1, 2023.
The naming is a good decision for the world – but bad for Berlin. There is a big gap that needs to be filled here. Because Maike Cruse has been in charge of the Gallery Weekend in the capital for the past ten years and has made it the center of attraction for the art scene par excellence. The festival has not only firmly established itself in collectors’ calendars, but the format has been copied by many cities in Europe and overseas.
Just last weekend, the 19th Gallery Weekend Berlin took place with great success. After the difficult years of the pandemic, both the 55 participating galleries and the tens of thousands of visitors felt the desire to exhibit, look at and buy contemporary art at the highest level again.
As festival director, Maike Cruse was the face – and the unmistakable voice – of the Berlin art market. Born in Bielefeld in 1975, she studied art in London, started her career at Klaus Biesenbach’s Kunst-Werke and many still rave about their “Forgotten Bar” in Berlin in the late noughties. She also has many years of trade fair experience.
Maike Cruse is to lead Art Basel into the future
For example, from 2012 to 2016 she organized Art Berlin Contemporary (abc), an experimental format somewhere between an art fair and a curated sales exhibition, and from 2016 to 1019 Art Berlin, which, despite (or because of?) the support of Art Cologne, was not a lasting success was. Cruse was already responsible for communication at Art Basel from 2008 to 2011.
The fact that Maike Cruse knows the city of Basel well is probably just a side aspect that qualifies her for one of the most influential jobs in the international art trade. It is her network with artists, gallery owners, collectors worldwide, but also financial backers from the business world, as well as her distinctly cordial, humorous and unpretentious ability to communicate. She is very excited to be returning to Art Basel and leading it into the future, says Cruse. “I am very honored to lead this outstanding fair in the art and culture city of Basel, to steer its next chapter and to help ensure that Art Basel remains the most important platform for galleries worldwide.”
Her future boss Noah Horowitz praises Cruse’s “entrepreneurial spirit, her high level of professionalism and her tireless commitment to contemporary art”.
The fact that Horowitz still sees “great potential” in the somewhat “slower” Basel, despite the revitalized trade fair in Hong Kong and above all in competition with the Paris trade fair, which started with great enthusiasm, should give Maike Cruse additional encouragement. The declared team player, who has been managing Art Basel for the Swiss exhibition company MCH Group since November 2022, is pursuing an “enabling agenda” when setting up the new management structure. Horowitz told WELT that this was “crucial to keep Art Basel relevant to the established audience, but also to refresh it for the younger generations of collectors, gallery owners and artists”.
Cruse is the second woman, alongside Angelle Siyang-Le, to lead one of the four Art Basel fairs. Clément Delépine heads Paris+, the director position in Miami Beach is still to be filled.
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