The Swiss art market beyond Basel: Zurich, Geneva and the Alpine galleries

01Zurich: the economic capital and its galleries

Zurich concentrates the greatest density of contemporary art galleries in Switzerland and constitutes a market nerve centre that the proximity of Art Basel has sometimes eclipsed in international perception. The Lowenbrau-Areal district, a former brewery site converted into an arts complex, houses several leading galleries. The gallery Hauser and Wirth, before its international expansion to London, New York, Los Angeles and Somerset, had its founding space there. Eva Presenhservice platforms, who represents artists such as Ugo Rondinone, Joe Bradley and Shara Hughes, maintains a space that attracts local and international collectors.

The Ramistrasse district and surrounding streets in central Zurich host galleries with demanding programmes. The gallery Mai 36, founded in 1987, represents artists such as John Baldessari, Matt Mullican and Jitka Hanzlova, maintaining a rigorous programme that has weathered market fluctuations. The gallery Bob van Orsouw, the gallery Mark Muller and the gallery Peter Kilchmann complete a gallery landscape offering a depth of programming comparable to that of much larger cities.

The Kunsthaus Zurich, which inaugurated a David Chipperfield-designed extension in 2021, is one of Switzerland's most important art museums. Its collection, spanning the entire history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the contemporary, and its internationally ambitious temporary exhibitions create an institutional environment that legitimises the local market and attracts collectors. The Migros Foundation for Contemporary Culture and the Kunsthalle Zurich add an institutional dimension supporting the emerging art scene and consolidating the city's position as a marketplace.

02Geneva: discretion, private collections and freeports

Geneva occupies a singular position in the global art market. The city is home to a considerable number of private collections, some among the world's most important, whose owners cultivate a discretion that contrasts with the visibility of New York or London collectors. This culture of secrecy, inherited from Geneva's banking tradition, shapes an art market that often operates behind the scenes, through private transactions and trust networks that the outside dealer must learn to navigate with patience.

The Geneva Freeports, vast bonded warehouses where artworks estimated at several tens of billions of Swiss francs are stored in fiscal suspension, constitute a unique infrastructure worldwide. Although their opacity has attracted criticism and regulatory reform, they continue to play a central role in the storage, transport and transaction of high-value artworks. The presence of these freeports has encouraged the establishment in Geneva of art advisors, restorers, specialist shippers and art market lawyers who compose an ecosystem of services whose density is unmatched.

Geneva's galleries reflect this culture of discretion and excellence. The gallery Skopia, founded by Pierre-Alain Ferrazzini, presents a programme blending Swiss and international artists with remarkable curatorial standards. The gallery Xippas, which also has spaces in Paris and Montevideo, offers an international programme that benefits from Geneva's cosmopolitan clientele. The gallery Blondeau et Cie has positioned itself as a high-level secondary market player, facilitating transactions in leading modern and contemporary works.

03Lausanne, Bern and regional centres

Beyond the two metropolitan areas, several Swiss cities harbour art scenes of surprising vitality. Lausanne, a university city and headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, has the Musee cantonal des Beaux-Arts, which inaugurated a new building in 2019 on the Plateforme 10 site, an ambitious museum hub also housing the Musee de l'Elysee devoted to photography and the Mudac dedicated to design. This architectural and institutional project has strengthened Lausanne's attractiveness for collectors and galleries.

Bern, the federal capital, is home to the Kunstmuseum Bern, whose Impressionist and modern collection is among the most remarkable in Europe, and the Zentrum Paul Klee, designed by Renzo Piano, devoted to the Bernese artist's oeuvre. The Bernese gallery scene, more modest than those of Zurich and Geneva, nonetheless includes quality spaces such as the gallery Kornfeld, which organises modern and contemporary art auctions among the most closely followed in Switzerland.

Winterthur, a few kilometres from Zurich, possesses an exceptional private collecting tradition expressed through museums such as the Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten and the Sammlung Oskar Reinhart Am Romerholz, as well as the Fotomuseum Winterthur, a reference institution for contemporary photography. The presence of these collections in a modestly sized city illustrates the density of Switzerland's cultural fabric and the opportunities it offers to dealers who know how to identify them.

04Alpine galleries: an expanding phenomenon

A relatively recent phenomenon deserves the attention of international dealers: the establishment of galleries in Swiss Alpine resorts and villages. This movement, which began some fifteen years ago, responds to the seasonal presence of a wealthy clientele in ski resorts and mountain holiday destinations.

Gstaad hosts the gallery Hauser and Wirth, which opened a space in a former hotel transformed into an exhibition venue. This location, which might seem incongruous, has proved a commercial and media success, attracting collectors who stay in the resort in winter and summer and who appreciate discovering works in a setting that removes them from the urban atmosphere of major galleries. The gallery Monica De Cardenas has opened a space in Zuoz, an Engadine village, where it presents exhibitions during the winter season that attract visitors from nearby Saint-Moritz.

Verbier, a Valais resort renowned for its classical music festival, has seen the establishment of temporary and permanent galleries that take advantage of summer and winter influxes. Saint-Moritz hosts increasingly ambitious art exhibitions and events. These Alpine locations offer dealers an alternative to the permanent urban gallery model, with potentially lower operating costs and access to a captive clientele with high purchasing power.

05Taxation and the Swiss regulatory framework

The Swiss art market benefits from a fiscal and regulatory framework that, despite recent developments, remains attractive for collectors and dealers. The VAT rate applied to artworks is seven point seven per cent, lower than in most European countries. The absence of capital gains tax for individuals in the majority of cantons makes the resale of artworks more advantageous than in France or Germany.

The freeports, despite reforms imposed by anti-money-laundering legislation and increased transparency requirements, continue to offer a fiscally advantageous storage framework for international collectors. Banking secrecy, although considerably loosened under international pressure, has left a culture of discretion that permeates the practices of the Swiss art market and reassures collectors concerned about preserving the confidentiality of their acquisitions.

The dealer wishing to operate in the Swiss market must nonetheless understand cantonal specificities, as Switzerland is a federal state where many regulations fall to the twenty-six cantons. Import and export conditions for artworks, tax rules applicable to transactions and reporting obligations vary from canton to canton, requiring detailed knowledge of the local regulatory framework or recourse to specialised advisors.

06Developing partnerships with the Swiss market

For the non-Swiss European dealer, the Swiss market represents a development opportunity that can take several forms. Participation in Swiss fairs is a first channel. Beyond Art Basel, fairs such as Artgeneve, Volta Basel and Liste Basel offer exhibition platforms for mid-sized galleries that do not yet participate in the main fair. These events allow testing the Swiss market, meeting local collectors and establishing contacts with established galleries that may become co-representation or exhibition exchange partners.

Collaboration with Swiss galleries for cross-exhibitions, where each gallery presents the other's artists in its space, is a model that works particularly well in the Swiss context, where the gallery network is dense but open to international collaborations. A French dealer who presents a Swiss artist in their Parisian space and exhibits a French artist in a Zurich space multiplies their points of contact with two markets and offers their artists international visibility.

The Swiss art scene itself constitutes a programme argument for the international dealer. Switzerland has produced artists of international stature whose work continues to influence contemporary creation. Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Sophie Taeservice platforms-Arp, Jean Tinguely, Meret Oppenheim, Pipilotti Rist and Thomas Hirschhorn are but a few names in a constellation of artists whose diversity reflects the multilingualism and multiculturalism of the confederation. Swiss galleries representing the younger generation of Swiss artists have a talent pool that foreign dealers would benefit from discovering and integrating into their programmes through co-representation or guest exhibitions.

The Swiss tradition of private collecting, deeply rooted in the bourgeois culture of cities like Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Winterthur, has created a fabric of family collections, some built over several generations. These collections, not always visible to the general public, feed the secondary market and offer dealers acquisition and resale opportunities that enrich their inventory. The dealer who cultivates relationships with Swiss collector families gains access to a reservoir of quality works whose provenance is generally documented and whose conservation has benefited from the favourable climate and exemplary storage conditions that characterise the country.

For Artedusa partner galleries, the platform constitutes a visibility tool for the Swiss and international clientele that frequents this market. The online presentation of works and artists allows Swiss collectors, accustomed to discretion and advance research, to discover partner galleries' programmes before making contact for a visit or acquisition.