As an inaugural Art Basel Awards Gold Award recipient in the Established Artist category, Nairy Baghramian will unveil an elaborate site-responsive installation, “Modèle vivant (S’empilant) (2026),” on the Messeplatz. Conceived for the square’s fountain, the work unfolds as a rhythmic assembly of four large-scale sculptural groupings that extend her distinctive artistic language, combining biomorphic forms with geometric support structures. 

Abstract, yet highly allusive aluminum casts, painted in a soft lavender tone, appear stacked and precariously balanced on polished steel armatures traversing the fountain without interrupting its water features. Next to it stands a bench-like pedestal covered, like one of the armatures, by tiles and swarming with (photographic imprints of) flies.

Evoking multipart bodies in a state of respite, suspension, and becoming, Baghramian’s intervention subtly reconsiders the relationship between sculpture, site, self and spectator within the fair.

Baghramian’s solo exhibitions include, among others: WIELS (2025); South London Gallery (2024); Metropolitan Museum of Art (2023–24); Aspen Art Museum (2023); Nasher Sculpture Center (2022); Secession (2021); Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan (2021); Palacio de Cristal (2018); Walker Art Center (2017); Statens Museum for Kunst (2017); Museo Tamayo (2015); Art Institute of Chicago (2014); Serralves Museum (2014); MIT List Visual Arts Center (2013); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2012); and Serpentine Gallery (2010).

Baghramian has also participated at Venice Biennale (2019 and 2011); Yorkshire Sculpture International (2019); Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens (2017); Skulptur Projekte Münster,  (2017 and 2007); Lyon Biennale (2017); Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (2012); and the Berlin Biennale (2014 and 2008).

Baghramian was awarded honorary doctorate at The Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University (2024) and has received numerous awards including the Aspen Art Award (2023); the Nivola Award (2022); Nasher Prize Laureate (2022); the Malcolm-McLaren-Award with Maria Hassabi (2019); the Zürich Art Prize (2016); the Arnold-Bode Prize, Kassel (2014); the Hector Prize, Kunsthalle Mannheim (2012); and the Ernst Schering Foundation Award (2007).