The June edition, featuring presentations by 282 leading galleries from 35 countries, closed on June 26, 2020 – attracting more than 230,000 visitors from around the globe. The Online Viewing Rooms ran from June 19 to June 26, 2020, with preview days from June 17 to June 19, 2020.

New features of the June edition included providing galleries with the option to embed a video for every artwork, allowing for a variety of options such as close-up shots of the individual works or short clips of artists talking about their own works. Additionally, visitors now had the capability to ‘like’ and share their favorite works and galleries in the viewing rooms, providing a more interactive and personal experience of the platform.

Adding further dimensions to the second edition of the Online Viewing Rooms was an events program of over 100 live-streamed talks, gallery-led tours of their presentations, curator tours, as well as digital events staged by galleries from studio visits to performance. Highlights included: a virtual studio visit with artist Ju Ting presented by Galerie Urs Meile, live performance of David Lamelas’ historical work ‘Time’ presented by Jan Mot, as well as intimate talks with artists such as William Kentridge presented by Lia Rumma and John Akomfrah presented by Lisson Gallery.

More than 4,000 works were presented, all displayed with either an exact price or a price range, which spanned from USD 500 to USD 10 million. At the time of the opening, the overall value of works presented was estimated to be in excess of USD 740 million, and hundreds more works were rotated in the Viewing Rooms over the run of the event.

As part of its ongoing efforts to support galleries by further developing its digital initiatives, Art Basel will look into ways to further adapt the Online Viewing Rooms platform to serve all Art Basel galleries later in the year. More details will be shared in the coming months.