Inside Art Basel Miami Beach 2026: the galleries, sectors and what to look for

Art Basel Miami Beach is smaller this year, and on purpose. The 24th edition takes about 12% less of the Miami Beach Convention Center than the 23rd, the main Galleries sector has about a tenth fewer exhibitors, and the hall has four hospitality plazas instead of five, which Art Basel says opens longer sightlines across the floor. The biggest galleries, which used to sit together in one block, are now spread through the hall, so a museum-grade booth may sit across the aisle from a gallery showing for the first time (Art Basel).

Bridget Finn, the fair's director since 2023, calls the smaller footprint "a deliberate choice": the redesign "begins with the galleries", so that each presentation has room to hold attention. The Art Newspaper compared the new plan to Frieze London's reorganisation in 2024 (The Art Newspaper).

The sectors are how the fair is organised, and knowing them is the quickest way to see it well. What follows comes from Art Basel's announcement of September 29, its exhibitor list and its visitor pages, checked on October 23, 2026. Art Basel has yet to name its highlights for the Galleries sector, its Conversations speakers and the site of the Turrell work; we will add them when it does.

How the fair is organised

A Selection Committee of seven dealers chooses the galleries, among them Steve Henry of Paula Cooper, Wendy Olsoff of P.P.O.W and Susanne Vielmetter of Vielmetter Los Angeles (Art Basel, PDF).

Galleries: the main floor, rearranged

The Galleries sector is the fair most people picture: 204 dealers, most with spaces in the Americas, showing what they consider their best. Art Basel names the blue-chip regulars (Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, White Cube, Pace, Lisson, Paula Cooper, Thaddaeus Ropac, Sprüth Magers) and the secondary-market dealers who bring postwar and Modern pictures to sell, such as Acquavella, Cardi, Gray, Skarstedt and Tornabuoni Art. Brazil is again the third-largest national group, and Latin America is the fair's distinctive strength: Raquel Arnaud, Nara Roesler, Mendes Wood DM, Gomide&Co., Galería Sur and Ruth Benzacar among others. El Apartamento, which opened a Miami space late last year, is the first gallery based in Cuba to show at the fair (Art Basel).

Five countries are represented for the first time: the Bahamas (TERN Gallery), Estonia (Temnikova & Kasela), Georgia (Bukia Vakhania), Ghana (Gallery 1957) and Hungary (Ani Molnár). Some familiar names return after time away, including Pilar Corrias, Alison Jacques, Kerlin, Modern Art and Mariane Ibrahim, and Selma Feriani comes back after eight years, this time in Galleries. Several dealers have moved up from the project sectors, among them Ryan Lee, Lomex and Welancora. Some 2025 exhibitors are not back, among them Kurimanzutto, Night Gallery and Pippy Houldsworth (The Art Newspaper).

With the big names no longer in one block, there is no corner to do first and no corner to skip. Take the floor in halves, and use the plazas to rest and reset.

Kabinett: the rooms inside the booths

Kabinett presentations are small, walled-off shows inside a Galleries booth, and they are easy to walk past. There are 26 this year. The ones Art Basel singles out include new monotypes by Cecily Brown at Two Palms; Shinya Fujiwara's photographs from a 1988 road trip across the United States, at Nanzuka, the first solo showing of his photographs outside Japan; Olafur Eliasson's new ink works with a sculpture at neugerriemschneider; Mildred Howard's bronze dominoes, Slamming Bones, at Jenkins Johnson; and three new works by Kathia St. Hilaire, drawn from her childhood in Palm Beach, at Derek Eller. Carlos Cruz-Diez's complete 2012 portfolio is at Cristea Roberts (Art Basel, PDF).

Nova: new work, made in the last three years

Nova is for galleries showing up to three artists, with work made within the last three years, and it is where to see what dealers think is next. Twenty galleries take part. The most talked-about is likely to be Emmanuel Van der Auwera's The Unstable Image at Levey Kwok, which includes a 30-screen installation built from footage of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Gideon Appah's Swimmers and Surfers is at Gallery 1957, the first gallery from Ghana at the fair; Nancy Dwyer's AGAIN? is at Theta; and Vojtěch Kovařík's Soulscape is at Galerie Derouillon. Latin America is strong here too: Proyectos Ultravioleta brings Edgar Calel and Naufus Ramírez Figueroa, and Max Estrella brings Leyla Cárdenas, diana fonseca and Miler Lagos (Art Basel).

Positions: one emerging artist per booth

Positions gives each of 12 galleries a booth for one emerging artist, and it is the sector that most rewards slow looking. Julia Weist's Questioning, at Moskowitz Bayse, comes out of her work as a licensed private investigator. Anina Major, at TERN Gallery of Nassau, also has a show at PAMM, The Sacred Mangrove, so you can see both in a day. Sumakshi Singh's thread drawings, Monuments, at 193 Gallery, were in India's pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale. And Pat Lasch, at 82, makes her art-fair debut at Storage with Two Hundred Cakes, Three Dresses & Two Towers (Art Basel, PDF).

Positions and Nova also feed the City of Miami Beach's collection. For the eighth year, the Legacy Purchase Prize lets the public vote for a work from those two sectors (and from galleries that moved up from them since 2023), which the city then buys; the 2025 winner was Ximena Garrido-Lecca, shown by Livia Benavides.

Survey: history that missed its moment

Survey is for historical work that, in Art Basel's words, deserves renewed attention, and it is the sector where you are most likely to meet an artist you have never heard of. There are 16 presentations by 18 galleries. Peter Berlin's Double Exposure, at Mariposa, is the first public showing of photographs no one has seen. Yayoi Kusama's works on paper from the early 1950s are at Omer Tiroche. The Estonian painter Marje Taska is shown jointly by Margot Samel and Temnikova & Kasela; the Uruguayan José Pedro Costigliolo's work from 1947 to 1960 is at Galería de las Misiones; and Baró Galeria pairs Gego with Eugenio Espinoza. Malangatana Ngwenya at Fort Gansevoort and a Paul Signac presentation at Pavec round it out (Art Basel).

Zero 10: digital art, in Meridians' old corner

Zero 10 is Art Basel's program for art made with and about digital technology. It began here last year with 12 exhibitors, and during the preview Beeple Studios sold all ten works in its Regular Animals series at $100,000 each (Art Basel). This year it is bigger, with 19 projects by 21 galleries and platforms under the title Generation, curated by Karen Archey, head of the curatorial department at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, with Eli Scheinman. Nicole Sales Giles, formerly head of digital art at Christie's, has joined as the program's first global head.

The highlights Art Basel names are Jon Rafman's Report a Concern at Sprüth Magers, Refik Anadol's Winds of Yawanawá, made with the Yawanawá, at HOFA Gallery and Scorpios, Sarah Meyohas's Phase Transition at Boesky, Emily Xie's Tensile Forms at Art Blocks and Harm van den Dorpel's Entfaltung at Lohaus with Interface. Studio Drift is at TAEX, and Miami's Fredric Snitzer brings Leo Castaneda (Art Basel).

Where Meridians went, and the free art outdoors

For six editions, from 2019 to 2025, Meridians filled part of the convention center with work too big for a booth: installations, video and performance, curated by Magalí Arriola of the Museo Tamayo and, for the last two, by Yasmil Raymond. Its final edition, The Shape of Time, showed 19 works. It is not in the 2026 line-up. Surface reported that the fair had dropped it; Art Basel's own announcement does not mention it or give a reason (Surface).

Meridians had replaced an older idea. From 2011 until about 2018, Art Basel's Public sector gathered large works outdoors in Collins Park, beside The Bass, free to anyone walking past; curators included Christine Y. Kim, Nicholas Baume and Philipp Kaiser (The Bass). This year the free art goes back outside. Art Basel and the Turrell Art Foundation, with Pace, will unveil a new outdoor body of work by James Turrell, free to the public; where and when were not announced when we checked. And in Collins Park, Public Art Fund's Between Tides sets out six playable ping-pong tables made by artists, among them SUPERFLEX and Amalia Pica, from November 29 to December 6. Our museums guide has the details.

Conversations, prizes and awards

Art Basel's talks program, Conversations, brings artists, curators, collectors and writers together on stage, and this year includes a full day on art and sport. Speakers and times were not posted when we checked. Last year it ran in the convention center's auditorium on the public days and was free to the public; Art Basel has not yet said whether that holds for 2026, so check before you plan around it.

Two prizes are decided at the fair. The Legacy Purchase Prize (above) adds a work to Miami Beach's public collection, and the CPGA–Villa Albertine Prize gives $15,000, shared by an artist and their gallery. The Art Basel Awards, with BOSS, reveal their Gold Awardees at an awards night on Thursday, December 3, at the New World Center on Miami Beach (Art Basel, PDF).

Miami's own galleries at the fair

The fair is in Miami Beach, but most of its galleries are not, which makes the local ones worth seeking out. In Galleries, Fredric Snitzer, David Castillo, Gavlak and Nina Johnson return; Spinello Projects, which showed in Nova before, joins Galleries for the first time; and Piero Atchugarry moves up. Snitzer is also in Kabinett, with Salvatore La Rosa, and in Zero 10. In Survey, Omer Tiroche, The Bonnier Gallery and Andrew Reed Gallery are first-timers. Most of these have spaces you can visit on the mainland in Art Week; see Wynwood during Art Basel for the gallery district.

Seeing it: which day, and in what order

The fair has two kinds of days. On the VIP days, Wednesday, December 2 and Thursday, December 3, entry is by invitation: First Choice cardholders from 11 am on Wednesday, Preview cardholders from 4 pm, and both from 11 am to 7 pm on Thursday, with the Vernissage from 4 to 7 pm (Art Basel). How that works, and what a paid pass gets you, is in how the VIP preview works. The public days run Friday, December 4 to Sunday, December 6, 11 am to 6 pm.

• Friday, December 4: the first public day, and the one with the most still on the walls. A First Access ticket ($105) gets you in at 11 am, an hour before day tickets ($92) start at noon (Art Basel).
• Saturday, December 5: the last day of NADA Miami, so pair the fair with NADA on Friday or earlier if you want both.
• Sunday, December 6: the last day of the fair and of Between Tides in Collins Park.

An order that works: Positions, Nova and Survey first, while you are fresh and before the crowds; then Galleries, with Kabinett rooms as you meet them; then Zero 10 at the south end. Allow half a day at least. For the rest of the week, see the satellite fairs, Miami museums during Art Basel and dates, hours and where it is.