Art Basel awards its first People’s Pick prize to Francisco Sierra.
Francisco Sierra, installtion view of Guppy, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and von Bartha.
Chilean Swiss artist Francisco Sierra won the first-ever People’s Pick prize at Art Basel 2024 for his installation Guppy (2024). This winning artwork featured 48 wooden panels, each depicting a life-sized guppy on a concave relief. Presented by Basel-based gallery von Bartha in Art Basel’s Unlimited sector, the piece mirrors the aesthetic of home aquariums and is intended to critique recreational animal breeding.
Born in 1977 in Santiago, Sierra now resides in Cotterd, Switzerland. His work is defined by an interest in subverting everyday ideas with conceptual or surreal methods. Employing humor and irony, his photorealistic drawings and paintings question contemporary life. A self-taught painter, Sierra has presented solo exhibitions at von Bartha in Copenhagen and Basel, and the Kunstmuseum in Appenzell, Switzerland.
Francisco Sierra, 1 of 48 Guppy paintings, 2024. Photo by Sebastian Verdon. Courtesy of the artist and von Bartha.
Meanwhile, the second- and third-place prizes were awarded to Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota for The Extended Line (2024) and Chinese painter and photographer Wu Tien-Chang for Farewell, Spring and Autumn Pavilions (2024), respectively. Shiota’s work was presented by Templon, and Wu’s by Keng Gallery.
Art Basel 2024 also hosted The Baloise Art Prize, which was awarded to Hong Kong–born artist and filmmaker Tiffany Sia and Sudanese Norwegian artist Ahmed Umar, who was included in this year’s Venice Biennale. Each artist was awarded CHF 30,000 ($33,600), and their winning pieces will be added to the collections of two major European museums: MMK Frankfurt and MUDAM in Luxembourg. Sia’s installation investigates how diasporic communities create romanticized ideas of their homeland, whereas Umar’s curved, wood, and metal sculptures are based on souvenirs.
