MEMBERS

Membership platform

Verbier Art Summit membership brings together a diverse group of 150 international art world stakeholders, including artists, museum directors, curators, collectors, art historians, critics, gallerists and art consultants. The membership community comes together at the 2025 Summit in Verbier to join the speaker group in an extended Debating programme for two days.

The Debates take place over 2 hours in intimate groups, that offer the time and space for new connections and ideas. After the Debates, conversations are continued over dinner (4 April) and lunch (5 April) in the private chalets of the Summit's Founding Members. On 5 April, all Members will come together for a special closing dinner to celebrate the culmination of the inspiring Summit journey and to solidify the new connections made.

As vital supporters of the art world, the presence of the Members is not just welcome—it is essential. The Summit exists only through the generous support of our Members, whose donations enable it to expand its reach, to continue offering free public access to the Talks and Cultural Programme, and to inspire audiences worldwide through the Summit publications and virtual Summit platform. All Member applications need to be supported by an existing Member, and/or can be considered by the Founder and the Board of Directors.

Who will you meet?

principal members

Principal Members serve as leaders in the art world and the Verbier Art Summit membership platform. Principal Members contribute to the Verbier Art Summit by supporting the participation of Shaper Members. Each Principal Membership funds a Shaper Membership as an honored guest, which may be a past speaker, museum professional, artist, scholar, or other key influencer. Principal Members collaborate with the Summit team to enable these invitations.

Dakis Joannou

Renée Drake

Frances Reynolds

founding members

Founding Members are predominantly residents of Verbier (on either a permanent or seasonal basis) and are all intricately involved in art as private collectors, artists or art consultants. They “host” the Verbier Art Summit by inviting art world stakeholders to exclusive moderated art debates, exclusive lunches or dinners, and even provide housing to the speakers in their beautiful chalets.

Catherine Barré

Helena & Martin Bjäringer

Séverine & Hubert Bonnet

Ute & Maarten Esser

Paula & Robert Fentener van Vlissingen

Domenique Forsberg & Caspar Schübbe

Lena & Per Josefsson

Charles de Pauw

Jean-Edouard van Praet d'Amerloo & Harry Tappan Heher

Marie-Hélène de Torrenté

honorary members

Artists, museum directors, curators, academics, political figures, writers and innovation leaders. They have contributed to the Verbier Art Summit as speakers, moderators, curators or honored guests.

Allora & Calzadilla

Karen Archey

Ed Atkins

Maria Balshaw

Lars Bang Larsen

Tom Battin

Dave Beech

Daniel Birnbaum

Irma Boom

Andrea Bowers

Benjamin Bratton

Tania Bruguera

Federico Campagna

Claudia Comte

Douglas Coupland

Simon Denny

Elvira Dyangani Ose

Torkwase Dyson

Latifa Echakhch

Olafur Eliasson

Mark Fisher

Louise O. Fresco

Cissie Fu

Dominique Gonzales-Foerster

Dorothea von Hantelmann

Barbara Hendricks

Joan Jonas

Stefan Kaegi

Grada Kilomba

Rem Koolhaas

Ailton Krenak

Christopher Kulendran Thomas

Michelle Kuo

Adrian Lahoud

Tobias Madison

Jessica Morgan

HRH Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands

Ernesto Neto

Gabi Ngcobo

Susanne Pfeffer

Philippe Rahm

Lucie Raven

Tobias Rees

Djamila Ribeiro

Pamela Rosenkranz

Beatrix Ruf

Tino Sehgal

Nicholas Serota

Wolf Singer

Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Paul Spies

Naine Terena

Rirkrit Tiravanija

Olinda Tupinambá

El Último Grito

Dado Valentic

Gonzalo Vargas Llosa

Paul Verschure

Jochen Volz

Anicka Yi

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2025 Summit

QUARTER LIFE CRISIS.

Art in a World on the Brink.

"We find ourselves, already, a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century. In these two and a half decades, art, along with the larger world in which it functions, has undergone wave upon wave of fundamental, irreversible change."

Philip Tinari

Director and Chief Executive of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art

2021 & 2022

Virtual Summits

Resource Hungry:

Our Cultured Landscape and its
Ecological Impact

"Awareness of environmental issues is essential to our life on Earth. We are the virus, but also the only vaccine that exists to slow down climate change."

Jean-Paul Felley

Summit’s Academic Director

Director of EDHEA

2020 Summit

Resource Hungry:

Our Cultured Landscape and its
Ecological Impact

"There are small and large gestures we can all make. This is a moment to reflect on doing less, better and for longer."

Jessica Morgan

Nathalie de Gunzburg Director
Dia Art Foundation

2019 Summit

We are Many.

Art, the Political and Multiple Truths.

“Art muses on the unknown and thrives on inventing signs for phenomena or things we have not yet named. It can do this because it naturally joins thinking with doing, reflection with action. Art is grounded on imagination, and only through imagination will we be able to find new ways into the future.”

Jochen Volz

Museum Director

Pinacoteca de São Paulo

2018 Summit

More than Real.

Art in the Digital Age.

“Technology will change art in the most fundamental way. As Walter Benjamin said, it is art's task to create a demand which can be fully satisfied only later. I believe that some artists can be said to anticipate the digital possibilities that are being developed with such speed today. For instance, was Salvador Dalí already thinking in terms of virtual reality?”

Daniel Birnbaum

2017 Summit

Size Matters! (De)Growth of the 21st Century Art Museum.

“Whenever there is a question for growing, sizing up, the question of architectural sizing up swell, there is the question of what qualities we might gain and what qualities we stand to lose?”

Beatrix Ruf