BASEL—Be sure to stop by Von Bartha Garage, just outside Basel, when you need to fill up—on contemporary art. The gallery, in a former gas station in the up-and-coming St. Johann neighborhood, is the third for the Swiss dealers Miklós and Margareta von Bartha. They say they were looking for a space that would accommodate more innovative ways of presenting current works, and they certainly found it.

The 7,500-square-foot exhibition area with a 22-foot ceiling “is rather big by European standards,” says the von Barthas’ son, Stefan, who is overseeing the new endeavor. “Therefore we do mostly shows of two different artists in two different rooms, so each has a solo show.” The British abstractionist Andrew Bick’s geometric canvases and the Belgian painter Charlotte Beaudry’s still lifes and portraits are on view in the new gallery’s second exhibition, from Septem­ber 5 through October 18.

The von Barthas have also rebranded their other two sites to make clear that “it’s all one gallery but three different spaces,” explains Stefan. The original Basel location, founded in 1970 and dedicated to fine art, especially the Hungarian avant-garde and the kinetic movement, is now called Von Bartha Collection, and the project space in the mountains near St.-Moritz is Von Bartha Chesa.

“We think Basel has a great future,” says Stefan. “There aren’t that many galleries, but that is going to change very soon.”

"Zooming Ahead" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.