An exhibition vitrine in a contemporary exhibition is a knowing nod to long traditions of display. By recreating a form of museum presentation, it relates to what Tony Bennett calls the “museum idea” and its way of defining knowledge and, more broadly, power. Museums, according to Bennett, are places where visitors are taught their place in a society. But Vitrine gallery’s two locations, while behind glass, are antitheses of such authoritative presentation. Founder and director Alys Williams’s model is to create shows displayed in large shop window spaces, visible 24 hours a day. Her London gallery, in Bermondsey Square, is relatively simple; the Basel site, in comparison, has an irregular pentagon footprint with walls placed within, its minute office at the center. Though behind glass, exhibitions are effectively on the outside, not a protected interior. The gallery hunkers under a road bridge, surrounded by a fast food kiosk, a spiral staircase, a supermarket, and a tram stop. Artists have to compete visually and aurally with their surroundings and the everyday life that plays out in a space far from most hermetic art contexts. Vitrine Basel thus demands mettle from artists; it is never self-evident that their work should be there, entangled …