Glamorous parties and personal dinners are back. The foreign crowd of collectors, museum managers and industry players is back. The inspiring atmosphere and excitement surrounding this week’s Art Basel in Hong Kong are more than gestures to celebrate the city’s resurgence on the world stage. They also represent global art’s vote of confidence in the city as a hub and key market in Asia.
In fact, the countless artistic occasions taking place this week, collectively known as Hong Kong Art Week, have a much more important meaning. Aligning with the local government-led ‘Hello Hong Kong’ crusade, a major crusade to announce the city globally after draconian Covid restrictions were lifted and social order was ‘restored’ while political unrest was controlled, dissidents kept behind bars. and critical voices largely silenced (or disappeared).
Some critics have whether it would be morally right for the foreign art world, especially that of the West, to continue dealing with establishments and industry players in countries under an authoritarian regime, adding Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong after Beijing imposed the national security law in 2020. . But the truth is that life has yet to pass. Business is still to be done; artists and industry professionals persevere to make the most of what’s left of their beloved “Home Kong,” a fond nickname for the city.
Moreover, even though the neighboring cities of Seoul, Singapore, and even Tokyo have stepped up their efforts to tame their respective art markets, while Hong Kong was almost away from global Covid for almost 3 years, the foreign art world has yet to arrive. to locate some other position that can reposition Hong Kong’s role from now on.
“Hong Kong’s prestige as an advertising hub for global foreign art remains irreplaceable, despite everything,” said Gladys Lin, an independent art representative founded between Taipei and New York.
The Hong Kong Art Week calendar of events and guest lists speaks for itself. In recent days there have already been receptions, dinners and openings organized through M, Design Trust, Art Basel and Phillips, which this week opens its new headquarters in Asia in the cultural district of West Kowloon, neighbors of M.
Real estate mogul and mega-collector Adrian Cheng hosted a star-studded dinner on Sunday and unveiled the “City As Studio” graffiti and street art exhibit at his K11 Musea property, in the presence of a long list of foreign guests, added H. E. Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, president of Qatar Museums; the director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Klaus Biesenbach; Maja Hoffmann, founder and president of the Luma Foundation Zurich; Alexandra Munroe, Director of Curatorial Affairs at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; the president of the Musée national Picasso, Cécile Debray; Caroline Bourgeois, senior curator of the Pinault Collection, as well as artists Beeple, Aiko and Katharina Grosse. Collectors Haryanto Adikoesoemo and Neil Shen were also among the guests.
In addition to gallery openings, other primary parties are expected throughout the week, adding at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Thursday and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Friday.
Art Basel, which opens with a VIP preview Tuesday at the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Center, will see 177 galleries from more than 30 countries and territories on display. This figure is still 27% lower than the 242 galleries in 2019, but a significant increase in the number of exhibitors to 137 in 2022 and 104 in 2021, due to long Covid quarantines for incoming travellers. The Art Central satellite fair, which also takes place in the same complex, will have 70 exhibitors, 39 of whom come from abroad.
In addition to Phillips, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are also carrying out primary projects in Hong Kong. Phillips and Sotheby’s declined to comment on Artnet News’ queries about the impact on the local and geopolitical situation, but their numbers speak louder than words. Sotheby’s, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary in Asia, achieved $1. 1 billion in sales in Asia by 2022, in line with the all-time record reached in 2021, and its number of Asian consumers under the age of 20 tripled in 2022. The space expects new venues in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
Christie’s, on the other hand, declined to comment on political issues, but noted that its artistic activity in Hong Kong had not been affected. The house art auctions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Asia, which took place in Hong Kong and Shanghai, reached 3400 million Hong Kong dollars (434 million US dollars) in 2022, the moment in this category in the region, after the overall record of 4300 million Hong Kong dollars in 2021 (548 million US dollars). The contribution to global sales of buyers in the Asia-Pacific region in 2022 reached $1. 8 billion, the amount since 2015.
“Hong Kong, as a key APAC arts hub, is here to stay, and Hong Kong has competitive benefits that have taken decades to build and combine,” Francis Belin, president of Christie’s Asia Pacific, told Artnet News, highlighting the loss of capital. , loose port, logistics and experienced talents are the highlights of the city.
In contrast to the grim symbol of Hong Kong portrayed in some foreign media, which have covered issues ranging from the curtailment of freedoms to economic slowdown and population exodus, the local art market is performing quite well, especially since the pandemic. to make a profit if you sell Hong Kong art,” a Hong Kong-based broker told Artnet News.
Hong Kong is experiencing a gallery boom. Data from the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association shows that the number of member galleries increased from 49 in January 2021 to 62 in March 2023, an increase of almost 27%. The actual number of galleries, adding those that have not joined the agreement, is much higher. “This demonstrates the trust the art industry places in and around Hong Kong as a preeminent position in Asia,” said the deal’s co-chair, Fabio Rossi of Rossi Gallery.
One of the main points of this unforeseen gallery boom, according to local industry experts, is the emergence of a new generation of wealthy creditors interested in art produced through Hong Kong artists. And there’s no shortage of celebrities, such as former Miss Hong Kong Louisa Mak, whose successful bid for a work of art at last year’s Para Site charity dinner in a revealing outfit made headlines in local entertainment newspapers, a rare policy of an art occasion in mainstream media.
This transformation has opened up new possibilities. Collector Matt Chung has taken his hobby a step further. She opened Gallery Ascend in 2021 and last year co-founded Haus of Contemporary, a six-story complex of art galleries and event spaces, with her husband Samson Ko. gap between art and educational art,” Chung told Artnet News.
Willem Molesworth, former director of de Sarthe, and Ysabelle Cheung, former editor-in-chief of ArtAsiaPacific, co-founded PHD Group last year, transforming Cheung’s family circle assets from an inactive personal clubhouse into a forward-thinking gallery area that tries to push boundaries. During Art Week, PHD Group will remain open 24/7 to welcome visitors to its new exhibition “You, Trickling,” the first solo work by artist Michele Chu, born in 1994 in Hong Kong. The conceptual and immersive exhibition deals with loss, trauma and memory, an artistic reaction to the “enormous loss and trauma” experienced in the city and elsewhere in recent years, Molesworth noted.
“Hong Kong’s art scene has continued to thrive. The city has gone through the bell, but I think it has a procedure where other people are reassessing their priorities,” Molesworth told Artnet News. “There has been a seismic shift towards adopting more conceptual. art – through institutions, galleries and the collector class. “
In fact, the last few years have been fruitful for some artists who have remained in Hong Kong. Successful local names begin to be identified in the foreign market. Stephen Wong Chun Hei performed his first solo at Unit London last November. Mak2 (Mak Ying Tung 2) will open for his first solo album at the Peres Project in Berlin this Friday, following a recent solo exhibition in Taipei. Chan Wai Lap, meanwhile, gained notoriety after his art appeared at a local pop concert.
“Many artists can make a living promoting their works, which it was in the past,” artist Damon Tong told Artnet News. He will have his first presentation at a solo booth with Art Projects Gallery at Art Central. “This week is a vital opportunity for us to be noticed through the foreign community. “
While some artists dealing with political issues, such as artist Kacey Wong, have fled the city over the past two years, and censorship, whether institutionalized or self-imposed, is more vital than ever, many artists have chosen to stay. In addition to navigating an invisible red line that is changing, they have more to understand.
“Political and artistic freedoms, the issues that are constantly played out in the Western media narrative, are not even what we have to deal with on a basis,” one artist told Artnet News about the condition of anonymity.
“We face survival disruptions: maintaining our relationships with galleries, locating creditors to obtain our works, and making a living to pay our bills. Many of us are navigating the dynamics of those new wealthy creditors. His wealth has sustained the local art scene for more than two years, but will this birthday party last?We are concerned about uncertainties,” they added.
“Are we worried about the political implications? Of course we are. But like farmers who live near volcanoes, crops grow most productively on fertile volcanic soil. And it is our choice to remain as we continue to create.
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