The anticipation in the room was palpable as Noah Horowitz, the new global director of Art Basel Hong Kong, welcomed international journalists and VIPs to the fair yesterday, inaugurating the first edition to be held at the Convention Center since the China and Hong Kong have lifted all Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
THE the stats are pretty healthy at this year’s edition: 177 galleries are participating, a jump from the 130 exhibitors in 2022 with 22 new galleries including Gallery Vacancy from Shanghai and Whistle from Seoul. Still, that number is considerably lower than the peak of 242 exhibitors reached by the 2019 edition of the show, the last to take place before the pandemic.
Despite the clear headwinds facing the city, Horowitz highlighted how the gallery scene has remained “vibrant” in Hong Kong and, importantly, that all three auction houses are “doubling down” on their commitment to the city ( earlier this week, Phillips launched its lavish new Asia headquarters in West Kowloon’s cultural district).
Stanley Wong at the Lucie Chang Fine Arts booth
Courtesy of Art Basel
Horowitz’s speech to the press – visibly delighted to be back in a city that has imposed some of the most draconian pandemic measures in the world – underscored a key point, namely that Hong Kong remained “a gateway to the Asian market”.
This seemed to be confirmed by the huge number of visitors to the preview and the presence of dealers such as Sadie Coles, Jay Jopling (White Cube) and David Zwirner who showed up in person. “It is important that they are visible and on the fair floor in the wake of staff hired remotely to man the stands in recent years,” said an anonymous commentator from Hong Kong.
Prominent figures such as Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate; Amy Cappellazzo of art consultancy Art Intelligence Global and Bangladeshi collector couple Rajeeb and Nadia Samdani and artist NFT Beeple were also present.
The obligatory press published sales reports almost immediately, reflecting the buying power of Asian collectors, especially with a slew of purchases from private collectors and institutions in the region, including Elizabeth Peyton. Truffault (2005), sold for $2.2 million at the David Zwirner Gallery to a “major Asian museum”.
Awol Erizku Gravity (2018-23) – a giant inflatable sculpture of Tutankhamun for the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong.
Courtesy of Art Basel, Photo: Isaac Lawrence
Hauser & Wirth sold Angel Otero be blue (2023) for $225,000 at the Long Museum in Shanghai while Black Sea Wine (2022-23) by Ukrainian artist Stanislava Pinchuk in the Encounters public art section was purchased by the HE Art Museum in Shunde, Guangdong Province, for $240,000 (Galerie Yavuz).
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, one of 42 dealers to return after a Covid hiatus, also reported a number of sales to Asian buyers, including the painting by Martha Jungwirth Ohne Titel, 2022 (€350,000) and that of Miquel Barceló From zero, 2021 (€220,000).
“I prefer when the works stay here, rather than being bought and shipped all the way back, and I like it when the fairs get a little more regional,” Ropac said. “There’s no way Singapore can replace Hong Kong when Seoul is more creative [referring to the Korean wave in music as well as art]. Hong Kong is a market hub.
Leo Xu, senior director of Zwirner Gallery, said the visiting collectors are “mainly Asian”, adding that “the quality of collectors from mainland China, who have not been able to travel for three years, is exceptional”.
The owners of the fair, the MCH Group, have deftly pivoted to their Asian neighbors, linking up with other events and projects in Asia in a bid to cement Art Basel Hong Kong’s status as a market hub. (of this year’s participating galleries, two-thirds have spaces in Asia). Last year, MCH invested 15% in Singapore’s new international art fair, Art SG, and also supported Art Week Tokyo where 350 VIPs jumped between more than 50 galleries last November.
“The latest steps towards alternative projects by Art Basel and its owner MCH Group seem to be part of a broader strategy of diversification, accelerated since Lupa System – James Murdoch’s investment company has become a reference shareholder of MCH Group at the end of 2020,” writes Melanie Gerlis, The art journal editor-in-chief of the art market in the Financial Times.
Japanese gallery Kosaku Kanechika’s booth at Art Basel Hong Kong with exhibits by Takuro Kuwata
Courtesy of Art Basel
This development of pan-Asian partnerships seems to be bearing fruit. “There are so many Japanese collectors here, especially the younger ones,” said Taka Ishii of the eponymous Tokyo-based gallery (there are 28 Japanese exhibitors this year, up from 19 in 2022). In the meantime, he sold a sculpture by Goro Kakei (Blow1987) for $28,000 to an American collector.
Closer to home, mainland Chinese dealers were particularly pleased to be back on show floor. Yang Shuqing of Beijing-based White Space Gallery said it was easy to get a visa. “It’s important to be here to meet people. We are confident that Art Basel Hong Kong will once again bring new energy to the art scene here,” she said. Within the first hour, the gallery had sold a multi-panel oil and pencil by He Xiangyu for $160,000 (Lizard and cigarette2022) to a Chinese collector.
But against a backdrop of parties and solid sales, the city has changed a lot. The National Security Law, implemented in mid-2020 by the Chinese government, criminalizes any act of subversion, secession or terrorism, with key provisions designed to restrict protest and freedom of expression, such as certain trials held behind closed doors. “This is not the Hong Kong of 2018,” said a Chinese journalist who preferred to remain anonymous.
Angelle Siyang-Le, the new director of the fair, tells The arts journal“The way we run the art business has not been impacted so far [by the law]. We try to monitor the situation constantly. The market continues to grow and we are confident that we will be able to conduct our shows as before.
In the politically charged post-pandemic climate, new museums, such as M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum, are a cultural balm and major draw (M+ is a key element in Hong Kong’s metamorphosis into a cultural destination, bringing ‘Moment Tate Modern’ transformation to the metropolis).
Crucially, Swiss collector Uli Sigg, whose 1,500-piece collection of contemporary Chinese art is on display at the M+ Museum, endorsed Hong Kong’s place in the global market hierarchy saying, “I am convinced that other [fairs in the region] cannot provide depth [regarding] the proposed art and the ecosystem, at least not in the foreseeable future. On the collectors side, Lu Jingjing of the Beijing Commune Gallery said she was inundated with requests for VIP passes. “It’s really good to be back,” she said.
