OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ZAO WOU-KI AND DE SARTHE GALLERY, HONG KONG; LEUNG CHI WO AND THE MILLS GALLERY; ART BASEL H
ONG KONG
BLOUINARTINFO.COM | MARCH 2016 ART+AUCTION‘‘HONG KONG CLIENTS
DOMINATE OUR SALES.
THEY KNOW THE
ART MARKET VERY
WELL, AND ARE VERY
EXPERIENCED IN BUYING
FROM OVERSEAS
AUCTION HOUSES.’’
—ANDO SHOKEI, FOUNDER OF TOKYO CHUO AUCTIONIn 2015 Artcurial of Paris and Phillips, head-
quartered in London, conducted inaugural
auctions in Hong Kong. Even Bonhams, which
made its Hong Kong debut in 2007, has recently
expanded its offerings to include contempo-
rary art and a dedicated photography sale.
“Hong Kong is dei nitely a hub for the
art market in Asia,” says Ando Shokei, founder
of Tokyo Chuo Auction, which began
selling there in 2014 with an inaugural event
that achieved a 90 percent sell-through by
lot. “Every season, the city attracts numerous
overseas collectors, which brings a dynamic to the Hong
Kong art scene,” Shokei says.
The head of Ravenel’s art department in Hong Kong,
Odile Chen, likewise notes the city’s role as a hub frequented
by mainland Chinese and collectors from elsewhere in
the region, as well as the absence of transaction taxes. “In
addition to being a free port,” she says, “it has the exclusive
advantage in the region of a large English-speaking pop-
ulation and one of the biggest and best airports. Trading
art here is simply easier for art dealers and collectors.”
Access to mainland China remains a key attraction,
but auctioneers wouldn’t be l ocking to the city without
local buyers, according to Shokei. “Hong Kong clients
dominate our sales. They know the art market very well
and are very experienced in buying from overseas auc-
tion houses,” he says, noting that the house hammered
down a white-glove sale during its fall series, despite the
gloomy economic outlook.
Sam Hines, international head of watches at Phillips,
which chose to launch in Hong Kong with a sale of i ne
timepieces, says the city’s market has some of the biggest
collectors in the world. Its growing art scene, international
environment, and proximity to other Asian cities make
it stand out from other markets, he adds.
While international auction houses play the main role
in driving Hong Kong’s art market, the fast-growing art fair
business has stimulated the local scene in a different way.
According to Li, Art HK in particular did “an amazing
job of engaging the public and also international col-
lectors, galleries, and artists to start looking at Hong
Kong as a whole.” The fair was launched in 2008 by Tim
Etchells, Sandy Angus, and Will Ramsay, and quickly
established itself as a category leader in Asia. It brought
international galleries such as White Cube and Gago-
sian to exhibit side-by-side with dealers based in Hong
Kong and elsewhere in Asia. The fair not only became
the launchpad for Western galleries in the Far East—both
White Cube and Gagosian opened Hong Kong outposts
shortly after showing at Art HK—but it also exposed
the city’s public to contemporary art, which has rarely
been featured in government-run museums.
Art HK’s success drew the attention of Swiss art fair
giant Art Basel, whose parent company acquired the fair andsubsequently rechristened it Art Basel Hong
Kong in 2013. Art Basel has pledged to maintain
a 50:50 ratio between international and Asian
galleries at the Hong Kong edition to differenti-
ate it from its fairs in Basel and Miami Beach.
Marc Spiegler, director of Art Basel, once
described the city’s appeal by noting that Hong
Kong’s freedom of expression and free l ow
of information, which are guaranteed by city
law, set it apart from all other Chinese cities.
Some members of the local arts community
believe the arrival of Art Basel has sealed the
status of Hong Kong as the center of the region’s art market.
Certainly the fair has prompted a surge in the number of
international visitors to the city, including collectors, museum
directors, and gallerists who had never been there before.
Over the past few years, Hong Kong’s art scene has also
experienced an “Art Basel effect” during the week leading
up to the event. Galleries have scheduled their best and most
bankable shows in March (previously in May, before the
fair shifted this year’s dates). Collectors attend openings and
dinners night after night as the fair draws closer.
While Art Basel brings art and galleries into the spot-
light, some members of the local arts community argue
that the fair is benei cial to only a fraction of Hong Kong’s
well-established galleries, as younger players cannot afford
to participate. Some locals also grumble that Art Basel
has stuck to its promise to retain a lineup of at least half
Asian galleries by counting venues like White Cube Hong
Kong as Asian. These complaints have offered an opportunity
to Art Central, the new satellite fair under the direction
of the original Art HK founders that aims for a more edgy
lineup of galleries and art ai cionados.83
(continued on page 107)Contemporary art, which
until a decade ago played little
role in the city’s scene, now
finds numerous outlets.
Opposite, clockwise from top
left: Zao Wou-Ki’s untitled red
abstraction from 1963, to be
shown at this month’s Art
Basel Hong Kong fair courtesy
of de Sarthe Gallery, which
opened in Paris in 1977 but
relocated its headquarters to
Hong Kong in 2010; the
nonprofit Mills Gallery
inaugurated its space last
December with “Tracing
Some Places,” a solo show of
Leung Chi Wo that included
Tracer, 2015, whose sewing
machine alludes to the
gallery space’s former use as
a textile factory; and Art
Basel returns this month to
the Hong Kong Convention
and Exhibition Centre on
Victoria Harbour, where last
year Shanghai Gallery of
Art presented Gao Weigang’s
sculpture Consume, 2014.