The George Lindemann Journal
“Sacrilege (2012),” a blowup version of Stonehenge by the English artist Jeremy Deller, is part of the “Inflation!” exhibition at Mobile M+ in Hong Kong.
By JOYCE LAU
HONG KONG — There were no art fairs to speak of in this metropolis before 2008. But this year, Hong Kong, once derided as a cultural desert, nabbed a prize coveted by cities across the region — serving as Art Basel’s only Asian outpost.
The inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong, which opens to the public Thursday, has drawn planeloads of collectors and gallery bigwigs from the West, lured here in part by the growing, glittery market. It’s billed as a mutually beneficial arrangement: Art Basel capitalizes on the moneyed collectors heading to Hong Kong, while giving international credibility and exposure to local artists, galleries and the city itself.
But as Hong Kong welcomes its new guest for four days of openings, parties and lunches, there are also some backstage jitters about finally being on the world stage, as well as trepidation that an event that started as ART HK will lose its distinctively Asian flavor. Art Basel has taken over ART HK, which began as a local fair in 2008 with about 100 galleries and quickly doubled in size, reflecting the city’s growing art market. (Hong Kong is planning to pour billions of dollars into developing a cultural district in West Kowloon.)
“You can feel the difference in the air — there’s a lot of anticipation,” said Nicole Schoeni, a local gallery owner. “Art Basel is a very well-established professional art fair with immense knowledge. We can benefit and learn from it.”
But, she added, “Who knows how it will go this week?”
To try to ease concerns, Art Basel retained Magnus Renfrew, Art HK’s director since its inception, and he has taken pains to maintain its roughly 50-50 division of Western and Asian participating galleries. Art Basel, in a nod to the local culture, also abandoned its original plan to hold the event in February, when it would have run up against Lunar New Year.
Still, Art Basel’s influence is easy to spot.
The week started with the first art gala to be held at the Asia Society Hong Kong headquarters, which opened last year. On Monday night, as a tropical storm lashed the $50 million complex, a renovated 19th-century British Army compound, about 200 invitees rubbed shoulders with major dealers and artists like Takashi Murakami. At one table, exquisitely bejeweled Korean women plotted which dealers to meet, while lamenting how hard it was now to hit both Frieze New York, which ended last week, and this newly ascendant fair (which was at least closer to home).
The fair has an iPhone app and a catalog “like a telephone directory,” Mr. Renfrew said. “The quality is really a step up. The architecture is much improved. We have a huge V.I.P. lounge with views of the harbor. The expectations of the visitors are higher, and there is increased interest from collectors, both from the U.S. and around Asia.”
Local galleries planned their best shows, installations and openings for this week. But of the fair’s 245 galleries — chosen from more than 600 applicants — only 26 have a permanent presence in Hong Kong, and many of those are relatively recent imports like White Cube, Gagosian, Ben Brown and Lehmann Maupin.
Even a few local boosters will admit that the paucity of Hong Kong galleries is largely a reflection of the weakness of the local art scene. In past ART HK events, pride of place went to Western galleries, mostly from London, showing celebrity artists like Damien Hirst.
“They made an effort to include Asian galleries, but, of course, they have to choose the right galleries,” said Pearl Lam, an eccentric violet-haired dealer who made a splash last year when she timed the opening of her new Hong Kong space with the 2012 ART HK fair. “What we need is to increase standards so that our own galleries can compete with Western galleries. It’s not good enough to just have Art Basel here.”
To that end, Ms. Lam hosted a lunch for collectors on Tuesday with Paul Moorhouse of the National Portrait Gallery in London, who is curating the abstract painter Zhu Jinshi’s first solo show in Hong Kong, opening at Ms. Lam’s space this week.
Another problem is a lack of plain old experience. While there are now almost 100 galleries in Hong Kong, only a few were around when the Chinese art scene first boomed in the 1980s.
Ms. Schoeni, who took over her gallery from her father, Manfred Schoeni, is one of those who have seen the changes. “When dad started 20 years ago, there were only a handful of galleries in Hong Kong,” she said. “It wasn’t until 2004 that auction houses started paying attention to contemporary Chinese art, and that’s when the big market boom — the big gallery boom — came.”
But even now, exposure to the West remains limited. Ms. Schoeni points to the Hong Kong artist Hung Keung, whom she chose for an interactive solo show during Basel.
“He’s garnered international attention among critics and has been collected by the Hong Kong Museum of Art, but he hasn’t had much exposure on the commercial level,” she said. “He will be teaching participants about Chinese characters and inviting people to create their own characters, which will then be animated and digitized for his next work.”
Many gallery owners are not worried. Henry Au-yeung of Grotto Fine Art, which represents local artists, said of Art Basel, “They did the right thing in being more inclusive, in presenting Hong Kong art, and not just using Hong Kong as a platform for selling.”
“If you go to a fair in New York,” he added, “there will be a lot of New York galleries. Same for London. And, hopefully, it will be the same for Hong Kong.”