Hong Kong art scene focused on all things local – ARTnews.com
With its history as a former British colony, Hong Kong has long been the dominant financial center in Asia, and in turn the region’s major art capital. But the Special Administrative Region has had a turbulent few years – since a new national security law imposed in 2020 to turbulent internal protests to “Zero Covid“A policy that has seen a sharp decline in international tourism – this appears to have damaged its reputation as a cosmopolitan city in Asia, as other cities such as Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo have seen their stars emerge as new centers of the art trade. With these changes, Hong Kong’s arts community has multiplied on the local scene.”
Last month , Bloomberg mentioned Some of the biggest banks on Wall Street, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, are pushing for local government to allow travel without quarantine as a prerequisite for a reputation-boosting financial summit scheduled for November. Besides major deal makers and small and medium-sized companies that have moved elsewhere in recent months, Hong Kong Finance Minister Paul Chan Moo-po Tell The South China Morning Newspaper In early August, he may need to lower the city’s annual GDP forecast, which he attributed to the slow recovery of Hong Kong’s economy after the fifth wave of Covid.
Jonathan Crockett, Philips President for Asia, said: ARTnews These restrictions have already resulted in “a significant proportion of the local art collecting community leaving the city in recent months. It remains difficult for non-residents to visit Hong Kong.” [and] With the current quarantine measures in place, the auction market has been affected by a decrease in in-person attendance at auction previews and in sales.”
Despite these challenges, Hong Kong’s auction market has seen massive gains since the pandemic. Last year, Christie’s announced plans for a new and expanded Asia headquarters in the city to open in 2024, while Philips will move to its new Asia headquarters in the West Kowloon Cultural District in the fall of 2022, adjacent to the newly opened Hong Kong+ M+ district. museum. In July, the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM), a massive new exhibition space for ancient Chinese antiquities, opened in West Kowloon, and in August, shipping and logistics company Crozier acquired the Hong Kong-based integrated fine arts solution as part of its expansion into Asia.
However, Hong Kong auction houses had record sales in 2021 and 2022, in part due to remote sales, which now include live broadcasts of multiple cameras, as well as 360-degree video clips and virtual tours of individual lots. “Travel restrictions may be challenging but we are seeing signs that this is easing, and we have been able to adapt to engage in different ways,” said Jasmine Prasetyo, Managing Director, Sotheby’s Southeast Asia.
Crockett agreed that digital advances have helped keep the auction market thriving and relevant, especially with people becoming increasingly comfortable participating in online auctions, even before the pandemic. With 35 percent of Philips’ Asia-based buyers being millennial art collectors, he said it was no surprise that a large share of its customer base, having grown up with the internet, would be able to handle the art market digitally with ease.
But it’s not just about expanding auction houses – and profits – in the city. The past few years have seen a A large number From new commercial and independent art spaces, such as Square Street Gallery, Shophouse, Double Q Gallery, Property Holdings Development Group (PHD Group), Odds and Ends and more.
One such project is the Villepin Gallery, founded in 2019 by former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and his son Arthur. Because it was established just months before the shutdown began, the gallery must be smart enough to adapt to “the new normal in Asia’s art markets,” Villepin director Annie Kwok said in an interview. Hong Kong has long been the center of international art in Asia, but with the emergence of trends and the emergence of new galleries and galleries in Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea, the individual art market in each Asian city is becoming more global as well. I think these trends have changed Hong Kong in a way that makes us look inward to focus more on the local arts community and artists.”
With the recent opening of museums such as the M+ and the Palace Museum, Kwok added, “Hong Kong’s arts ecosystem is now more complex, healthy and diverse than pre-Covid times.”
There is certainly a shift from banking on Hong Kong’s reputation as an international center for the arts and gateway to China to a renewed focus on connecting with diverse local artists and audiences.
This summer, Odds and Ends partnered with local artist and curator, Eric Cote, to produce a group exhibition called “Cookout: Contemporary Condensation,” featuring more than 20 artists and designers whose practices explore the long history of Hong Kong’s craftsmanship, and the influential culture of public housing areas. in Hong Kong.
“The gallery focused only on local culture that might not be of much interest to our regular former clients (who are on summer vacation), so the timeliness of this project allowed us to foster relationships with the new local audience,” said gallery co-founder Natalie Ng, who previously held Sales positions at David Zwirner and HZ now closed.
On the set of PHD, Hong Kong-based duo Virtue Village (which includes Joseph Chen and Cas Wong and formed in 2020) staged their first solo show “Village Porn,” which includes a performance project at the end of the show’s run, which Featuring LGBTQ+ artists from different backgrounds such as dance, voice, theater, and more. In God’s body It drew a strong response from the local arts community due to the performance’s focus on queer aesthetics, a topic rarely explored publicly in Hong Kong.
“This performance also speaks unexpectedly to a wide range of audiences, not only artists, but also fans of the performing arts, members of the queer community, as well as upright people,” said Chen Wong. ARTnews.
Another exhibition in Hong Kong that attracted a great deal of attention this summer is the Philippines exhibition Losing a Human Face? This show explored the history and development of the art of portraiture, with works by Francis Bacon, Adrien Guiné, Zheng Fanzi, George Kondo, and Yukimasa Ida, especially at a time when most people were masked and their faces were mysterious.
Kwok noted that collectors and visitors from abroad were unable to truly experience the exhibition due to travel restrictions. “We take visitors on a journey, focusing on the organization and design of our space and the storytelling of the entire exhibition,” she said. “These are items that you cannot fully experience by default or through images.”
Low personal visitor rate has been a popular theme in Hong Kong lately, and artists have been postponing their exhibitions in Hong Kong outposts to later dates. However, many merchants remain largely optimistic since the city’s new administration, led by CEO John Lee, eased quarantine restrictions for hotels in the city for incoming travelers from seven to three days.
“I’ve seen how quickly cities bounce back from no travel, and while Hong Kong isn’t there yet, I think in the second half of this year we’ll see some big changes and we’ll see Hong Kong’s international standing return to its own right,” said Elaine Kwok, managing partner of Hauser & Wirth’s Asia operations. .
However, even as Hong Kong’s art scene is clearly showing its strength, with Singapore easing requirements for indoor masks for Japan to allow in tourists not on group tours and more, the city faces heated regional competition in its highly anticipated comeback as a global city in Asia.
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