MCLC: Art Basel Hong Kong

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Art Basel Hong Kong
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Source: NYT (5/22/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/arts/design/art-basel-hong-kong-opens-on-
thursday.html

Hong Kong Welcomes the Art World
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 <https://www.artbasel.com/en/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 <http://www.hongkongartfair.com/>, 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
<http://discovery.cathaypacific.com/magazine/en/2013-05/discover-people-mag
nus-renfrew#magazine/en/2013-05/discover-people-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  <http://www.pearllam.com/>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.”