Art HK, Gagosian Gallery: Yayoi Kusama, 'Flowers That Bloom at Midnight,' 2009 ©ART HK 12

For a city determined to cast itself as the 'arts hub' of Asia, the numbers alone made this year's Art HK event impressive indeed.

According to organizers, a record 67,205 visitors attended the four-day fair, which wrapped up last Sunday, with the majority of the 266 galleries involved recording brisk sales.
Among the headline-grabbers at the fair was the piece "No. 313, 1969" by Chinese artist Chu Teh-Chun, which Hong Kong's De Sarthe Gallery sold to a South East Asian collector for more than US$3 million (2.4 million euros), and the five works by Italian conceptual artist Alighiero Boetti (including his "Mappa, 1984") that sold for one million euros.
But most of the talk around town was just how far the event -- and the city itself -- had come in five years since its first edition.  Back then, international galleries such as Gagosian and White Cub were among the major exhibitors; now they not only can be found at the fair but have opened galleries of their own in Hong Kong. Over those five years Hong Kong has established itself as the third largest auction house for fine art -- behind New York and London -- and the city's growing stature was reflected also this year by an impressive array of seminars held as part of Art HK.
Among them, the Private Museum Panel -- which featured the likes of Wang Huangsheng, a former director of Guangdong Museum of Art, and Li Bing, owner of Beijing He Jing Yuan Art Museum -- lifted the lid on such matters as what socio-political role such museums play and how sustainable they are.
"ART HK has played an important role as a platform for Contemporary Art in Asia and its cultural importance to the art scene surrounding Hong Kong and into Asia is undeniable. I am thrilled to have been given the chance to be part of it," said influential curator Yuko Hasegawa in a closing statement released by organizers.
The next challenge for Hong Kong's biggest art fair will be just how it can retain its uniquely Asian feel, after a majority stake in the event was sold to MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) before this year's edition. Next year it will sit alongside Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach -- but fair director Magnus Renfrew reassured art lovers more than 50 percent of the galleries on show in 2013 would be from Asia.

Published 21.05.2012