Could Hong Kong Art Week’s Parties Give Hint at Market’s Direction?

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in us Artnews Basel Hong Kong Arts Newsletter. Sign up here to receive the fair every day.

December 2008, on Art Basel Miami Beach Artforum Gossip columnists look for signs of a dramatic art market downturn at that moment ArtnewsThe current editor-in-chief (at the time, a reporter Art + Auction Magazine): “Observe the trends of Cassandra’s style, Art and AuctionSarah Douglas sarcastically pointed out that there was no caviar at this year’s UBS dinner. “In an industry as opaque as art, dealers rarely have a straightforward approach to their business, and the most reliable economic data may sometimes be the party’s budget.

So, it is very much anticipated that I focus on the look of the social scenes in Hong Kong this year, as the city started Hong Kong Art Week on Monday. During last year’s celebrations, the conversation revolved around the disappearance of mainland Chinese collectors as China quietly fell into recession due to the ongoing crisis in the country’s real estate market and economic slowdown. Throughout the year, the art markets in Hong Kong and China have taken a huge blow amid the global art market and widespread uncertainty.

Economic uncertainty and recovery issues hang in this year’s edition of “Basel Hong Kong Art” and reporter Ilaria Maria Sala wrote in the market preview Artnews This week. As Patricia Crockett, senior director of Hong Kong’s David Zwirner, told Sala, the city is not immune to “a global economic slowdown and uncertain political changes around the world.” Meanwhile, she added: “We have observed that local collectors in Hong Kong have actually increased their support for the city’s art community over the past year.”

Since reopening at the end of 2022, a special dynamic has emerged in Hong Kong, which has continued this year. Although the market has always been tentative, the city’s art community has shown incredible resilience and energy in building an ecosystem that is stronger than pre-hybrid. This is on display in a variety of programs selected by writer Hok-Hang Cheung Artnews As a prominent figure of the week. There are videos and location-specific installations that explore the fragile nature of Hong Kong artist Tsang Kin-wah in Galerie du Monde and the cruelty of humanity, as well as an exhibition that bridges traditional folk arts with modern art and labours in the center of heritage art and texts, and provides a center for a couple.

For those who take a night ferry or walk along the beachfront of Hong Kong Island, there is Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s Nighttime charThis is a tribute to the city’s “Golden Age” cinema and enjoyed on the M+200-foot LED facade. Ho’s work deliberately uses AI to change the iconic culture of the past, which symbolizes forward-looking work that is often viewed in Hong Kong. Ho told me in a recent interview that he used AI for the first time in practice to “replace” this much-loved culture and complicate the general nostalgia around the city’s “golden age.” What remains, he said, is “a strange, perhaps somewhat terrifying combination of different types of cultural references,” which blurs the line between the past and the future.

As curator Aaditya Sathish explained to Zhang, “Hong Kong is a place that trades global contemporary art as far as I know. But, during the pandemic, there is a focus on locals. A lot of independent art spaces are starting to appear and I remember everyone flocking to these places,” he said. “There is a desperate need to see what’s around us.”

Even without reaching the pandemic heights of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this energy (and luxury) seems to have returned to Hong Kong, even if it hasn’t reached the large heights of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Monday night’s schedule was packed with stylish cocktail parties and new projects were launched. The Peninsula is one of the oldest and most stately hotels in the city, launching three new works for its “Art of Resonance” for this, the hotel and London’s V&A Museum Commission’s massive facility. The red carpet extends to the hotel’s grand atrium where stylish guests enjoy the wine and pass by the appetizer when it’s their turn to wait for the photo action. Not far from Rosewood, a 33,880 square foot hotel located in the waterfront, Bangkok’s highly anticipated Dib Museum, Bangkok’s first commitment to global contemporary art, celebrates its upcoming opening in December. Purat Osathanugrah, the chairman and president of the museum and son of Thai art patron, spent the party at Carlyle, a private member club. & Co, play jazz guitar on stage. However, the most luxurious thing about the night was the annual opening party held by M+, where guests experienced a full performance, a 360-degree photo booth, and a dance revolutionary machine (which did come back in the 2000s) as they admired on the magnificent terrace of the Museum of Contemporary Art to the city.

If the party’s budget or guest list is tightened due to the challenging market, it is not clear at M+ or elsewhere. When a Korean curator I met last year yelled at the pulsating electronics of M+: “The atmosphere is better this year, isn’t it?”

While I will admit that the city is electric, the question of this question is how to convert in Basel Hong Kong (or this weekend’s auction house). In a news preview at Sotheby’s earlier in the day, I asked Sotheby’s CEO Charles F., like most of the others I’ve spoken with me so far this week, put him in a cautious optimism category.

“To be honest, that’s why I’m here this week,” Stewart said. “I’m going to talk to as many people as possible to try to understand where the market is. My feeling is that it’s getting better, but you’ll never know. If you ask me a week later, I’ll have a better idea.”

We won’t.

Still, as Stewart reminded me, the reason for Sotheby’s, as well as Christie and Phillips, is the reason for opening new headquarters in the city in recent years. “I’m not sure there is another area in the world where 1,000 or more high net worth individuals are waiting to enter the art market,” Stewart said.

Stewart made it clear, according to widespread rumors about Sotheby’s negotiations on game-changing deals with rhythm. “There’s no truth at all,” he said. “You make a ball together and suddenly, everyone can talk about it. More and more denying it, the more they think it’s happening. What do you even say?”

You go straight from the source, not that I suspect will stop the conversation at the expo.