Kim Myeongbeom, Untitled
There are cities and there are cities – Hong Kong is in the category of top Alpha city, along with the likes of London and New York for global influence and financial clout; punching way above its weight for its metropolitan area but lagging behind in key areas such as political development and arts culture. In the second category, however, Hong Kong has played catch-up at lightning speed in terms of exhibiting and selling world-class fine art, especially through fairs and auctions and a mushrooming gallery scene. A big breakthrough moment came in 2013 when the world leader in art fairs, Art Basel, chose the city to join Basel and Miami as its third annual fair and set us on a steady course as Asia’s art hub. The planet’s top art auctioneers, Sotheby’s and Christies were already here, and raising glasses of vintage champagne to record sales.
Nisky YU, Back in Icons
Hong Kong, as one of China’s major windows to the world – and the only free-market, laissez faire city economy in the country – where, very importantly too, English is widely spoken, was a logical place for Art Basel to expand; moreover located in the prosperous East Asia region, with no duty, tax or red tape obstacles or other deterrents for exhibitors, organizers and collectors, a mega-art fair could only be held here or in Singapore. With these advantages the territory was one, or many more, up on every one else and more or less on a par with the Lion City, our regional finance and trade and services competitor; however in a nouveau riche money talks city such as ours, with very recent arts sensibilities and shamefully for its size, not even one major art museum, becoming an art hub – let alone Asia’s art hub – was never a shoe-in if we go back a few years and a remote possibility in the lead up to the millennium.
Gao weigang, Consume
Going back a generation there were almost no local, full time artists making a living here; from a handful of galleries, limited art education opportunities, little in the way of media coverage or exhibitions and sparse interest in fine art, it was all concentrated among the tiny Old Money elite and a smattering of western aficionados. Given that this city is has a roughly similar population and economic and educational development to countries like Sweden and Switzerland, and almost 2 million more people than Denmark, surely the arts beyond popular entertainment should have developed in tandem with economic success?
Firstly as a port and entrepôt city of immigrants, mostly poor and from the ancient traders’ province of Guangdong; which reinvented itself post World War Two as first a manufacturing centre, then as a finance hub, escaping poverty and making as much money as possible money was always paramount. Secondly while Hong Kongers are gamblers and always out to make a fast buck it has taken a while to realize that the art world is full of risk-takers out to hit the jackpot too.
Yang Maoyuan, They are coming to Hong Kong
Thirdly until the proto-mega-art fairs that preceded Art Basel showed there was big money to be made in art, and there were healthy attendances, the stage was not set to go up the gears. Fourthly since it has been official policy to turn the city into an arts exhibition and performance hub through the long-awaited West Kowloon Cultural Centre, which will include a permanent centre for the much applauded M+ art museum run by world-famous, cutting edge curator, Lars Nittve.
The stage is set for Hong Kong’s continuing rise as Asia’s arts hub; and as Asia’s rise continues too, Asian art will figure more and more prominently. Already Art Basel has a majority Asian representation but what does that mean for Hong Kong artists? They may well be dwarfed and feel excluded by the many bigger names from around the world but as the satellite events surrounding Art Basel like Art Central (new this year) provide a counterpoint to Basel as well as smaller events continue to grow in number and carry on at galleries and exhibitions beyond the few days of the big two, surely opportunities will grow too. Finally there’s nothing like tough international competition and seeing what the masters can do as well as the awe inspiring selling prices of top fine art to inspire and push artist up to the next level.
Robert Carroll is Macau Daily Times’ Hong Kong correspondent and columnist.
Exclusive | John Batten on Art Basel
‘This is really about the art market and not about the art itself’
Mónica Dixon –
Germantown,
Barnadas Huang
John Batten is a high profile Hong Kong art critic, writer, curator and gallery owner; president of the committee of AICAHK – the Hong Kong branch of the International Art Critics Association. In an exclusive interview with Extra Times, Mr Batten gave his thoughts on Art Basel, realities of the HK art scene, how influential artists are in society and why mainland Chinese artists have become so popular.
Macau Daily Times – What were you general impressions of the whole Art Week?
John Batten – The compressed combination of events in Hong Kong [two Art fairs now with more affordable art Art Central and many gallery exhibitions along with Chai Wan Exhibition and other ‘off piste’ happenings] is a vortex created by Art Basel and too many events overloaded visitors to fairs and exhibitions. I don’t go to half the events. It’s overkill.
MDT – What do you choose to see at these kinds of fairs and satellite events?
JB – I like to see single emerging artist gallery exhibitions like, for example, Darren Knight from Sydney, which is about the use of the vernacular and Nanzuka by the West Place Gallery [who] through 1980s Anime photos reveals an artist having a breakdown.
Peter Nowotny – Justitia, Conny Dietzschold Gallery
MDT – At the Art Basel Hong Kong 2015 Salon talks you moderated “Rebel City: Hong Kong as Site and Situation”. Does art have an influence in politics in Hong Kong according to the participants and a social role?
JB – Well while they did talk about universal suffrage and Occupy, among the four artists it was agreed that Hong Kong artists are not particularly political and their ability to bring about change is limited, which is the case around the world. One thing I wanted to try and talk about a little bit was some examples of interventions by these artists that have made a change in some small way. A couple of examples: Artist Clara Cheung from & G Artpartment. Every year she and her husband have a thing called International sick Leave Day to remind everyone that we need to look after personal health. A nice little reminder to take a sickie and go sketching, go outside enjoy the sun enjoy the view. Another was Leung Po-shan, an original member of (Hong Kong gallery) ParaSite. In the 90s when artists didn’t have studios in Hong Kong one thing that did change the art landscape in Hong Kong was [by recognizing], “OK, we don’t have big studios we can’t paint much because we all live in small housing with our family members around us”. So what ParaSite did was found a venue and invited different groups of artists to come in for each exhibition – they showed only installations and if they could either change something from the previous exhibition or use elements there and completely repaint or redecorate it.
A lot of the exhibitions were about Hong Kong identity after the handover so it was a way of re-looking at Hong Kong which sort of culminated in some of the stuff we saw at Occupy (as was done 15 years after 1997) looking at the same issues.
Desire Obtain Cherish – Blood Sugar High,
Bluerider ART
MDT – Does Art Basel fit into all of this?
JB – Art Basel (and the art week) is really about the art market and not about the art itself so doesn’t fit much into this. Like Rolls Royce has an installation; I’ve never heard of Rolls Royce being involved in the art before in Hong Kong. So it’s all used as a marketing tool, a product. Luxury branding inevitably leads down the fine art route. It’s only recently (in modern times) that artists have been able to express themselves in a free, pure way. So it’s come back full circle. The artist says, “This big idea I can only do if I have a sponsor behind me.” So those big installations you saw at the art fair, big installations are only possible with big money. Sponsors are more like shareholders sharing the profit. There’s nothing wrong with that. My take is that the market has taken over. A very mature place like London, you can go to a museum or see an exhibition about something that’s [more] intelligent. There’s no sponsorship because these institutions are well funded, not just doing it just because they’ve got a sponsor. The problem in Hong Kong is we need a little more diversity.
MDT – But all this is still having a positive effect overall getting more people involved and exposed to art?
Jake & Dinos Chapman – The same thing only smaller, or the same size but a long way away, Human Reproduction
JB – It’s changing. It’ll get better but somebody [got into] a lot of trouble showing a few pictures about Occupy. If you looked at Art Basel you wouldn’t know we had an Occupy.
MDT – But there was, for example, the policeman candle; the artist said that the candle changes from black to white, to light.
JB – There were a couple of examples, marketing ploys to get people to go to Art Central. One had a canvas of an umbrella. It’s related to getting some individual attention for those galleries. [On the other hand] in the fine art world it’s less sensitive. In Mong Kok this weekend no one would have known about what was going on. China has been quite astute about how they tackle certain issues about art and that’s why Chinese art has become so popular around the world because they do get away with something more critical than you’d expect from a repressive regime. Expression through culture often comes from repression of ideas.
Art Basel in a nutshell
The world’s largest art fair has long set the bar in for others to follow.
Owned by the government of Basel through majority holding in MCH fairs, in order to brand Basel.
Value of art on show in Art Basel Hong Kong 2015: USD 3 billion (approx. HKD 23 billion)
More than an art fair: Ties in with luxury brand promotion e.g. Swiss watches, Rolls Royce.
Collaborates with London’s Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design and University of Hong Kong, Space.
Helps fund via platform global non-profit-making arts ventures.
Founded in 1970 by galleries in Basel.
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