Art in 2023, seizing the opportunity of Art Basel and Art Central Hong Kong 2023

Hong Kong has already been at the forefront of the most important cities dominating the world art market for some years. As in New York and London, the market value of many artists, both contemporary and from the past century, is decided in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, though, has its own peculiarity. It is a city that has grown dramatically over the past thirty to forty years. Unfortunately, this growth, both in structural and economic/ financial terms, did not come together with cultural growth — able to provide a solid foundation for the knowledge and dissemination of both Chinese and Western art.

And it is perhaps because of its natural financial predisposition that the market trends, which developed and continue to develop in Hong Kong, have followed different paths compared to the activities and trends occurring overseas.

Over time, but mainly over the past twenty-five to thirty years, the distribution of the artistic content proposed by local and international artists has been left mainly to commercial galleries, which have flourished numerous and very quickly, taking advantage of an economic growth that seemed to never stop.

Hong Kong lacked world-class museums (MoMA, Metropolitan, Guggenheim, British Museum, National Gallery, Tate, etc.) that could have stimulated and sharpened Hongkongers’ curiosity and knowledge about the vast world of ancient, modern, and contemporary art. The city’s art world has been driven mostly by commercial offerings, along with an excellent standard. Therefore, what took shape among art lovers were rather peculiar knowledge and critical consciousness, very much subject to market speculation.

Fortunately, in recent years, art proposals offered by auction houses and galleries in the city have been joined by major art fairs. “ART HK: Hong Kong International Art Fair” was launched in 2007. This was an exceptional, somewhat innovative, 5-year event that was one of the first international stages for promoting Asian and Chinese contemporary art, held in May at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. This fair was joined by smaller satellite fairs that were mostly held in large hotels.

The popularity of the fair grew very quickly, appealing to collectors from all over the world so much that it even attracted the attention of the organisers of the very prestigious Art Basel, which already had, on its calendar, a fair in Basel in June, and one in Miami in December.

And so, in 2013, Art HK was acquired, and there was the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. Art Basel immediately had a great impact not only on the Hong Kong art scene but on the entire Chinese and Southeast Asian region. Works of exceptional quality, offered by the world’s greatest galleries, were presented in large numbers, further fuelling Hong Kong’s prestige among the most important international art hubs.

In the years immediately following, another fair also grew and evolved, not in opposition to Art Basel, but rather as complementary to it. It was Art Central. At Art Basel, many of the most renowned International galleries are selected each year to offer to the general public and collectors important works not only by great modern and contemporary masters but also by emerging international artists. Art Central, instead, specialises in selecting galleries that offer a variety of excellent works by young artists, and it is probably more suitable for those who want to start their own collection without the need to have budgets that sometimes seem exorbitant.

This year too, between March 21 and 25, the two fairs –Art Basel and Art Central – will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Art Basel will provide an opportunity for 177 galleries from 32 countries to offer works to an audience increasingly interested in discovering current and upcoming international art trends. It will also provide an opportunity to acquire museum-level works for Asia’s leading collectors.

Art Central, instead, with its 70 selected galleries, will once again serve as a springboard for talented young artists and will feature several galleries focusing on offering works by 20th-century masters.

It should be mentioned that Hong Kong is also home to other important fairs, including the Fine Art Asia, which has been held for seventeen years in October at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre too.

I would like to end with a few notes regarding a shared forecast of the art market in 2023.

As we all know, the horizon is not clear of clouds. The problems of the conflict in Ukraine; the unresolved European issues involving inflation and uncertain economic growth; the U.S. monetary squeeze; Covid-19; the bursting of the housing bubble in China; the unstable cryptocurrency market and the collapse of inflated NFT values – all this means that the abundant flows of money we had seen so far are now within reach of a few people only.

But despite everything, the art market has been extremely resilient worldwide. Art lovers and collectors have begun to carefully select the works they wish to purchase, finally allowing the artwork’s historical value and quality to slowly gain the upper hand over the mere financial speculation that had heavily taken hold of the very last few years. This had nervously affected prices and made the market for contemporary artists extremely volatile.

I firmly believe that this year again, the art market will remain stable (even for those who invest in works of art) and then continue to grow as soon as a few ‘rays of sunshine’ come out again.

Buying a work of art means having an affinity with the artist. The uniqueness of the artwork makes the relationship we have with it very special. Oftentimes, it is not necessary to understand what one buys. Surrendering to it and feeling the energy and message that this purchase conveys to us would be quite enough. Art is life!

I will be glad to meet friends, art lovers and collectors at Art Central 2023, Booth B07.

Alberto Annesi Managing Director ART PERSPECTIVE

Phone/WhatsApp +852 5490 0020 e-mail: alberto@artperspective.com.hk