This is the second year that the coronavirus has hit Hong Kong Arts Month, which is normally held in March and features a sumptuous feast of events in the visual and performing arts. While there is no question that the overall cultural sector has suffered because of the pandemic, individual segments of the commercial art market have been remarkably resilient.
True to its DNA as a financial capital, record-breaking sales helped Hong Kong become the second-largest contemporary
art auction market last year, overtaking London and coming just behind New York. As a recent report by InvestHK “The Art of Making Money” highlights, the arts are, perhaps surprisingly to some, an economic engine that contributes to city branding and cultural tourism.
But this is not the only reason the arts should play a central role in the relaunch of Hong Kong in a post-pandemic world. Cross-cultural dialogue through the arts can promote tolerance and understanding and bolster Hong Kong’s identity as an international metropolis, at a time when there are escalating
racial tensions worldwide characterised by a heightened tendency to dislike or even demonise the “other”.
Back in March 2019, the last time Art Basel was held in Hong Kong, guests at Lévy Gorvy were in for a real treat as they viewed works by Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Mitchell, Claude Monet and
Zao Wou-Ki, and listened to a live performance by Sean, Lauren and David Aaron Carpenter, musicians-turned-entrepreneurs who specialise in dealing in rare musical instruments like
the Stradivarius.
As the Carpenter trio played Piazzolla’s Libertango, an unexpected visitor stopped by. Robert Fisher, chairman of Gap and chairman of the board of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was in town, and the four bonded over a shared Princeton connection. This behind-the-scenes encounter illustrates how the fair has been a magnet for collectors and placed Hong Kong squarely on the global art map.
More recently, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po earmarked HK$169 million in the 2021-22 budget to enhance local projects in cultural tourism. These include the
Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, a village experience in Sai Kung that integrates art, religion, culture, heritage and green elements, and City in Time, an offering by City University that seeks to juxtapose Hong Kong’s past with the present through 360-degree historical panoramas, complete with selfie functions.
