Reflections | Why Art Basel would have had China’s ancient art scene up in arms over its focus on trade
- Art fairs are about money, but the most highly regarded works of art in premodern China were made for self-expression and the edification of the human spirit
- In the Ming and Qing dynasties, art’s marketisation entered its mature phase and rich merchants became art collectors to flaunt their wealth
Art Basel is back in Hong Kong. Hooray. I often get free passes for these events, and I always feel compelled to go. After five minutes in the event space, however, my eyes glaze over and I think about what I want to eat after this damn thing.
I’m not a Philistine, but you know how these things are. You walk up and down the crowded aisles as you would a supermarket, glancing at and barely registering the merchandise on display.
Meanwhile, armies of eagle-eyed gallery staff are sizing you up to see whether it’s worth their while to approach you with their wares.
You pause a little in front of something that piques your interest, but out of the corner of your eye, you see someone bracing themselves for a sales pitch, and you quickly walk away, in the same way you’d flee an eager salesperson at the kitchenware section of a department store.
Essentially, art fairs are about money. Strip away the rarefied and oftentimes pretentious bubble that the art industry wraps itself in and the features of the marketplace are on full, glorious display at these events: the buying and selling of commodities, the brokers who get a cut from the deals made, the manipulation of supply and demand, the clever marketing of the flavour of the month.
