Art Basel Hong Kong: are international collectors back? Will Hong Kong recover as an arts destination? Find out at Post’s March 23 panel discussion
- Art Basel Hong Kong 2023 is the first to be held since Covid restrictions were lifted, and some are asking if Hong Kong is losing its edge as an arts hub
- An expert panel hosted by the Post will discuss the fair and issues such as Hong Kong’s art market role on March 23. Join us or watch a live-stream on Instagram
Art Basel Hong Kong has special significance this year. As the first edition since the city reopened its borders, the fair, which runs from March 21 to 25, is very much seen as a barometer of where the city stands as an international art market.
Once unquestionably the biggest and most important contemporary art fair in Asia, Art Basel Hong Kong took a massive hit when the city endured an unprecedented period of isolation, with daily arrivals at its airport dwindling to just hundreds from an average of 200,000 people in 2019.
The number of galleries taking part in the fair plunged and non-local collectors were absent for three years (though they still bought artworks online). Frustrated by pandemic restrictions, some international galleries and auction houses pulled out of the city altogether.
There has been much talk of Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo becoming more attractive, especially when Hong Kong can no longer boast an absence of political censorship – that changed when the national security law was introduced in 2020.
In fact, in 2020, before the city closed its borders, there were art dealers who threatened to boycott the fair in part because their artists did not want to show in Hong Kong because of the police crackdown on the 2019 protests.
Is that all water under the bridge? The number of booths this year is 177, a far cry from the 242 in 2019, even with the mass protests outside the fair venue.
