Thousands of visitors streamed through a Hong Kong exhibition hall and art collectors celebrated the Asian financial hub’s return to its bustling heyday as they struck deals for works by Picasso and Yayoi Kusama.
Last week, people witnessed scenes at Hong Kong’s Art Basel fair that had not been seen since 2019. The city had undergone significant changes in the intervening years due to a crackdown on pro-democracy protests and pandemic restrictions.
Organizers reported that more than 86,000 visitors poured through the halls of the fair, reflecting a return to pre-pandemic numbers, and they reported sales of more than US$98 million, double those of 2019.
Among the biggest deals were the sale of a 1964 Picasso for US$5.5 million, works by Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga for US$5 million, and a strikingly surreal “pumpkin” by Kusama for US$3.5 million, according to figures released by the fair.
“Asia has been the fastest developing art market in the world,” Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong, told reporters.
For some, however, the success of the fair was not indicative of a healthy art scene.
“Bastion of free speech”
Hong Kong once held a reputation as a bastion of free speech within authoritarian China, but the national security law (NSL) imposed in 2020 after widespread and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests has criminalised dissent, including in art.
“I don’t think just because the sale(s) number at Art Basel is good (it) means ‘Hong Kong is Back’,” said Kacey Wong, a dissident artist who left the city in 2021 due to the crackdown.
“The NSL created self-censorship amongst the creative industry. Instead of exploring social/political topics, artists dive more into decorative colourful subjects to avoid the NSL’s red line(s).”