The biggest week of Hong Kong’s art scene is here once more! Taking place just after the conclusion of the performing-arts-focused Hong Kong Arts Festival (running until March 20), the spotlight moves to visual arts with three big shows.
Art Central
Inaugurated just last year, Art Central markets itself as the cool young kid of the bunch. ‘Contemporary’ is its buzz word, and the fair makes a concerted effort to tout new galleries and artists, with around 70 percent hailing from Asia.
The show is divided into three sectors, though the bulk of exhibitors appear in the Central segment, where both emerging and established galleries meet. Over in the Rise area, only art spaces launched in the past six years are present; solo booths for individual artists act as intros to fresh faces.
Most showy of all is the Projects portion of the fair: four large-scale works that mix media, play with space and are generally designed to catch the eye and boggle the mind. Most immediately striking is Thomas Canto’s ‘Suspended Landscape,’ a glittering, spiky beast of an artwork made from acrylic glass, but the site-specific ‘Wall Hang’ by Peter Adsett also looks understatedly trippy.
In addition to the exhibitions, there are also numerous film screenings, informative talks and educational tours, as well as the “avant-garde digital, new media and performance art” of the G.H Mumm champagne-sponsored Media X Mumm. And if you get hungry, there’s an outdoor street food area for snacks and live DJs.
Open to the public Wed-Thu Mar 23-24, noon-7pm; Fri Mar 25, 11am-7pm; Sat Mar 26, 11am-6pm; adults HKD230, concessions HKD110, students HKD50, children aged 12 and under free with a paying adult. Art Central, Central Harbourfront Event Space, 9 Lung Wo Road, Central, Hong Kong. Buy tickets by calling +852-3128 8288 or visit HK Ticketing.
Art Basel
Basel is one of the biggest names in the global art world. As such, you can expect it to attract big names from around the world. This year, there are a total 187 modern and contemporary exhibitors in the Galleries sector showcasing painting, drawing, sculpture, film and other digital wizardry.
Zeroing in specifically on Asia and Asia-Pacific art spaces, the Insights collection aims to be more thematic, either in terms of a single artist or a uniting motif, while Discoveries introduces emerging talents.
Art Basel calls its large-scale sculpture and installation works Encounters. There are 16 in total, including a bizarre-sounding work by Indonesian collective Tromarama composed of “flash sequence video and a floor-to-ceiling towering swirl depicting seemingly playful protest banners” – we’re not sure if we’re more intrigued by the “towering swirl” or how protest banners could be made to seem playful…
Also piquing our interest: Brook Andrew’s ‘Building (Eating) Empire,’ an Aborigine-influenced installation whose components appear and disappear depending on perspective; Richard Maloy’s deceptively solid, enterable ‘Yellow Structure,’ composed of industrial materials; and Zhang Ding’s ‘18 Cubes,’ an interactive work you can disfigure or adapt howsoever you like.
There will be a whopping 72 film works on display, in addition to several talks and, for those who like their art to interact with a city on a larger scale, Tatsuo Miyajima’s ‘Light Waterfall,’ a light installation shown across the entire facade of the International Commerce Centre (ICC) in Kowloon for the duration of Art Basel.
Open to the public Thu Mar 24, 1-9pm; Fri Mar 25, 1-8pm; Sat Mar 26, 11am-6pm. Tickets range from HKD180-350 for one-day tickets, depending on time and day of the week. Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong. Buy tickets by calling +852-3128 8288 or visit HK Ticketing.
Asia Contemporary Art Show
It doesn’t have quite the cool vibe of Art Central or the more serious, weighty reputation of Art Basel, but the Asia Contemporary Art Show is a nice way to round out the trio of major fairs.
As its name suggests, the focus is on two things: Asia and contemporary. More than 3,000 artworks are scheduled to appear, largely from this continent, and you can expect lots of paintings, lots of sculptures and lots of photography.
Biggest pros of the Asia Contemporary Art Show: 1) Several of the artists with work on display will be in attendance; 2) Pre-sold tickets are HKD220, buy one get one free – that’s HKD110 per person. Bargain!
Open to the public Fri Mar 25, 1-9pm (Art Night 5-9pm); Sat Mar 26, 1-8pm; Sun Mar 27, 11am-6pm. Tickets are HKD220 pre-sale (buy one get one free) and HKD220 at the door. 40-43/F, Conrad Hong Kong, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Buy tickets by calling +852-2811 9015 or visit HK Ticketing.
Also Don’t Miss: M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art
Uli Sigg is renowned as having assembled one of the largest (if not the largest) collection of contemporary Chinese art in the world. A couple of years ago he donated the majority of it to the new M+ art museum, which is scheduled to open in 2019.
As that date is quite a long way away, however, this exhibition shows off some of the choice pieces that will one day appear in the M+. Artists represented include Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang and pretty much any other big name you can think of from China’s art scene.
This exhibition is arguably more alluring than any of the art shows, at least for those interested in an overview of the contemporary art scene in the Middle Kingdom over the last 40 years. Sure, only around 80 of the 1,510 total will be there, but it’s a perfect amuse bouche to whet the appetite for what’s to come.
Open Daily 11am-8pm; free entry. ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. Visit the official website for more information.
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