Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 closes to significant sales and a bristling local scene

EN | 简 | 繁 | 

Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 closes to significant sales and a bristling local scene, marking the show’s return to full scale and largest edition since 2019

The 11th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Basel’s premier fair in Asia, concluded today, offering local and international audiences a vibrant overview of the region’s flourishing art scenes. Marking the second decade of Art Basel’s operation in Asia’s world city, the show assumed its pre-pandemic scale for the first time since 2019, welcoming 242 leading galleries from the Asia –Pacific, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East, including 69 galleries returning to the show after a hiatus and 23 participating in the fair for the first time. Surveying the range and richness of artistic production across the Asia–Pacific, more than half of the show’s exhibitors this year hailed from the region. Art Basel Hong Kong, whose Global Lead Partner is UBS, took place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from March 28 to 30, 2024 and welcomed over 75’000 visitors from around the world across its VIP and public days.

Leading art patrons and private collectors from 72 were in attendance, in addition to representatives of more than 100 world-class museums and foundations from across the globe, including: Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong;
K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; M+, Hong Kong; Para Site, Hong Kong; Tai Kwun, Hong Kong; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; He Art Museum, Foshan; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Museum MACAN, Jakarta; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore;
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Centre Pompidou, Paris;
Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Musée National Picasso-Paris, Paris; Tate, London; Serpentine Galleries, London; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; New Museum, New York; Swiss Institute (SI), New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco; and Vancouver Art Gallery,
Vancouver.

Showcasing the cultural dynamism of its host city, Art Basel Hong Kong featured an expanded, free public program radiating across Hong Kong, realized in collaboration with the city’s world-class institutions, including M+ and Tai Kwun, as well as non-profit art spaces such as Para Site and Asia Art Archive. On Thursday, March 28, Tai Kwun presented Artists’ Night – Hong Kong’s annual signature event dedicated to experimental artists from the region – in association with Art Basel Hong Kong for the first time. Open to local visitors and Art Basel guests, the event activated the heritage and arts compound in Hong Kong, including live musical and dance performances, special installations, and late-night exhibition viewings in Herzog & de Meuron-designed buildings.

In anticipation of next year’s edition, Art Basel Hong Kong announced that from 2025 onwards, MGM will present a new prize for Discoveries, the show’s sector for solo presentations by emerging artists. The MGM Discoveries Art Prize is dedicated to supporting emerging artists and fostering new talent. Further details will be announced later this year.

Helming the show for the second year, Angelle Siyang-Le, Director, Art Basel Hong Kong, said of the renaissance edition: ‘Art Basel Hong Kong returned to its full scale and spirit this edition, with the city opening its doors to visitors from all around the world once again. I am deeply grateful to all the galleries, artists, patrons, institutional representatives, and cultural partners whose collaboration delivered a show of world-class range and quality in our home in Hong Kong. This edition reflected the city itself to the world: utterly alive and teeming with energy, a meeting place of tradition and the avant-garde, a port of cultures and an essential bridge in the evolving art landscape across regions. Art Basel Hong Kong continues to be a vital anchor in Asia’s ever-growing local art scenes and a key moment in the global art trade calendar.’

Throughout the fair, galleries reported significant sales of works by artists across all market segments, geographies, and media, including prominent artists from the Asia–Pacific and diaspora, such as Christine Ay Tjoe, Daniel Boyd, Lee Bul, Hsiao Chin, Fong Chung-Ray, Zhang Enli, Yayoi Kusama, Kibong Rhee, Chen Ting-Shih, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Haegue Yang, and Anicka Yi; international blue-chip artists including George Condo, Charles Gaines, Philip Guston, Sheila Hicks, Roni Horn, Rashid Johnson, Martha Jungwirth, Alex Katz, Willem de Kooning, Alicja Kwade, Paul McCarthy, Marilyn Minter, and Cindy Sherman; and emerging voices such as Kara Chin, Michael Ho, Antonia Kuo, Nawin Nuthong, Fuyuhiko Takata, Qualeasha Wood, and Huidi Xiang. Participating exhibitors remarked on their experiences.

Co-commissioned by Art Basel and M+, and presented by UBS, Chinese artist and filmmaker Yang Fudong activated the museum’s iconic facade with a new site-specific, architectural film, as part of a long-term collaboration between the cultural partners. The work is on view to the public until April 9. Hong Kong’s first-ever International Cultural Summit took place on the eve of Art Basel Hong Kong in the city’s flourishing West Kowloon Cultural District, bringing together global leaders of arts and cultural institutions to foster international cultural exchange and cultivate long-term partnerships.

Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Encounters, Art Basel Hong Kong’s hallmark sector for large-scale projects, extended beyond the show halls, presenting a new installation by First Nations Australian artist Daniel Boyd at Hong Kong’s Pacific Place, supported by Swire Properties, Official Partner of Offsite Encounters, on view until April 7.

Art Basel Hong Kong’s Conversations and Film programs – curated by writer and editor Stephanie Bailey and multi-media artist and film producer Li Zhenhua, respectively – both took place at the HKCEC, offering audiences a unique opportunity to participate in thought-provoking discussions and experience vanguard artist films. Conversations included audiences with artists Haegue Yang, Shinro Ohtake, and Takashi Murakami, among 43 practitioners and industry thought leaders, with works in Film by Qiu Jiongjiong, Anne Imhof, Kimsooja, and more. An open platform for short and experimental presentations in front of a focused audience, Exchange Circle
once again took place in collaboration with Art Basel Hong Kong’s media and cultural partners, encompassing artist talks, discussions, lectures, book presentations, signings, and workshops. The newly expanded and freely accessible public program in the HKCEC welcomed an estimated attendance of over 5’000.

Images of Art Basel Hong Kong and the show’s city-wide program are available for free download at artbasel.com/press/images.