Pivotal Role of Hong Kong in Asian Art Market
Sae-mi Kim

ART HK, the first-ever international art fair in Hong Kong was held from May 14 through 18. When the event was concluded successfully, fine art experts assess that ART HK has joined the rank of the leading Asian international art fairs including KIAF, ShContemporary and Art Fair Tokyo. While Art Fair Tokyo inheriting NICAF established in 1989 or KIAF held since 2002 has been reputed for its relatively long history, ShContemporary celebrating its second anniversary this fall or ART HK are appreciated more in terms of professionalism of its advisory group and quality of event rather than its historicity.

The reason why ShContemporary was especially spotlighted was because its director Lorenzo A. Rudolf who had curated the world-best international art fair Art Basel in 1999 and 2000 reflected composition and form of Art Basel intact in Shanghai. Although he quitted the Shanghai art fair this year due to his involvement in an illegal transaction of artworks at the art fair last year, he had been ambitious enough to launch an Asian version of Art Basel in cooperation with the artistic director Pierre Huber famous as a dealer of Asian and particularly Indian contemporary artworks in the home of Art Basel or the Switzerland and BolognaFiere spa or owner/organizer of Italy’s best art show Arte Fiera Bologna. When selecting some 130 international galleries, they applied the high European standards to them, while cooperating closely with China’s best artists only to create a Western atmosphere quite different from other Asian international art fairs. Well organized special exhibition “Best of Discovery” and “Best of Artists” received much attention showing best well known Asian contemporary artists including Ai Weiwei, Chen Zhen, Fang Lijun, Wang Du, Wang Guangyi, Zhang Peili, Jitish Kallat, Tatsuo Miyajima, Yoshitomo Nara, Rikrit Tiravanija amongst others. Eventually, the fair attracted about 25,000 spectators, recording a remarkable success.

The Success of Inaugural Art Fairs

The command center of ART HK who had attracted some 19,000 spectators at their first event is proud of their unyielding careers. Asian Art Fairs Ltd who organizes the event consists of Single Market Events organizing London Fashion Week and the British International Motor Show in UK and Australia and Andry Montgomery Ltd established in 1895 in London as global exhibition special company who has focused on B2B exhibition businesses world-wide, and in this course, has owned Johannesburg Expo Centre in South Africa.
Its fair director Magnus Renfrew had worked for the department of modern and contemporary art sales of Bonhams or a London-based auction house for 7 years. He once organized the first sale of Contemporary Asian Art in London, and recently, directed exhibitions for Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai. Director Stephanie Dieckboss who covered Europe and the United States had worked as manager for earlier Frieze Art Fair for 3 years, and Will Ramsay, a member of the advisory group, is CEO of PULSE Contemporary Art Fairs in New York and Miami. The chairman of the advisory group Charles Merewether recently worked as consultant for the Emirates Foundation in the UAE, and between 2004 and 2006, he was artistic director & curator of the 2006 Biennale of Sydney. Furthermore, the sponsor Lehman Brothers is currently ranked the 4th largest global investment bank in the United States. They began to collect artworks since 1911, and later in 1957, nearly three hundred works were used for a solo exhibit at Louvre Museum's Musee de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.

ShContemporary and ART HK who have been firmly established as Asian international fairs owing to their successful first editions were organized by the professional groups who had, at their fingertips, the history and background of the West-European style art fair, while being active in Basel and London, respectively. Art Dubai seems to be reputed that much; it was directed by John Martin or the London-based gallerist who had organized Art London. Anyway, these art fair professionals point out in common that the conventional China art fairs, Korea’s KIAF, Singapore’s and Taipei’s art fairs have focused on their domestic galleries, betraying their titles ‘international art fair,’ and therefore, that these Asian art fairs have looked like domestic events. Magnus Renfrew said in an interview with Federico Narracci, Artfacts.net held on May 22, 2008 that the reason why ART HK devoted all their energies to selection of its advisory group members was because they wanted to create neither some domestic nor an Asian atmosphere but an international atmosphere.

Geographic advantages of Hong Kong

However, the major factor affecting such international atmosphere involves some geographic conditions rather than organizers’ careers, indeed. Hong Kong is the only city in Asia where Sotheby’s and Christie’s are organized. While the custom rate in the mainland China amounts up to 34%, Hong Kong does not levy any custom on artworks. Thus, the city Hong Kong free from tax has been established as the greatest art auction market in the world next to New York and London. Taking full advantage of the fact that the world fine art collectors gather here to participate in or observe the art fair, Hong Kong Christie’s organized an evening sale a week after closure of the fair for the first time since 20 years ago when they had opened their first auction here. It is guessed that no gallerists returned home as soon as the fair was closed. For Christie’s held a preview from 22th to 24th day, while Seoul Auction, Taiwan’s Revanal Kingsley, etc., held previews at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong beginning from 22th day.
The ‘location’ attracting people easily is another major advantage. Although Hong Kong is a part of the Chinese territory, people speak English, while it takes shorter than 3 hours to fly between Hong Kong and its neighbors including Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India and Singapore; it takes about 9 hours by airplane to move from there to Australia. In a nutshell, the most attractive point of Hong Kong is its geographical location centered about the Asia-Pacific region. The fact that the Asian buyers accounted for 76% of Hong Kong Sotheby’s sales last April proves that Hong Kong art market is very stable. Following Forbes Magazine’s report, the combined wealth of the top 40 richest Hong Kong and Taiwan citizens rose by US$ 28 billion from 2006 to $154 billion in 2007.
Lastly, Hong Kong is a city of a stable economy ranked 11th in trade volume in the world in 2008. The Asia-Pacific region provides galleries with a huge wealth base as it contains 27.1% of the global high net worth individual wealth following Asia Pacific Wealth Report 2006; Cap Gemini/Merrill Lynch. Especially, there is huge potential within Hong Kong itself to develop the art market as Hong Kong’s 7 million population includes 88,000 is high net worth individuals. As of 2006, Hong Kong was ranked atop in terms of average net asset scale amounting to 5.3 million dollars per HNWI (High Net Worth Individual: those having more than one million net financial assets except for the value of residence).
Hong Kong was rated top among 157 nations on ‘2008 Economic Freedom Indices’ published by the US Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal on January 15 this year, because the territory scored high evenly in 10 areas of assessment. ART HK08 expresses that their goal is to convert the wealthy people in Hong Kong and Asia into potential and actual artwork collectors. These results bear witness to Hong Kong’s openness to international trade and investment as part of their successful economic development strategy.

Harmonious balance among Asian nations

Featuring 102 international galleries showing the work of over 850 artists from 20 countries across Asia, Europe and the US, the event showcased over US$65million worth of art. High-profile works up for sale include Andy Warhol’s 1962 Avanti Cars from Ben Brown Fine Arts worth an estimated US$3.7million, Nue aux Bras Eleves from Max Lang, a Damien Hirst offered by Seomi & Tuus and Picassos and Bacon’s Man at a Washbasin, 1989-90, tagged at $35million from Malborough. Although such expensive masterpieces produced by European and US artists were publicized widely before the event, most of the works sold out actually were Asian artists’ works.
In overall terms, Chinese artworks accounted for the majority of the works for sale, while only a few major collectors from the United States and Europe bought the works. Nevertheless, because ordinary collectors were eager to buy the relatively low-priced Taiwanese and Korean artworks, the atmosphere of the event was brisk.
Most of Chinese star artists’ works were sold much. After first fifteen minutes the fair has opened, Cai Guo Qiang’s Gunpowderbook, 1991 was sold for US$260,000 at the booth of 10 Chancery Lane Gallery (Hong Kong). The top seller was “Untitled”, 2000, by Yue Min Jun, sold for US$1.5 million by Gana Art Gallery, Seoul.
Whilst Chinese contemporary sales remain strong, there was significant interest in artists from South East Asian, in particular art from India, Pakistan, Philippines and Indonesia. Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai) and Chatterjee & Lal (Mumbai) sold out works of Pakistani artist, Rashid Rana. He achieved his BFA from National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan in 1992 and MFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, USA in 1994. Currently he participated in the exhibition “RE ASIA” held at Haus der Kulturen, Berlin and held his solo exhibition at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai last year. In September 2007, at Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art auction, Rana’s A Day in the Life of Landscape, a digital print, overshot sold for $133,000, making it the most expensive piece of Pakistani art ever sold.
Major sales were made within minutes of the event opening and at least three galleries including Gandhara Art (Pakistan), The Drawing Room (Philippines) and Hong Kong gallery Grotto Fine Art reported having sold their entire stand. Other key sales include “Portrait du Timonier No. 7”, by Yan Peiming, 1998, US$380,000 (Art Beatus, Hong Kong); “Square Word Calligraphy”, Xu Bing, 2007, US$350,000 (Albion, London) and US$260,000 for “The Little Girl”, He Duoling, 2008, (Chinablue Gallery, Beijing). Peres Project sold four photographic portraits by Terence Koh, Chinese Canadian artist for US$39,000 each. Nam June Paik’s TV is Kitsch, 1996 from Gallery Hyundai sold for US$72,700 by the second day.
Amongst the key sales of Western contemporary art were; Ugo Rondinone, “3, April 2007,” US$320,000 (Eva Presenhuber, Zurich) and a 1992 Lichtenstein, “Water Lilies: Blue Lily Pad” from Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London which sold for a six figure sum to an Asian collector. Hong Kong collectors bought two important Massimo Vitali photographs and works by Brigitte Waldach, which was firstly shown in Asia (M+B, Los Angeles). Ben Brown Fine Arts (London), sold design pieces by Ron Arad including ‘At your own risk’ chair for US$150,000.
ART HK which made a successful and gorgeous debut is assessed high for its organizer’s serious and smart planning, participation of high-reputed galleries and its scale. However, it is opined in common that the fair needs more highly reputed gallery names and more focus on quality of art work. They showcased the works by several Chinese star artists, but such works could hardly represent their artists, while many of the world-class major galleries boasting of huge scale and long history did not participate in the art fair. Moreover, it is regret that the special exhibition and its subsidiary events emphasized recently by many reputed art fairs including ShContemporary and its womb Art Basel were not much impressive. If such weak points should be improved, ART HK would continue to grow, taking advantage of its favorable geographical conditions, since it is expected by many art fair experts to be established as a major Asian international art fair.