{"id":479347,"date":"2026-03-16T23:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479347\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T23:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:03:12","slug":"is-hong-kongs-art-market-slowly-bouncing-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479347\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hong Kong\u2019s art market (slowly) bouncing back?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong\u2019s art market has been in a protracted downturn since 2021, but international gallerists continue to rely on the region as a gateway to business in mainland China and the wider Asian market \u2014 and have long memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speculative bubble burst, post Covid, but if you look back to when Art Basel first started in Hong Kong [in 2013], there was no interest in western art, it was a wasteland,\u201d says the leading gallerist David Zwirner. Now, as the fair is set to open its 2026 edition, he finds, \u201cHong Kong is a bona fide city for visual arts, still with an openness to the rest of the region.\u201d He cites the number of commercial galleries who have opened there since \u2014 including his own in 2018 \u2014 as well as \u201ca world class museum in M+ and a new wave of a very young, very informed, optimistic collectors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AnUntitled (1964) by Joan Mitchell, on display at the David Zwirner booth at Art Basel Hong Kong \u00a9 Estate of Joan Mitchell. Courtesy David Zwirner<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, he and other big-name gallerists are playing it safe for this year\u2019s fair, leaning on their secondary market programme of older or deceased artists to meet the market\u2019s more careful mood. Zwirner\u2019s blue-chip fare includes works by the abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell, the leading painter Gerhard Richter and Yayoi Kusama, \u201ca mainstay in Hong Kong\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

Hauser & Wirth\u2019s booth will include pieces by the modern masters Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder. \u201cIt is not the best of all times, but things are slowly bouncing back,\u201d says Lihsin Tsai, senior director and head of sales, Asia. \u201cIn my experience, Asian people are very practical and they are thoughtful about securing safe assets at the moment.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"An\u2018Chat et crabe sur la plage\u2019 (Cat and Crab on the Beach) (1965) by Pablo Picasso, displayed by Hauser & Wirth\u2019s booth \u00a9 Estate of Pablo Picasso\/ARS, courtesy of a private collection. Photo Jon Etter<\/p>\n

The Milan-based gallerist Massimo De Carlo, who opened in Hong Kong 10 years ago and is known for his adventurous programme of contemporary art, will also have work by the Italian 20th-century minimalist Dadamaino at the fair this year. \u201cIf you love art but have no optimism [about the wider world], then your position is automatically more conservative. You turn to solid and traditional values,\u201d De Carlo says.<\/p>\n

When he opened his gallery in 2016, he says the logic was that \u201cwhile Hong Kong wasn\u2019t a marketplace in the same way as London or New York, it was and is the most sophisticated window to access China and the Far East, with high-end services, well-trained art handlers and high standards of communication.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The more recent market backdrop has proved tough. Hong Kong\u2019s share of global auction sales fell from 23.8 per cent in 2020 to 17 per cent in 2024 to 14.5 per cent last year, according to Mishcon de Reya and ArtTactic\u2019s China Art Market Report 2026.<\/p>\n

De Carlo confesses that \u201cwe were hoping for more\u201d from the region, which in the past few years has felt the impact of the wider market downturn, intense global geopolitical uncertainty, restrictions from China\u2019s government on the movement on money, plus, he says, \u201cmany artists have left, partly because it is so expensive to live here.\u201d Several artists also left the scene on the back of China\u2019s National Security Law in 2020, which limits freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

\"An\u2018Peach Blossom Spring Wonderland \u2014 Encounter with a Snake\u2019 (2025) by Qiu Anxiong, being shown by the Pearl Lam Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong \u00a9 Courtesy of the artist and Pearl Lam Gallery<\/p>\n

Gallerist Pearl Lam<\/a>, who until recently was planning to open a new permanent space in Hong Kong, says she will now operate on a pop-up basis. \u201cI can\u2019t find the right place so am not going to force it. Hong Kong is my home but everything is changing. I am not desperate for a [permanent] space and the market isn\u2019t exactly vibrant.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She will instead take a temporary location, in three floors of an office building in Central\u2019s Wyndham Street, for a show of Qiu Anxiong, who infuses his landscape paintings and films with classical Chinese aesthetics, to coincide with Art Basel and its accompanying crowds. To the fair, Lam brings a mixed booth of work by artists from around the world, including Qiu, and fellow China-born artist, the abstract painter Zhu Jinshi.<\/p>\n

Other international galleries to have closed in Hong Kong include L\u00e9vy Gorvy Dayan, which shut there in 2024, Pace, which left its space in the high-spec H Queen\u2019s building last year, and Perrotin, which also closed last year.<\/p>\n

\"A\u2018Inse\u0301parable solitaire du 17-01-2026\u2019 (2026), a bronze sculpture by Lionel Sabatt\u00e9, on display at the HdM Gallery booth \u00a9 Studio LS Vue 2<\/p>\n

Amid the reassessments, the Art Basel fair remains a vital platform, dealers say. Hadrien de Montferrand, whose HdM Gallery is in Beijing and London, says he is doubling down this year. \u201cArt fairs are expensive to do, so I have decided not to do Geneva [Art Gen\u00e8ve] or [Art] Brussels but instead get a bigger booth in Hong Kong.\u201d He brings work by a group of the gallery\u2019s artists, including a bronze sculpture of an elongated bird with its beak bowed, made by the French artist Lionel Sabatt\u00e9, a Prix Marcel Duchamp 2025 nominee.<\/p>\n

De Carlo describes Art Basel Hong Kong as \u201cthe biggest asset for the market in the Asia Pacific\u201d. As well as Dadamaino,\u00a0his showing will include the renowned Chinese figurative painter Yan Pei-Ming and the Berlin-based duo Elmgreen & Dragset, whose white lacquered bronze sculpture of a young boy \u2014 \u201cRobert (2024)\u201d \u2014 will sit at the top of the booth, looking down at the fair.<\/p>\n

\"Close\u2018Robert\u2019 (2024), a lacquered bronze sculpture by Berlin-based duo Elmgreen & Dragset\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009 \u00a9 Courtesy of the artist and Massimo De Carlo. Photo: Andrea Rossetti\"Photograph\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009which will sit at the top of the Massimo De Carlo booth at Art Basel Hong Kong \u00a9 Courtesy of the artist and Massimo De Carlo. Photo: Elmar Vestne<\/p>\n

The Mishcon de Reya and ArtTactic report finds things are picking up a little as Hong Kong\u2019s auction market \u201cappears to be transitioning towards the early stages of renewed growth\u201d. Traditional Asian works and luxury collectibles, including jewellery, are identified as expanding areas, in a generally \u201cmore conservative market environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The fair organisers themselves seem to be tacking in the opposite direction. This year sees the first iteration of Zero 10, a section that zones in on digital art, which Art Basel debuted at its Miami fair in December. \u201cWe are doing what we can to provide hope, and with an emphasis on the next generations of buyers,\u201d says Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong. The section\u2019s focus will be on Asian artists, such as the South Korean animator DeeKay (Art of This Millennium gallery), whose playful characters recall a childhood love of video games, and the trio Qu Leilei, Seneca and Tim Yip, whose work fuses artificial intelligence with traditional ink painting (Asprey Studio).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA still from \u2018R U OK?\u2019 (2026), a video by the Korean animator DeeKay being shown at the Zero 10 sector \u00a9 Courtesy of the artist and AOTM\"A\u2018Lili\u2019, a large-scale installation by Tim Yip, also on show at Zero 10 \u00a9 Courtesy of the artist and Asprey Studio<\/p>\n

The new generation of buyers is not necessarily comprised of twenty-somethings, Siyang-Le says, acknowledging generally more conservative tastes. \u201cWe are promoting cross-collecting. There are people who come from other areas, such as antiques or ink, who are not as familiar with art fairs but are beginning to come to our platforms,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She and others note the renewed activity around contemporary art in and around Hong Kong, including the appointment of the respected Philip Tinari as deputy director and head of art at Tai Kwun \u2014 a cultural complex supported by The Hong Kong Jockey Club \u2014 following more than 14 years at Beijing\u2019s UCCA museum. His predecessor, Pi Li, is said to be joining the forthcoming JD Museum in Shenzhen, backed by one of China\u2019s leading tech and online retail companies, JD.com, a rival to Amazon.<\/p>\n

Such projects will boost an otherwise beleaguered market, Lam says. \u201cIt takes time, but we are heading towards having museums with a voice for China, and for Asia, not just following the west. Now we can start to have more confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

March 27-29, artbasel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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