Skip to main content

Art Basel Hong Kong 2015

Maurice O’Riordan
Eyeline 83
The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...

The third edition of Art Basel Hong Kong in 2015 signaled the increasing prominence of this event in the Asian and international art fair calendar with an impressive coterie of participating galleries, collectors, artists and curators, including a relatively strong Australian presence. While the rebranding of this Fair in 2013 under the Art Basel embrace (together with annual fairs in Basel and Miami) raised concerns about it losing its distinctive Hong Kong/Asian identity, this latest edition proved the brand’s strategic mobilisation of power in a city which has long prided itself as a gateway for East-West trade. This edition was also the first under Malaysian curator Adeline Ooi as Director Asia Art Basel (replacing Magnus Renfrew), an appointment aligned with the fact that half of this year’s 233 participating galleries came from Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. 

Located over two sprawling floors of the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre overlooking Victoria Harbour, Art Basel Hong Kong is, like any other large-scale international art fair, a cacophony of visual stimuli, a step into a largely contemporary art candy store-cum-warehouse, where excess and brashness can both delight and disorient. In many ways it is the complete antithesis of the art museum experience, where order and context, in terms of curatorial and exhibition design, is the key to accessing the art object. And yet, despite their overarching commercial drive, art fairs such as Art Basel Hong Kong increasingly cater to a broader curatorial and art educational/development sector, with related programs at this event including talks and conversations, film screenings, curatorial projects and numerous offsite and satellite events. This year saw the first iteration of BMW Art Journey, which will see an emerging

Eko Nugroho, Lot Lost, 2015.

Eko Nugroho, Lot Lost, 2015. Mural, machine-embroidered banners, bronze sculptures; banners include slogans 'Mayoritas dihalalkan minoritas' (Majority is accepted, minority is banned), and 'Negeri kaya yang miskin moral' (Rich but morally poor). Photograph M. O'Riordan.