At the end of another rough week on Wall Street, Hong Kong was partying hard. The occasion was the latest instalment of Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s biggest, most prestigious art fair. While the annual Art Basel events in Basel and Miami tend to rank more highly among international dealers and collectors, Hong Kong is the centrepiece of an evolving Asian art market where the potential for growth is incalculable.
If Hong Kong is yet to realise its potential it’s partly because of the turbulent politics of the region as Beijing has asserted its control. It’s also because ‘international art’ has always meant ‘art made and sold in Europe and America’. Although China may have been the world’s most dynamic source of contemporary art for the past 20 years, old prejudices die hard.
