It never rains; it pours. The arrival of ART HK - Hong Kong's major contemporary art fair - is bringing a deluge of visual arts events this week, when some of the world's biggest galleries, artists and auction houses come to town to show off works of all dimensions to buyers and collectors from around the region.
It won't be all commerce and no culture, however, as local arts organisations are taking the opportunity to host talks, forums and thought-provoking exhibitions that promise to be both intellectually engaging and entertaining.
ART HK 11
Leading the pack will be the Hong Kong International Art Fair, aka ART HK, which returns for the fourth year, looking bigger and better. A total of 250 galleries specialising in modern and contemporary art from 38 countries will occupy two halls at the Convention and Exhibition Centre from Thursday to May 29. Top galleries such as L&M Arts, Victoria Miro Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery will be joining the fair for the first time while international artists including Takashi Murakami, Zhang Huan, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley will be represented.
Asia Art Archive
The Asia Art Archive (AAA) returns with another Backroom Conversations series at the fair, bringing together experts and practitioners in the contemporary art field to discuss a wide range of cultural issues. In a session titled Is Ink Painting Dead? Is It Contemporary?, three pairs of experts - AAA's Jane Debevoise and veteran ink painter Wucius Wong, curator Kao Chien-hui and artist Huang Zhiyang, curator/critic Pauline Yao and artist Qiu Zhijie - will consider how ink painting is relevant to the contemporary art debate. And as AAA continues its 10th anniversary celebrations, two other panel discussions - Hong Kongism and The Decade Revisited ... - will look back on how art and culture have developed in the past 10 years locally and internationally. A new initiative, called Open Platform, will give cultural producers and organisers a chance to give a 28-minute presentation, which can be anything from a lecture to a performance, to be held during ART HK 11.
