How Art Basel Hong Kong is fuelling the Greater Bay Area’s cultural ambitions
Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen are lavishing money on art venues and shows, but can really this buy them lasting cultural capital?
GBA policymakers have embraced the lexicon of the cultural hub. Hong Kong bills itself as a “centre for international cultural exchange”, and Macau as a “city of performing arts”. Dongguan’s policy blueprints call for the establishment of a “strong cultural area”, while Shenzhen proclaims itself a creativity and innovation capital. Guangzhou leans on a cluster of triennials – in art, image and design – for its cultural branding. Wherever you go in the GBA, you’ll find art as soft power.
Perhaps none does so with as much verve as Hong Kong, where Art Basel, Art Central and a raft of museum exhibitions are gathered into a wider package of events known as “Hong Kong Super March”.
There are risks to the “Super March” strategy, however. Mega-events can flatten a destination into a mere backdrop for short-stay fair-goers and art insiders. They focus “on short-term spectacles and selfie-friendly moments, over long-term and deep engagements with culture,” says Dr Ashley Lee Wong, an assistant professor of cultural studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Mega-events require huge investment for large [but] short-term impact.”
Yet the upside is equally clear: a critical mass of events brings in high‑spending visitors in a well defined window, enabling officials to point to attendance figures, hotel occupancy and social‑media reach. For a city still struggling to match pre‑pandemic arrival numbers, the temptation is difficult to resist.
Hong Kong’s GBA neighbours should, in theory, benefit from any visitor surge – but viewed through the Convention Centre’s vast windows, the GBA can sometimes seem as obscure as the Kowloon skyline in springtime fog. To be sure, the region’s 11 cities have deep economic ties and quick connections by bridge, ferry and rail. But for Art Basel visitors, the GBA is not so much a cultural polity as a policy slogan.