Since it arrived in 2013, how has the global art fair affected the city’s art scene?

By CJC Fellows

Now in its fifth year, it’s indisputable that when Art Basel arrived in Hong Kong, it put the city on the map as the centre of the contemporary art market in the Asia Pacific region. A significant number of galleries have moved to or expanded their presence in Hong Kong since it started, and attendance figures have grown significantly -– —from 2008, when 20,000 attendees visited Art HK (which was bought out by Art Basel in 2011) to 2016, when 70,000 passed through.

Public ticket sales for last year’s Art Basel fair were much higher than expected, and had to be stopped temporarily as too many people rushed into the fair. Adeline Ooi, Art Basel’s director in Asia, predicts a similar public interest in the fair this year. “Ticket sales have been overwhelming, and we’re expecting a full house”.

Over the last five years, Hong Kong’s art market has developed, thanks to the high-profile event, but less immediately obvious is the real impact Art Basel has had on the local art scene and audience. As an international art fair, Art Basel has helped establish Hong Kong as an arts hub in Asia. It has brought in more art-industry professionals from around the world and has made Hong Kong a regular stop on the international art circuit. On the local level, artists and residents have had more opportunities for international exchange and exposure, thanks to Art Basel’s knock-on effect.

Although Art Basel launched its first edition in 2013, its stake in the local art scene actually began in 2011, when it announced the purchase of Art HK, a local art fair founded in 2008 that first put Hong Kong on the world map. “At the time, I don’t think any of us at Art Basel ever imagined the show getting so much momentum and so much attention so quickly,” said Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel.

During the first four years of Art Basel in Hong Kong, value added by arts, antiques and crafts to the Hong Kong economy grew by 20%, from HK$10 billion to HK$12 billion, according to the Census & Statistics Department.

The success of Art Basel also gave birth to satellite fairs. Art Central, which is in its third edition, is one example. Leslie Law, of Affinity For Art gallery, said Art Central provides a lower threshold for local galleries than does Art Basel, and is more accessible for visitors, since Art Basel tends to feature more conceptual art.

Mimi Chun, founder of Blindspot Gallery, said that before Art Basel, “only expats bought photographic artworks, most of my clients were overseas or local expats. I think this scene has changed a lot. Local Chinese people started to buy photographic work as well which is a transformation.”

Hong Kong’s art scene faces very real challenges: There is no museum dedicated to contemporary art, (M+ is slated for completion in 2019); funding for artists is hard to come by, from both the market and government; and audience-building initiatives are lacking. Art Basel, and the subsequent development of Hong Kong’s art scene, have made a significant impact.

“Art Basel has served as an invaluable aspirational role for young artists in Hong Kong, providing a view of the potential for a sustainable career in the arts. It’s definitely made things better,” said Adrian Wong, a Los Angeles and Hong Kong-based visual artist. He said more local people have gone out to see the art than they did before, and that the local population has come to realise that a career in art and the cultural industries is actually feasible.

Cover photo: A close-up of Han Ishu’s work Colouring on show at URANO gallery. Discovery sector, Art Basel. PHOTO: CJC

By Maggie Leung 梁敏姬

《一念無明》是導演黃進獲香港首部劇情片計劃資助的作品，在僅 200 萬製作費的資源困局下，以編劇陳楚珩的劇本打動知名演員們不收分文演出，更憑作品入圍並得到多個海內外殊榮。故事以患有燥鬱症的阿東（余文樂 飾）離開精神病院後，在社會與本來關係惡劣的父親大海（曾志偉 飾）重新生活為主線，插敍交代阿東患病前的過去。

不論劇本還是拍攝手法，《一念無明》都以寫實方式呈現人物和情節，在電影中反映香港精神病患者面對的醫療制度問題，以及其他社會問題，例如房屋及單非。作為一部以真實性主導的電影，美中不足之處是有些舖排和對白因煽情而失真，也少了含蓄之美，例如在醫院的天台上，大海在兒子面前承認自己不懂得為人父親一幕。如果把這個爆發地點從公眾場所改成一個私人地方，對白點到即止，我相信會合理得多，也不會讓觀眾覺得曾志偉的演出突然太過用力。相反，大海最後於精神病患者家屬的小組聚會中，他因被邀請發言而真情流露，坦白自己應否將阿東重新送到精神病院的忐忑，其對過往的後悔及覺醒皆人性化並令人動容。

電影最意外的情節是阿東的前女友 Jenny （方皓玟 飾）以宗教名義表示早已原諒阿東，實情是一直把罪人之名加諸在阿東上以換取「寬恕」的力量，令本以為可以與 Jenny 復合的阿東情緒崩潰。阿東在超市失控吃巧克力的影片被上傳到網絡，過去意外導致母親（金燕玲 飾）死亡的新聞再次被受輿論。父子二人被其他板間房的鄰居逼遷—— 其實大家同住一個單位，你我都不過是受社會和權貴壓逼的可憐人。相煎何太急呢，香港人？

Photos: Courtesy of Golden Scene

By Di Liu

One doesn’t just happen upon Spring Workshop in Wong Chuk Hang, the up-and-coming arts district in the southern part of Hong Kong Island, on a Saturday afternoon. The adventure requires a deliberate plan to navigate high bridges, heavy traffic, local residents and fellow art lovers to find the destination in a dim, vacant industrial building.

At the entrance of the exhibition, visitors repeat the same ritual. They don black or white masks before stepping into the dark, mysterious site. As they enter, they are greeted by a mixture of the sounds from a cello, flute and clarinet, and a wall of text as part of An exposition, not an exhibition, which runs until April 1. This is it – a live music performance conceived by the Berlin-based American composer and artist Ari Benjamin Meyers performed together with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, who wear the same masks as the visitors.

This 30-minute performance is only a fraction of his multidisciplinary work. The project aims to bring together music and contemporary art, as well as six Hong Kong composers and seven local non-profit arts organisations, including M+, Asia Art Archive and Para Site.

Unlike many gallery shows, a single visit is not enough to take in this work since it takes place in multiple locations at different times. By using different media, locations and content during each performance, the project aims to transcend a typical white-cube gallery. Nomadic and ephemeral in nature, it will surely amaze visitors yet to come.

Photo: The performance by three local musicians from the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble at Spring Workshop on March 17, 2017.

By Joana Schertenleib

When the black painted tram arrives visitors were already waiting. On the first floor instructions were given by two young women. Windows were covered with a dark brown film allowing light to shine in only through clear clippings of text. We have boarded the mobile artwork: Kingsley Ng’s Twenty-Five Minutes Older.

Text on the windows explained the stories behind the different layers of this transmedia work. The first clear patch of text describes the work’s first layer; a sound installation we listened to later that was based on snippets out of author Lau Yee Cheung’s well-known novel Tête-bêche. The second layer was the title itself, a reference to the 1978 Latvian black-and-white documentary by Herz Frank’s Ten Minutes Older, which was on the emotional journey of a group of children watching a 10-minute short film. The third layer dominated the entire upper level of the tram by using camera obscura, which turned the whole interior into a moving screen.

We climbed to the second floor and the mood became dreamlike. Windows were sealed on the upper floor, only two benches on the sides of the tram were illuminated. Splitting us into two groups, we decided which of the two audio lines to listen to before taking a seat. As soon as the headphones went on, the light dimmed and the journey began.

Music took us by the hand into the darkness and projections slowly appeared. Turned upside down through the camera obscura’s lens, the outside street scenes flickered on the inside walls. Using a simple visual setup, light entered the enclosed environment through an aperture and was cast, inverted, onto the inner surface. Lights appeared in the viewer’s mind like vague, forgotten memories coming through the shadows. Together with the soft rocking of the tram and the quietly spoken story fragments we were lulled.

Surprised when the lights suddenly came on again, as quickly as a dream disappeared, this sensory experience was over.

Photos: courtesy of Art Basel

Three artists explore different possibilities at MILL6’s ‘Line of Times’ exhibition

By Emily Cheung and Gabriel Yiu

While clocks rule our lives, time itself is an abstract concept, invented by people to lend order to chaos. In the exhibition Lines of the Times, put on by Hong Kong’s MILL6 Foundation, three artists attempt to portray this most intangible idea in concrete ways.

Hong Kong artist Morgan Wong’s Filing Down a Steel Bar Until a Needle is Made aims to investigate the meaning of time to human life. Named after a Chinese allegory that illustrates perseverance and connection between the past and the present, the multimedia work documents Wong’s process of creating a needle by hand that he is chiselling down from a block of steel his own size and weight over the course of his life.

“You never see the end, you never see the start. It kind of gives you a feeling that this project is never-ending,” said Wong, pointing to a monitor showing his ongoing work. “You always know that you cannot capture time, because time just keeps on passing. And this is only a wasted effort in a way.”

Brooklyn-based visual artists Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, also known as Aziz + Cucher are considered pioneers of digitally based fine art photography and have worked with sculpture, animation, textiles and video installation since the early 1990s. In their first exhibition in Hong Kong, they are presenting four large digitally woven tapestries that combine the craftsmanship of the past, depictions of current events and forward-looking technology.

“They describe current issues, like the time when SARS was raging in Hong Kong. Maybe 100 years later, they may look up the historical moments on these works,” said Mizuki Takahashi, the senior curator and co-director of MILL6 Foundation.

Yin-Ju Chen is a multimedia artist from Taiwan who uses a combination of video, drawings and photography to create installations. Inspired by both Eastern and Western philosophy, her Extrastellar Evaluations II seek to reveal the connection between astrology and human history through line drawings and audio-visual projections to contemplate the uncertainty of human fate.

Lines of the Times runs from 11 March to 2 April at the MILL6 Pop-up Space at The Annex. For more details please click here.