黑料不打烊

On the heels of Frieze New York, the art world is not given a chance to breathe as Art Basel Hong Kong launches its second edition this week. As more and more art fairs pop up across the world, each attempts to steal the global art market’s focus with a signature splash. Art Basel Hong Kong already has a strong hold by being a new fair in the mega art capital, but it has also called attention to itself with two special projects that extend the fair well beyond its walls, and across Victoria Harbor. Famed British artist Tracey Emin and German artist Carsten Nicolai have created larger-than-life light installations that will occupy two soaring buildings in Kowloon – visible from not only the fair, but most parts of the city around the waterfront. Art Basel Hong Kong is also significant, in that it highlights the art from the continent, with over half of its 245 exhibiting galleries having a base in the Asia-Pacific region, and 24 galleries from Hong Kong proper. The fair will wow with their “Encounters” section, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, featuring 17 oversized sculptural experiences. Since Hong Kong has long-standing roots in the film industry, the fair has responded with a new section devoted to film that creates a relationship with locals, and was carefully curated by Asian digital art expert Li Zhenzhua . The 2014 Art Basel Hong Kong fair not only presents some of the world’s leading galleries and artists, but also serves as a portal to the sophisticated and thriving Asian art world.

Art Basel brought its brand to Hong Kong last year giving international galleries a platform in the growing economy and art collector base in the city known as being the gateway between the East and West. The cross-cultural exchange brings six sectors of exciting programming to the fair, including 170 international exhibitors in Galleries, site specific commissions from regional artists in Insights , emerging artists in Discoveries, large scale works in Encounters, important films about artists in Film and international publications in Magazines that includes a Salon series of lectures and discussions.

But echoing beyond the pavilion and weaving the fair within the fabric of the city are the projects by Tracey Emin and Carsten Nicolai that light up the shores of the Kowloon district. Emin’s piece has already begun to light up the city, in a collaboration with the 30-story Peninsula Hotel, My Heart Is With You Always features her signature handwriting in neon on the side of the façade from 7pm to midnight each night for 10 days. With an opening that coincides with the opening of the fair, Nicolai’s piece will take over the tallest building in the city, the International Commerce Center. For Alpha Pulse, which was commissioned by Art Basel Hong Kong, Nicolai will reprogram the 118-story building’s existing lighting system to pulse rhythmically at a relaxing, low frequency for two hours over three nights. The light installation will be accompanied by a soundtrack that visitors can access using a smart phone app that will synchronize the soundtrack along with the light pulsations, activated through their phone’s camera.

The fair is also attempting to engage the flavor of Hong Kong with the newly created film program, bringing in the founder and director of Beijing Art Lab, Li Zhenhua, as the expert curator. Li has chosen 49 works by 41 artists from a pool of 140 applicants, which he has organized into six themes - “Urban Life”, “Beautiful Visuals”, “Animation”, “Action”, “Performance” and “Fiction Mix.” In order to make the chosen films more accessible to the visiting audience, they are all under 20 minutes, and the roster includes 29 Asian-Pacific artists.

 

The Encounters section, curated for the second year by Yuko Hasegawa, spreads over 60 square meters of exhibition space, and is meant to be truly experiential. Of the 17 oversized pieces, some are interactive, inviting visitors to unfold Marta Chilindron’s Cube 48 Orange, or play an infinite ping pong game on Lee Wen’s Ping Pong Go-Round. Sun Xun plays on the increasing role of globalization with an immigration office for the fictional country of Jing Bang, where fair goers can interact with performers and apply for citizenship. Visitors can become performers themselves for Yu Cheng-Ta’s The Letters (Live Performance). Cheng-Ta has taken something that anyone with an email account can relate to – the often ridiculous spam email. Visitors are invited to read out loud advance-fee fraud spam emails sent to Cheng-Ta while being videotaped. The videos will then be replayed between performances, turning the visitor into art. Rebecca Baumann’s mesmerizing Automated Color Field (Variation V) is like a breathing Pantone color chart, with a motorized grid of colors that flip from one to the next, calmly clicking through an ever changing mosaic of color.

Galleries specifically from the Asia-Pacific region spanning from Turkey to New Zealand, and to the Middle East and India make up the Insights section, which also features art-historic, solo and two or three person shows by artists reigning from these areas. This section is meant to bring artists from these regions under the international nose. Jeddah-based Athr Gallery will present a solo booth of Ahmed Mater, Saudi Arabia’s most known artist, whose work is inspired by a fusion of his medical background with his view on modern urbanized society. Hong Kong’s Koru Contemporary Art will take the art-historic route, showcasing a beautiful collection of vintage photographs of Hong Kong by Brian Brake.

 

A small lecture program will focus on bridging the gap of the global art world and collecting internationally. Two out of the three talks are in English, literally showing the influence of globalization in the art world. The Salon series is more lax, bringing together several talks per day in English, Mandarin and Japanese, such as artist talks (including Carsten Nicolai), topics such as collecting cross culturally and others of interest to those local to Hong Kong.

Although the special programming may seem to trump the main fair, Art Basel Hong Kong invites the world’s best galleries to exhibit, including Lehmann Maupin, 303 Gallery, Marian Goodman, Van de Weghe, Zach Feuer and Kavi Gupta. Despite the popularization of the art fair as a selling tool around the world, Art Basel Hong Kong has shown that it has a strong investment in not only fueling the art market economy in Hong Kong, but also educating collectors and encouraging a cross-cultural conversation between the thriving Asian metropolis and the globalized market.