Exceptional artworks at 7th Art Basel Hong Kong

In March 2019 the city hosted the 7th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s leading art fair aiming at providing a unique overview of the art world. The history of Art Basel goes back to 1970 when galleries from Basel founded this fair in Switzerland. Nowadays, Art Basel represents the world’s most prestigious showcase of exceptional artworks. Only three places in the world have been given the privilege to organise Art Basel fairs – Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. Every Art Basel reflects the traits of its host city and region. Therefore, Art Basel Hong Kong offers the opportunity to experience the uniqueness of participating galleries, artworks, or parallel programming which is produced partly by local institutions.

Attracting collectors from across the globe, the edition in Hong Kong has brought together participants from over 70 countries and territories. Within five days, private collectors as well as representatives from more than 130 international museums and institutions such as M+ (Hong Kong), Tate (London) or Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing) visited the fair.

Featuring 242 premier galleries from 35 countries and territories, Art Basel Hong Kong displayed the most outstanding artworks as well as ambitious presentations by galleries from both East and West. This year’s edition witnessed 21 galleries participating for the first time, with nine premier galleries not only from the United States but also from Europe exhibiting in the main sector of Art Basel Hong Kong for the first time. Besides that, five galleries from the Asia-Pacific region joined the main sector as well, demonstrating Asia’s strong position in the fair.

In addition to presenting the world’s most remarkable art pieces within its sectors ‘Galleries’, ‘Insights’, ‘Discoveries’ and ‘Encounters’, the fair provided galleries with an opportunity to attract attendees with curated exhibitions in the ‘Kabinett’ sector. Besides that, multi-media artist and film producer Li Zhenhua brought together film and video works in the ‘Film’ sector, and writer and editor Stephanie Bailey created a programme featuring discussion panels in the ‘Conversations’ sector.

Not only did the Hong Kong version of Art Basel strengthen Asia’s position in the fair by presenting a notable amount of galleries from the Asia-Pacific region, but also once again it confirmed Hong Kong’s place among the most salient cultural cities of the world.