Art Basel Hong Kong Revamps with Pan-Asian Curators
Art Basel Hong Kong announced a revamped Encounters sector featuring pan-Asian curators for large-scale works, drawing 17 likes and 1,096 views. Meanwhile, debates rage over "global art fair wars" between Frieze and Art Basel, with critics arguing the focus on capital and branding overshadows innovation. Tokyo's ENCOUNTERS exhibition showcased 40 emerging media artists, inspiring discussions on creative ideas becoming reality.
For the first time, Art Basel Hong Kong's Encounters sector, dedicated to large-scale works, will be curated by a collective of four Asia-based curators. This team is led by Mami Kataoka, the director of Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, and includes Isabella Tam from Hong Kong's M+, Alia Swastika from Jakarta, and Hirokazu Tokuyama, also from the Mori Art Museum. This new collective model replaces the traditional single-curator approach to bring more diverse, cross-regional perspectives to the fair. The shift towards regional leadership is a significant one, with all major curated sectors at the fair now overseen by Asia-based practitioners. The Film program, for instance, will be curated for the first time by a Hong Kong artist, the pioneering media artist and curator Ellen Pau. This move signals a structural commitment to showcasing and empowering local and regional expertise. The rivalry with Frieze, which launched its Seoul fair in 2022, has intensified the focus on regional identity. While Frieze Seoul has quickly become a significant event, Art Basel Hong Kong remains the larger fair, featuring 240 galleries in its upcoming edition compared to Frieze Seoul's 120. Directors from Art Basel have noted that Frieze's presence has actually boosted the number of Korean collectors attending the Hong Kong fair. Art Basel Hong Kong's 2024 edition saw a significant return to pre-pandemic scale, with 242 galleries from 40 countries, a 37% increase from 2023. Attendance reached 75,000, and galleries reported major sales, including a Willem de Kooning painting that sold for US$9 million. Looking ahead, the fair is introducing a new sector called "Echoes," which will feature curated presentations of recent works by up to three artists, offering a more focused look at contemporary practices. Additionally, the inaugural MGM Discoveries Art Prize will be awarded, providing a USD 50,000 prize to support an emerging artist. The fair is scheduled to run from March 28 to 30, 2025, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
