By the time Art Basel Hong Kong‘s preview rolled around on Wednesday, visitors had already enjoyed a packed schedule of events, parties and exhibitions across the city. There was a lizard in a boxing ring and a sonic assault of screeching synth at the M+ party on Monday night; a goth Butoh performance to Rammstein in Sotheby’s grotto exhibition space; and Supper Club kicked off its programme of nightly performances with Hong Kong-based artist Samuel Swope being blasted with an industrial-sized fan to the sound of eerie chanting. Meanwhile, the closest guests got to communism in Hong Kong was at the Swire Artist’s Party, where an irate queue, the result of a tech failure, called to mind Soviet-era bread lines.

Fortunately, the Art Basel queues moved swiftly into the packed Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre halls at Wednesday’s VIP preview. This year’s edition features 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories, with around half of the galleries from the Asia Pacific. The preview showed packed aisles, with a strong international turnout, marked by a sizeable Southeast Asian audience as well as European collectors, giving a much-needed boost of confidence for the city’s status as an arts hub.

Established galleries reported sales at a brisk pace in the first hours of the fair’s preview. Notable big-ticket transactions were reported by David Zwirner who had sold an ‘Infinity Net’ painting by Yayoi Kusama for $3.5 million (all figures USD unless stated), a Michaël Borremans painting for $1.6 million, and works by Elizabeth Peyton and Félix González-Torres each for $900,000. Thaddaeus Ropac reported over $5 million in sales across the first two days, including a Georg Baselitz painting for $1.3 million on the first day, a Daniel Richter painting for $450,000, followed by a $1.5 million screenprint by Roy Lichtenstein on the second preview day.

Founder Thaddaeus Ropac called it a good start to the fair: ‘Admittedly, ahead of the fair we weren’t sure how it would go, but there is positive energy here—a sense of cautious optimism which is translating into sales. We’re seeing a bit more of an international attendance compared to the past couple of years too, with Europeans returning.’

Over at Hauser & Wirth’s booth, a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois sold for $2 million to a collector from China, a Christina Quarles painting for $1.35 million, and a 2025 canvas by Avery Singer was placed in a Hong Kong collection for $575,000. Meanwhile, David Kordansky sold a Jonas Wood painting for $650,000.

Many smaller galleries, however, didn’t see the same level of sales, with a slower pace amidst the economic uncertainty plaguing the art market in recent years. Despite a buzzing atmosphere, collectors were subdued in their approach to buying—no longer rushing to buy as they did during the art boom of the 2010s. Local artist Adrian Wong described the fair as ‘more humane’ this year: ‘You can have conversations with people’. Indeed, gallerists chit-chatted with visitors without looking over their shoulders for worthier game.

A gallerist at Cape Town-based Blank Projects, where textile and bead tapestry works by South African artist Igshaan Adams are exhibited in the Kabinett single artist showcase, commented that there is ‘none of the European frenetic art fair energy where people are pushing each other over to get to an artwork’. Nonetheless, the gallery had already sold a couple of works priced at $95,000–100,000. ‘So, we are more relaxed and enjoying the pace,’ he said.

Textile art features heavily in this year’s edition. Retro Africa presents the works of 35-year-old Nigerian artist Samuel Nnorom, whose intricate knotted textile wall sculptures, priced at $11,500–22,000, had mostly sold out on the first day. Shanghai‘s Vanguard Gallery presents a long, eye-catching antique carpet from Lin Tianmiao, embroidered with sexist phrases about women, which was still available at 2,700,000 CNY ($377,000). Madrid gallery Sabrina Amrani features a Kabinett section of works from the 1970s to 1980s by Catalan textile art pioneer, Josep Grau-Garriga, priced between 12,000–75,000 EUR.

Meanwhile, the fair’s Encounters section for large-scale installations reflects shifting trends and the tastes of a younger generation with an entire digital art aisle featuring installations by Jon Rafman, Frank Wang Yefeng, Alison Nguyen, and Lu Yang. Inside a small, golden curtain-lined room at De Sarthe’s booth, visitors are invited to play a video game as part of artist Mak2’s project.

Standout works from Hong Kong artists include paintings by Chow Chun Fai at Hong Kong’s SC Gallery, with a large triptych of the 1997 ceremony of the British handover of Hong Kong to China—which took place in the very exhibition centre hosting the art fair—priced at 1.2 million HKD. Influential Swiss mega collector Uli Sigg was spotted admiring the works.

Putonghua—the common dialect of mainland China—could be heard spoken around the fair during the VIP preview days, indicating a strong presence from mainland Chinese collectors, especially of a younger variety. Galerie Urs Meile, which has had a presence in Beijing since 2006, had sold three large, chromatic, acrylic paintings by Ju Ting to Asian collectors for $45,000–48,000. Meile noted the changing demographics, adding that there is a generational shift in collectors. ‘A chunk of buyers we had pre-Covid have disappeared now. They stopped travelling and buying, stopped being involved and forgot about art.’ Instead, what he sees is a younger generation engaging with art who are primarily concerned about content.

‘That’s completely different to the generation 20 years ago. They had a lot of money and wanted to show off… Today collectors want content and they’re taking the right steps. It’s about knowledge. These guys really want knowledge first, not just [to have] something first. This is a very good development,’ he said. ‘Galleries and museums have to shift and have to adapt to cater to a new generation.’

Hopefully that puts an end to Kaws-mania.

^{Published on ocula.com, 29 March 2025}