How to Improve the Hong Kong Art Scene

Our city’s art scene is on the edge of a renaissance—but there’s work to be done before a full-blown flourishing.

 

HK Magazine   May 15, 2014

From: Link

 

 

Art fairs, art events, art galleries, art nights, art walks: all signs point to a Hong Kong art scene that's on the up and up. This weekend, scores of international collectors descend on Hong Kong to snap up the best in modern Asian culture at Art Basel. The city's art scene might be attracting international hype—but local artists aren’t getting the level of exposure they should be.

 

“Hong Kong is the primary storefront for Chinese contemporary art,” says Mark Saunderson, co-founder and director of the Asia Contemporary Art Show. He estimates that 65 percent of Hong Kong’s art galleries handle only Chinese contemporary artists—leaving precious little room for home-grown talent. So what can we do to take all this art energy to the next level? Whether you’re a wealthy Basel collector, an up-and-coming-artist, a patron or even just a good old fashioned art-lover, we can all help improve the Hong Kong art scene in a few easy steps.

 

1. Think Global

The world is in the grip of Chinese art fever—but Hong Kong doesn’t seem to count. It's tough for local artists to score face-time in the city's big-time galleries. Fortunately, there are voices in Hong Kong standing up for local art’s space in the world.

 

“It’s a real struggle for people to become artists in Hong Kong,” says author and collector William Lim, who almost exlusively buys Hong Kong art. His new book, “The No Colors,” examines the development of contemporary art in the city. “We have some very unusual and very talented artists who went against society when they selected this profession. They are starting to prove that they have a place, and they are doing work that is worth paying attention to.”

 

For years, Hong Kong art has been viewed as no more than a sideline to the Chinese market. But “it’s not a provincial scene,” says Cosmin Costinas, the director of nonprofit art space Para/Site. He suggests that the secret to fostering local art is not to wall ourselves off, but instead to interact with the rest of the world.

 

Morgan Wong, “Plus-Minus-Zero”

 

Costinas explains that the integration of local talents in an international art scene actually helps the local scene to grow—it proves that Hong Kong art is produced in line with high standards from elsewhere, while maintaining our local flavor. Together with Chantal Wong of the Asia Art Archive Costinas has curated “Ten Million Rooms of Yearning: Sex in Hong Kong,” a huge exhibition of 40 Hong Kong and regional artists, which is on show in five spaces across the city from now until August 10 (see full details at www.para-site.org.hk). “We’re including works by classical figures, grassroots artists and modernist masters, [as well as] fostering a lot of young artists in Hong Kong,” he says. “We’re showing international and regional artists. This kind of balance is absolutely essential.”

 

But it’s not just about bringing international talent to Hong Kong, it’s also about getting our local artists out into foreign art shows. Take Hongkonger Nadim Abbas—one of Hong Kong’s more successful young artists and the designer of this year’s Art Basel Art Bar—who recently exhibited at New York’s legendary Armory Show; or Lee Kit, who represented Hong Kong at the 55th Venice Biennale last year.

 

Iris Lee founded Fo Tan art space A-lift Gallery, which dedicates itself to showing only local art. She says that she skips the local fairs in order to bring her artists to London and Beijing art fairs and the China Guardian Auctions instead. “People are quite interested to know Hong Kong art,” she says. There’s an audience for Hong Kong art: our artists just have to prove they’re worth the buzz.

 

Dan Leung, “Blitz”

 

2. Show Some Love

Of course, we also have to nurture artists themselves. “We want to support artists so they can continue working and making art,” says Iris Lee of A-lift Gallery. “If we don’t, and they’re forced to take breaks, their art might filter out, and eventually disappear.”

 

“It is still very difficult for many artists to sustain a practice, holding up a full-time day job, paying ridiculous rents…” says Nadim Abbas. “I still depend on a part-time salary teaching at university, although that is exactly what gave me the freedom to work outside of typical market-driven parameters.”

 

What are these parameters? Artists in Hong Kong have long relied on commissions from corporations and businesses. It pays the bills—and in the case of large works of public art, it can raise awareness of artists, too. But that does make it difficult to reconcile artistic direction with financial viability. There are many more galleries in the city than there once were, they’re all looking for one thing: marketable art. “Galleries are fighting to recruit new graduates now, by sponsoring their work straight after they complete their degrees,” says emerging artist Chan Sai-lok. “Decorative, elegant, or Hong Kong-related artworks seem to do well, but experimental works suffer. It’s a form of support, but it will deeply change the course of their work.”

 

Carsten Nicolai’s ICC exhibition for Art Basel

 

But this balancing act between the commercial and the progressive seems to be becoming easier to manage, as the infrastructure behind Hong Kong art grows more rooted and stable. For one, there’s more space for artists to work than before: take the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre in Shek Kip Mei, which was opened in 2008 to provide affordable studio and exhibition space. It has 135 studio units for artists, with rent starting at $8.40 per square foot, and studios starting at 300 square feet. It’s cheaper still for students, and many artists share studios to further cut costs.

 

There’s more money knocking around to support Hong Kong art, as well. Last week, Duty Free Shoppers founder Robert Miller announced a $100 million donation to the Asia Society Hong Kong. It’s touted as the single largest private donation for the arts in our city to date. The money will go towards commissioning major works from emerging talent in the city. The government is ramping up its involvement as well. Last year the government-established Arts Development Council (ADC) provided over $40 million for grants for the arts in 2013, and over $72 million for arts development projects—they only spent $48 million the year before.

 

Of course, when it comes to government money there are always strictures in place. “They basically ask for you to have already completed half the works you want to show at the exhibition,” says installation artist Wendy Tai, whose latest exhibition, “Materia Medica” was funded in part by the ADC. “It doesn’t really make sense. If I am asking for a grant to fund the making of work, then how can I have finished half the work already?”

 

 

3. Use the Fairs

Despite the focus on Asian art, Hong Kong’s big-name art fairs are also getting in on the local act. The second edition of the Affordable Art Fair this year continued its Young Talent Hong Kong exhibition, which showcased the work of 11 up and coming young Hong Kong artists under the age of 35. Similarly, the Asia Contemporary Art Show offers two prizes for Hong Kong artists.

 

Meanwhile, Art Basel claims that more than half of its exhibiting galleries this year have offices in Asia. Indeed, Art Basel Hong Kong is switching its dates from May to March in 2015 in order to free up a space for itself in the congested international art calendar, creating more opportunities for galleries worldwide to take part. That’s good news for local artists, provided they can grab enough of the limelight. “One of the things we’re very proud of is that we’ve been able to flick the spotlight on Hong Kong,” says Magnus Renfrew, the director of Art Basel Asia (and the founder of its predecessor, Art HK). “With the issue of dates resolved, it gives us the opportunity to really build a mainstream audience: not just those who have an interest in art from Asia, but for the global art world.”

 

4. Give Them Space

As rents skyrocket in Central, the city’s art galleries have inevitably suffered. In recent years, we’ve seen prominent galleries go “on hiatus” or relocate to farther-flung parts of Hong Kong: Chai Wan, Aberdeen, Tin Wan or Fo Tan. It’s had mixed success in some places: the Cattle Depot Artist’s Village in Ma Tau Kok, for example, has been hampered by ridiculous rules governing the display of and access to work.

 

You might assume that having to move out of the lucrative center is a bad sign. But there might be a silver lining to this seemingly bleak trend. Gallery Exit, which was founded in 2008 to host more progressive local media art, moved permanently from Central to its Aberdeen “Southsite” in March 2012. “It was very helpful for us,” says the gallery’s Exhibition Director Arianna Gellini. “There wasn’t really much understanding from artists of what it really means to install a work in a big space. Relocating to an industrial building and to a bigger space was very good for artists to start focusing on space.” Essentially, being forced out of Hong Kong’s shoebox galleries has forced these artists into becoming more rounded, more international artists. And it’s not all been bad for business either, says Gellini. “Although we don’t get much of a walk-in audience, the people who come in are really interested in our programming.”

 

Chu Hing-wah, “Hong Kong Style Entertainment”

 

There are plenty more alternative methods for artists to step out of the Hollywood Road gallery strip and still thrive. One obvious place: online. One of the obvious benefits is that you don’t have to shell out rent on gallery space. The money you save, you can plunge back into supporting the art itself. Alexander Errera is the founder of Hong Kong-based Artshare.com, an online art platform which exhibits and sells works chosen by guest curators.

 

“Access is everything in art. Thanks to our network, we have access to great curators, really good artists, and really good galleries.” He acknowledges the importance of fairs and galleries in the art ecosystem and the opportunities it poses for artists, but suggests that something has to change. “They won’t disappear, but they need to adapt to the market: whether if it’s moving out of the expensive places or being open to doing things differently.”

 

Seems the government’s been paying attention to the trend too. In March the WKCD’s Mobile M+ arts program launched “Neon Signs” at neonsigns.hk, an online exhibition showcasing Hong Kong’s unique signage. The program includes an open call for photography submissions, combining local heritage, and public participation.

 

5. Get Involved

But the most important element to growing an art scene? Public participation. We have to make art a part of our community, not just increase production. “Having more Hong Kong artists or more artwork does not equate to improving the local art scene,” points out artist Chan Sai-lok. “Do the grassroots people know about local art? How many Hongkongers really go to exhibitions?”

 

The Asia Society Hong Kong’s executive director Alice Mong suggests that it’s about access. “People think about art as elitist, and that drives me nuts,” she says. “All Hong Kong people should have access to great art. A museum is one of the most democratic things of all.”

 

“We’d really like to take further steps towards getting more art coming out of the halls and into the city,” says Art Basel’s Magnus Renfrew. “But Hong Kong is a very difficult place to have a visual impact. The sheer scale of the buildings means that even if you were to have a four- or five-story-high monumental sculpture, it would just get dwarfed in the context of the city. I think the way that one can make an impact is through temporary interventions in the form of performances.” The organization has made an excellent start this year with Carsten Nicolai’s installation, which is taking over the ICC in an interactive light show while Art Basel is in town.

 

Herman Wong, “Relationship”

 

It’s this large-scale art that’s been most effective here. Take last summer’s M+ Inflation! Exhibition last year at the West Kowloon Promenade, and Florentijn Hofman’s infamous giant rubber duck at Harbour City. “Conceptually, it didn’t require a great deal of thought to appreciate what it was, but it resonated in the most extraordinary way,” says the Asia Contemporary Art Show’s Mark Saunderson. “A part of it is capturing people’s imaginations. Even if the level of engagement was taking an iPhone picture with the rubber duck, it did engage people with the concept of public art. Without the opportunity, people don’t learn.”

 

Art seems to be reaching a tipping point in Hong Kong. International fairs are just the beginning: Events and exhibitions are bringing art into all our lives, without us having to venture into galleries, thanks to art hubs such as the new PMQ. This very weekend, Chai Wan and Wong Chuk Hang are throwing celebrations of local art and design, while Sheung Wan hosts street art on its unused surfaces as part of the HKwalls project. There's much to celebrate in the local art scene, but it's far from a finished piece.

 

Lee Kit’s “You (you).” at the 55th Venice Biennale