HONG KONG — ART HK opened strongly Wednesday night with solid sales and a general consensus that the fair had taken a significant step up in quality this year. At previous editions there had been a justifiable suspicion that some international galleries were underestimating the sophistication of the local market and, although even this year a few still wondered whether exhibitors were bringing their best game to Hong Kong just weeks out from Art Basel, the high quality of works on offer was evident everywhere.
The normally overblown description “museum quality” could even be fairly applied to some of the galleries’ presentations — particularly notable in this category was Aquavella with Joan Mitchell and Galleria d'Arte Maggiore with Georgio Morandi. Meanwhile Michael Werner featured a superb selection of key works by German artists from the early 1920s through the end of the last century. Curated by Dr. Dimitri Ozerkov, the director of the contemporary art department at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the booth contained gems by artists such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay and Georg Baselitz, who has been exhibiting with Werner since his first show in 1963.
As is common with ART HK, sales proceeded generally at a leisurely pace, with modest opening success at the majority of galleries, a lot of conversation, and confidence of more to come. At Cheim & Reid, partner Adam Sheffer remarked that ART HK has its own relaxed rhythm. “It’s not like Art Basel where there is an explosion of sales in the first 20 minutes,” he said. A couple of hours into the vernissage the gallery had sold a Louise Bourgeois drawing for $100,000 and a collage by Donald Baechler for $50,000.
Hauser & Wirth and White Cube provided two outstanding exceptions to the leisurely rule. The former made a range of important sales over the night, including Zhang Enli’s canvas “The Curved Wires” (2012), for $165,000 to a Beijing-based collector and Bharti Kher’s mixed media “The Dragon, the Tiger, and the Phoenix” (2012), for $300,000 to a collector from Hong Kong. Meanwhile White Cube sold works from across their stable of gallery artists from Antony Gormley and Rachel Kneebone to Damien Hirst. The gallery was also basking in the glow of the successful opening of their Anselm Kiefer show at their Hong Kong space this week. Six canvases had already been sold at prices ranging from $600,000 to just under $1 million.
Notable sales at ART HK were also chalked up by a few others: de Sarthe Gallery had two oils by modern master Chu Teh Chun, including a superb work from 1969 for $3 million; Sprüth Magers sold a Sterling Ruby canvas at $155,000 to an Australian collector and a George Condo — “Toy Head” (2012) — at $150,000 to an Asian collector; and Galerie Krinzinger had a success with an Angela De la Cruz oil for €43,000 and a Hans Op de Beeck sculpture “Butterflies” (2012), for €30,000.
Meanwhile, a shot of glamor was delivered to the event courtesy of Galerie Gmurzynska, which was showing work by Wifredo Lam, side by side with a typically well-selected showing of modern masters from Joan Miro to Fernando Botero in a booth designed specifically for them by Zaha Hadid, who attracted a gaggle of admirers eager to catch a moment with Asia's current favorite "starchitect."
ART HK continues at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre through Sunday May 20. Click on our slideshow for a selection of works on show this year.
To see images from ART HK 2012, click on the slide show.