At Art Basel Hong Kong, Evidence of a Shifting Art World

New York Times

21-03-2025

The tectonic plates of the art world are always shifting as regions and countries gain or lose market power. An art fair provides useful data about the changes.
Think of it as Walt Disney World's 'it's a small world' attraction, but with pricey art for sale.
Art Basel Hong Kong, taking place March 28 to 30 in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, this year gathers 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories. From the first edition of the fair, in 2013, it was meant to be a hub for Asian art and artists.
'Our goal was to have 50 percent of the galleries with a presence in Asia'— meaning a physical space — 'and now we are exceeding that,' said Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel's director of fairs.
Even within Asia, there are constant fluctuations in geographic representation. For instance, 24 Japanese galleries are participating this year — 27 if you count international galleries that have a space in Japan — a figure that has been increasing in the past few years.
Two very different countries represented at the Hong Kong fair with the same number of galleries headquartered in each country — five — help to map the art world's current dynamics: Belgium and India. The former is small and relatively wealthy, with around 12 million people, and the latter has about 1.4 billion. Though poor per capita, India is a huge economic force.
India's total of five galleries reflects an increase of one over last year. Anant Art Gallery (a first-time exhibitor at the fair), Vadehra Art Gallery and Shrine Empire are based in New Delhi; Tarq and Jhaveri Contemporary are both in Mumbai.
'India has a growing art scene, and a growing market is part of that,' de Bellis said, noting that the work of Indian artists is also sprinkled throughout the fair, shown by galleries from around the world. For example, Lisson Gallery of New York will show works by the Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor, who lives in London and Venice.
Angelle Siyang-Le, the Hong Kong fair's director, lives there and grew up partly in mainland China. She said that history provided some context when it came to India. 'With Hong Kong as a trade hub, we exchanged a lot of culture,' she said. 'India is not super foreign to us.'
Roshini Vadehra, of New Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery, agreed. 'There's certainly some kind of synergy between the Asian communities within the region,' she said. 'It makes it easier to introduce our program.'
The gallery — founded by Vadehra's father, Arun — is a stalwart of the fair, having exhibited there in the days before Art Basel bought it, when it was Art HK. Long focused on Indian contemporary makers, it has recently expanded to working more extensively with artists from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Vadehra's Hong Kong booth this year features around 20 artists, including Zaam Arif of Houston, who is represented by works including the oil 'The Light Falls Away' (2025).
Amrita Jhaveri of Jhaveri Contemporary in Mumbai founded the gallery with her sister, Priya, in 2010. They have a reputation for working with 'diasporic voices' from the region, she said.
Their fair presentation of around a dozen artists includes the watercolor 'Untitled (The Bird Hunter Series XI)' (2024) by Ali Kazim of Lahore, Pakistan.
In the 15 years of operating the gallery, they have seen a 'sea change' in the Indian art market, Jhaveri said, in terms of increased collecting activity within India, as well as local galleries professionalizing their operations. The international response to her program is also different. 'Now we're being courted by all sorts of fairs,' she said.
The economic power of India is such that galleries can be selective as far as which fairs, and how many fairs, in which they participate.
'The market being soft in the West doesn't really affect us,' Jhaveri said. 'We can always sell back to our home market.'
As Hena Kapadia, the founder of the Tarq gallery in Mumbai, put it, 'It's a good time to be an Indian artist, and a good time to be an Indian gallery.'
As Kapadia prepared for Hong Kong, she reflected on the success of February's India Art Fair, which took place in New Delhi. 'There were so many international visitors,' she said. 'There's huge interest all over the world in Indian art.'
The Tarq booth in Hong Kong will be a solo show of works by the Mumbai artist Saju Kunhan, who made a series of paintings on recycled teak wood panels that are based on a photographs of his parents' wedding, including '11th May 1980 Wedding Day #1' (2024).
Belgium — roughly comparable in size to Switzerland, the home base of Art Basel — may not be ascendant in the way that India is, but it is a steady force to be reckoned with in the art world.
The Belgian galleries at the fair include two headquartered in or near Antwerp — Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Tim Van Laere Gallery — and three headquartered in Brussels: Maruani Mercier, Galerie Greta Meert and Xavier Hufkens. (Other international galleries also have spaces in the country.)
Although it may be hard to verify, many Belgian dealers and others in the world repeat an article of faith: 'Per square meter, there are more collectors here than anywhere else,' said Tim Van Laere, who also operates a branch of the gallery in Rome.
He added that the country's storied art production had something to do with it, from the days of the Flemish masters Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hans Memling and Peter Paul Rubens to later Belgian greats like James Ensor and René Magritte.
Van Laere's slate of a dozen artists includes Adrian Ghenie, a Romanian artist who lives in Berlin, represented by the painting 'Impossible Body 5' (2023), and the Antwerp native Ben Sledsens, whose oil 'The Collector' (2024-25) will be on display.
'It's in his DNA,' Van Laere said of Sledsens' connection to the Belgian painting tradition, which he added might be one aspect appreciated by Asian collectors. 'People are crazy for his work,' Van Laere said of his reception at the Hong Kong fair.
Laurent Mercier, a co-owner of Maruani Mercier, said his gallery's booth would feature a two person show of works by Jaclyn Conley, who lives in New Haven, Conn., and the New York sculptor Tony Matelli.
Conley's oil 'Two Eves' (2024) will be on display along with Matelli's sculpture 'Arrangement' (2025), which looks like an upside-down potted orchid.
Maruani Mercier, which also has spaces in the Belgian cities of Knokke and Zaventem, was founded in 1995 with a focus on American painters, but more recently has moved to include more work by African artists from countries such as Nigeria and Ghana.
Mercier attributed some of Belgium's collecting mojo to its geography, in that it is within striking distance of art hubs like London, Paris and Amsterdam.
'One dealer told me, 'We're a London gallery, but we have more Belgian collectors than British ones,'' Mercier recalled.
According to the Indian galleries showing at the Hong Kong fair, Mercier's take is more than boosterism.
'We have collectors from Belgium — the Europeans buy a lot from us, and there's steady interest at art fairs,' Vadehra said.
The cross-pollination underlines the relatively borderless and frictionless quality of the art world, even at a time when nationalism has a hold in many countries.
As Vadehra put it, 'This is the circuit we all travel on.'