All posts tagged: Art Basel Hong Kong 2026

Hong Kong Marquee Art Sales Total 4.9 M., up 18% from 2025 Auctions

Hong Kong Marquee Art Sales Total $164.9 M., up 18% from 2025 Auctions

Published by José Betancourt

For the second consecutive year, Christie’s, Phillips, and Sotheby’s aligned their marquee spring auctions in Asia with the week of Art Basel Hong Kong. The strategy clearly worked, with the three houses generating a combined $164.9 million across their modern and contemporary art evening sales. That result marked a significant rebound from last autumn’s $136.3 million — the lowest total in eight years — and also surpassed last spring’s comparable total of $139.9 million. While gallerists told ARTnews that sales at Art Basel had been measured, the auction market showed robust demand for trophy works from collectors across Asia. Related Articles Leading the season was Christie’s evening sale on March 27, which realized HK$655.7 million ($83.8 million). Coinciding with the auction house’s 40th anniversary in Asia, Christie’s assembled a tightly curated selection, focusing on works by modern masters appearing on the market for the first time. (All prices are inclusive of fees unless otherwise indicated.) The top lot was Abstraktes Bild by Gerhard Richter, offered with a third-party guarantee and selling for HK$92.1 million ($11.77 …

Hong Kong Signs Agreement to Keep Hosting Art Basel Fair For 5 Years

Hong Kong Signs Agreement to Keep Hosting Art Basel Fair For 5 Years

Published by José Betancourt

Hong Kong may be halfway through Mega 8, the city’s new name for its months-long lineup of major arts, culture, and sporting events, but the undoubted highlight is this week’s Art Basel Hong Kong. The fair has become a must-attend for locals and a major draw for international visitors, with attendance reaching 80,400 in 2024 and 86,500 last year. As such, it is no surprise that the city has signed a new agreement with Art Basel to ensure it remains the region’s sole host for another five years. Rosanna Law, the special administrative region’s culture secretary, announced the deal on Wednesday, which calls for Art Basel to expand the fair in both scale and impact. Related Articles “We will actively complement the Art Basel fair with top-tier cultural performances and Hong Kong’s mega events, so that attending collectors and art appreciators can experience our city’s unique cultural atmosphere and its charms,” she said, according to Radio Television Hong Kong. While Law confirmed that the fair will continue to be held at the Hong Kong Convention …

Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: Best Booths

Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: Best Booths

Published by Jenni Sidey

Sore feet, lean pockets, sustainability woes—what’s a 21st-century art fair really good for, some might wonder? Surpassing the skepticism, this edition of Art Basel Hong Kong offered a compelling glimpse at the talent flourishing across Asia. Sure, Pace Gallery’s Modigliani made the early headlines—but by our reckoning, the fair belonged to Asia’s modern masters and its next generation of stars, some who sorely deserve their spotlight.   Bright spots abounded in the curated sectors, with especially strong showings from Discoveries and Insights, respectively dedicated to emerging artists and thematic presentations. With a simple sheet and smart lighting, Ho Chi Minh’s Vin Gallery staged a shadow-puppet display of ceramic skeletons by Japanese sculptor Ako Goto. Elsewhere, local outfit Lucie Chang Fine Arts made a compelling case for the canonization of the late Chinese painter Zhu Xinjian, whose traditional ink drawings shock with atypically salacious subject matter. gdm, the Hong Kong-based gallery founded by Fred Scholle in 1974, offered one of the best pairings of established and ascendant artists: Kongkee’s seated figure in a lightbox, revealing a second face when viewed from the side, alongside a suite of abstract paintings by Tang Chang, …

Blue-Chips Report Deals, While Others Lament Slow Sales

Blue-Chips Report Deals, While Others Lament Slow Sales

Published by José Betancourt

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. Cash flowed, but confidence trickled on Day 1 of Art Basel Hong Kong, where a cross-section of the 240 galleries offered a spectrum of responses to one simple question: How are sales?  At Hauser & Wirth, Marc Payot, presiding over a packed booth, described a “phenomenal” start, citing attendance from serious collectors across Asia. By 5 p.m., several key works had sold. Louise Bourgeois’s 2002 sculpture Couple, a tender late-career figurine, fetched $2.2 million, and her 2008 etching and mixed media on paper piece, À Baudelaire (#1), went for $2.95 million. Prismatic Head (2021), a painting by George Condo, who recently left the gallery, went for $2.3 million.    Related Articles According to Payot, the booth’s two priciest offerings also moved: the 1956 Alexander Calder mobile Horizontal and Pablo Picasso’s 1965 Chat et crabe sur la plage (Cat and Crab on the Beach). The gallery did not state a price for either work. Meanwhile, Lee Bul, the subject of a stellar survey at M+, has entered another private museum in Asia with Untitled (“Infinity” wall), which sold for $275,000.  “What we have done differently this year is this mix of historical material with contemporary program, so a Calder paired with an Avery Singer; a Picasso with Roni Horn,” Payot said. “We try …

Pace Is Selling a .3 M. Modigliani Painting at Art Basel Hong Kong

Pace Is Selling a $13.3 M. Modigliani Painting at Art Basel Hong Kong

Published by José Betancourt

Just weeks after announcing a symposium for Institut Restellini’s decades-in-the-making Amedeo Modigliani catalogue raisonné, Pace is offering a painting by the artist at Art Basel Hong Kong that was only recently authenticated. The work has a long legal backstory. Titled Jeune femme brune (1917–18), the work is the highest priced piece on offer at the Hong Kong fair, according to ARTnews’s Tessa Solomon, who is on the ground reporting from Art Basel. Pace CEO Marc Glimcher told Solomon that the work is being offered for €11.5 million—about $13.3 million—with several parties bidding on the work. (Glimcher also said that the gallery will be bringing a Modligliani work listed in the new catalogue to each fair this year, in celebration of its publication.) Related Articles That’s a far cry from the painting’s status nearly 30 years ago, when it was pulled from a sale at Phillips in 1997 due to authentication concerns. Marc Restellini, art historian and founder of Institut Restellini, told the auction house in the lead-up to the sale that he was not planning …

At 2026 Hong Kong Cultural Summit, Museum Leaders Pitch New Models for Institutions 

At 2026 Hong Kong Cultural Summit, Museum Leaders Pitch New Models for Institutions 

Published by Jenni Sidey

“We are witnessing growing geopolitical complexity around the world. In times like these, culture matters more than ever. Culture transcends borders,” said Hong Kong’s Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Rosanna Law, at the opening ceremony of this year’s Hong Kong International Cultural Summit on Monday.  The remark offered one of the summit’s few, curated nods to the destabilizing effects of the spiraling U.S.–Israel–Iran war on global transport and energy flows. But the implication landed cleanly: the world is reorganizing—and with it, the distribution of cultural influence. Panels and policy discussions painted a picture of a city weighing its next steps. Over decades, Hong Kong has established its role as a gateway between China and the West; now, it’s engineering a self-sufficient arts and cultural engine that serves first its residents and then its near and dear in the region.   Related Articles The 2026 summit, titled A New Era: Reimagining Community Through the Arts, unfolded across the M+ museum and the Hong Kong Museum of Art. In his remarks, WKCDA Board chairman Bernard Chan said the event arrives “at a moment when the city is firmly reestablishing itself as an international cultural center,” while “ingraining” arts and culture into daily Hong Kong life. To those ends, …

Hong Kong Readies for Art Week With Optimism and a Healthy Caution

Hong Kong Readies for Art Week With Optimism and a Healthy Caution

Published by José Betancourt

Hong Kong’s art market is staging a cautious comeback in 2026, as industry players bet that collectors will return for the city’s marquee art week after years of political upheaval and pandemic-driven isolation. At the macroeconomic level, signs of recovery have emerged since late 2025, spanning high-end residential real estate in the city to equity markets. A recent report by Morgan Stanley suggested that prolonged instability in the Middle East could prompt further capital and talent to migrate to Hong Kong, drawn by its low-tax policies and relative stability. Such a move would provide a boost to the city, after years of economic stagnation and an exodus of expats since 2020. Yet any early optimism faces an immediate test, as the repercussions of the US–Israel–Iran War continue to ripple through the global supply chain. Related Articles Sabrina Amrani Gallery, a perennial exhibitor at Art Basel Hong Kong, told ARTnews it was forced to change its plans for the fair due to the ongoing war. The Madrid-based gallery, which champions artists from the Middle East and …

Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 Reveals Program Highlights

Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 Reveals Program Highlights

Published by José Betancourt

Art Basel returns to Hong Kong this March with 240 galleries and an expanded program, including a reimagined Encounters section and the Asia debut of the digital-focused Zero 10. Following its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December, Zero 10’s first Hong Kong outing will feature 14 exhibitors with a program that includes digital animations by DeeKay examining psychological states through the lens of early video games (via a presentation by AOTM); a meeting of AI, sculpture, installation, and traditional ink painting featuring works by Seneca, Qu Leilei, Tim Yip (at Asprey Studio); and a “participatory blockchain -based work” by Robert Alice (at Onkaos). Related Articles For this year’s edition, Encounters will be organized by curatorial team led by Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. She will work with curators Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, and Hirokazu Tokuyama on the section, which will feature 12 large-scale sculptures, installations, and performances designed to “transcend” the conventional gallery booth, according to a release. The curatorial vision draws on the Five Elements, an ancient …