Art021 to Debut Hong Kong Art Fair, Suspend Shenzhen Fair

Shanghai-based fair operator Art021 has announced a new Hong Kong fair, set to take place this summer. The event will feature roughly eighty galleries from mainland China, the Middle East, and the rest of the Global South—including India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and Pakistan—as well as the Chinese diaspora, according to Art021 cofounder David Chau. The fair, which this year is by invitation only, is sponsored by the Hong Kong government’s Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund and effectively replaces DnA Shenzhen, which Art021launchedback in 2021.

“We still believe Shenzhen has significant potential, but when the opportunity arose to launch a fair in Hong Kong, we felt compelled to pursue it,” Chau told theSouth China Morning Post.“For now, our focus is on Art021 Hong Kong, but this doesn’t preclude revisiting DnA Shenzhen in the future.”

The new Hong Kong fair arrives in the wake of the city-state’s newly established security law, whose impact on the cultural sector remains to be seen. It joins the city’s larger, more established art fairs Art Central, Art Basel Hong Kong, and Fine Art Asia, and will be held in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, which hosts the latter two events in the autumn. Chau told the Art Newspaper that the short notice on which the fair was established meant that the venue was available only during the hotter months, and that Art021 hopes to shift the event to the fall in coming years. 

Chau acknowledged that the fair is entering an already crowded field but expressed confidence nonetheless, telling the SCMP, “We believe Hong Kong’s art market is big enough to sustain another fair, particularly in the second half of the year, similar to the auction model with spring and fall seasons.” Art021 will continue to operate the flagship fair it launched in Shanghai in 2013 as well as Beijing’s Jingart, which debuted in 2018.