ARTHK11, the premier art fair in Asia, lived up to it’s hype boasting 260 galleries from over 38 countries. The first floor of the fair was extremely blue-chip and featured artists like Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein and Damien Hirst showing at heavyweight galleries such as White Cube, David Zwirner, and Gagosian. Although ARTHK takes place in Hong Kong it could have easily taken place anywhere in the West. On the main floor, only a handful of Chinese galleries were present, Long March, ShangART, Boers-Li, Beijing Art Now and Tang Contemporary were of the very few on the main floor.

Liu Wei installation courtesy of Long March Gallery at the main entrance

Most of the Asian galleries were hidden upstairs in an area called AsiaONE. My favorite booth in AsiaONE was Chambers Fine Art who did a one-man show of Wu Jianan’s paper cuts.

Chambers Fine Art booth

Chambers Fine Art is located in Beijing and New York and they were one of the first galleries to work with Ai Wei Wei in the West. Their booth stood out from the rest of AsiaONE and they reported strong sales. A gorgeous display of colors and textures, Wu Jianan’s cut-outs are actually quite tongue in cheek when viewed up-close.

Close-up of Wu Jianan’s paper-cuts

ARTHK has recently been bought by Basel and the fair’s date was changed to early February due to the proximity to the fair in Basel, Switzerland but then the date was changed back to May due to the oversight that Chinese New Year takes place February. Lets see if in 2012 the fair will remain predominantly Western and Blue Chip or if will reinvent itself. Either way, sooner than later, a satellite fair will pop up.

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