The promotion of art and culture has now become as important a concern as moneymaking.
A debate is going on in Hong Kong right now as to whether it needs a Bilbao-type visual icon to transform its cultural landscape or just a plain-vanilla makeover to boost its image as an Asian cultural hub. At the heart of the debate is the government’s $2.7 billion plan to develop West Kowloon as an integrated cultural district where a string of theatres and concert halls would coexist with a full-fledged modern art museum.
Three top architectural firms — Foster & Partners, led by Norman Foster, the Office of Metropolitan Architecture led by Rem Koolhaas, and Rocco Design Architects — have been asked to produce a concept plan. The seed of the debate had been sown when Foster’s earlier submission, later rejected as being too ambitious, offered a design that would have eclipsed Singapore’s Esplanade in sheer novelty and established Hong Kong, China’s Special Administrative Region, as one of Asia’s foremost architectural and cultural destinations.
Foster had envisioned a grandiose pleasure garden on a section of reclaimed land on the West Kowloon waterfront, integrating a series of arts, performance, and leisure venues on an extensive cultural park within a dramatic, all-enveloping glass canopy. It would have been a unique addition to Hong Kong’s already vibrant landscape, providing people a special reason to visit the territory, just as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, designed by the famous Canadian architect Frank Gehry, draws hordes of tourists to the Spanish industrial city and has changed its economy.
But even as the architectural consultants put their heads together to produce a more workable concept plan, nobody disputes that, given Hong Kong’s rich creative energy, generated by its enormous commercial and business prowess, the territory deserves to have a permanent home for the arts.
Hong Kong’s art ambitions have risen significantly in recent years, especially in light of its growing importance as an international art market. Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s have offices in the territory, where their auctions of Asian art are among top international art events, and the Hong Kong International Art Fair (Art HK), launched only a year ago, is already a huge success. Hong Kong’s affluence, its proximity to the Chinese mainland where buying power is growing exponentially, and its total tax immunity on the import, export, and sale of art have combined to give the territory an extraordinary marketing advantage.
In terms of auction sales, Hong Kong is already the third largest art market in the world, after New York and London, and the new-found world interest in Asian art, especially Chinese and Indian, as well affluent Asians’ interest in Western art, is fast transforming the place into a connoisseurs’ den, a kind of Basel of the East.
This year’s Art HK brought together 115 galleries from 26 countries and drew more than 27,000 visitors during its four-day run. The participants included Tokyo’s top contemporary art dealer Tonio Koyama, London’s influential Lisson Gallery and White Cube, and international mega-dealer Gagosian. The international importance of this event was emphasized when Damien Hirst’s Tranquillity, from his Butterfly series, fetched $1.71 million, making it the most expensive Hirst sold till now in Asia.
Contemporary art from China, Korea, and India have seen meteoric price gains in recent years. At a Christie’s auction last May, a 1985 oil painting by Chinese master artist Zao Wou-ki fetched $1.2 million.
This October, the peak season in Hong Kong for major international art dealers, collectors, and connoisseurs, Sotheby’s will offer for its autumn sales over 2,300 lots of modern and contemporary Chinese and Southeast Asian art valued in excess of $100 million.
Sotheby’s has been in Hong Kong since 1973 and Christie’s since 1986, but it’s only recently that their auctions have drawn special international attention. Seoul Auction, South Korea’s leading auction house is the latest to set up an office in the territory. As art biennales and triennales spread across China to create more potential buyers, it’s only logical that Hong Kong should raise its cultural game.
The West Kowloon Cultural District is the latest in a series of developments that have helped substantially to give Hong Kong’s hard business-city shell a soft cultural soul. Hong Kong has long been a pioneer of modernist architecture in Asia. Sir Lawrence Kadoorie’s legendary collection of jade sculpture is only one example of Hong Kong’s exceptionally vigorous tradition of corporate art. And Henry Moore’s Double Oval in Exchange Square has been an abiding influence in preparing the ground for Hong Kong’s espousal of public art in a big way in recent years.
The Tung Chung Artwalk at Yat Tung Township, the Sculpture Walk in Kowloon Park, and the interactive Island East Artwalk, developed by Swire Properties, are only a few examples of how the promotion of art and culture is now as important a concern for Hong Kong as moneymaking.
