Art gallery Hauser & Wirth to open in Hong Kong’s H Queens tower next year on back of strong Asian sales
Following in the footsteps of David Zwirner and Seoul Auction, H&W will open its first Hong Kong gallery in H Queens in Central to use as a base to connect to artists and collectors in the region
Anglo-Swiss art gallery Hauser & Wirth will open a branch in Hong Kong next year as it joins a growing list of international dealers who use the city as a base for selling Western art to China.
The gallery will occupy the 15th and 16th floors of H Queens, the William Lim-designed glass tower on Queen’s Road Central built specifically for art galleries and luxury lifestyle brands. The 10,000 sq ft space is expected to open in spring 2018.
“Our Asian sales have doubled each year for the past five years, so we started to look closer at Hong Kong, which is the first, obvious choice in the region since it is a multicultural hub in close proximity to other Asian countries,” says Marc Payot, partner and vice-president of H&W and the person in charge of the gallery’s Asia expansion.
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The gallery will also open offices in Shanghai and Beijing in October this year.
Asia remains a small market for H&W. Payot says the region accounts for around 10 per cent of the gallery’s global sales, up from around 1 per cent five years ago. But the large number of young, cosmopolitan and wealthy collectors bodes well for future growth, he says.
Several “super collectors” in China have signalled to the world that the country, despite its government’s emphasis on traditional culture, is increasingly open to Western contemporary and modern art. Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, for example, owners of Shanghai’s Long Museum, have tastes that run from Amedeo Modigliani to Jenny Saville, and their museum is currently hosting a major Antony Gormley exhibition. Strong Chinese attendance at international art fairs, meanwhile, also reflects that interest is growing.