The Collector | Popular Art Central fair adapts to appeal to high-end buyers

New director, new strategy. Art Central Hong Kong art fair aims to reposition itself from this year, its fourth edition, and move upmarket. Consequently, it is turning away galleries that have been with the fair since its inception.

It is a gamble. After all, the satellite event to Art Basel Hong Kong has been successful because it is not perceived to be too “up itself”. Public days are packed with local families – exactly what you would want to see in a city without a gallery-going culture. But in today’s market, fairs operating in that vast and vague expanse between the Affordable Art Fair and the top end occupied by Art Basel are lured by stronger growth in the segment that caters to the very rich. Art fairs are also adapting to the growth in Asian demand for Western art.

It is time for Art Central to up its game, according to new fair director Shuyin Yang, who was previously a specialist in 20th-century and contemporary Southeast Asian art at Christie’s, and more recently associate director of Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Singapore. Yang says 37 out of the 102 galleries this year are new to the fair. The turnover is no higher than in previous editions, she adds, as galleries do not always choose to come back. But this year, applications have gone up by 40 per cent, which gives the fair more control over quality.

The vetting committee has not changed since 2016 (and is made up of Gallery Hyundai, Schuebbe Inc and Richard Koh Fine Art), but some galleries that have been in the show every year were shocked to find they are now on a waiting list.

“There’s no loyalty. We’ve been in two previous editions and are frequently in older overseas fairs such as Art Paris,” says Luke Chapman, director of A2Z Art Gallery in Central. “We think it is unfair that, first, they chased us to submit a proposal for this year. And, when we did, we didn’t get much feedback except that we’d been wait-listed.”