If there was a statement that confirmed the growing reputation of the Hong Kong International Art Fair, it would be the world's biggest art gallery saying the event has the potential to become the Art Basel of Asia. And that is exactly what Nick Simunovic, managing director of the Gagosian Gallery's Hong Kong office, said when explaining his reasons for taking part in the fair.
'Art Basel has been going for 40 years and is considered the best art fair in the world; the quality of work and exhibitors in the inaugural Hong Kong fair showed that ART HK has the potential to become the Basel of Asia,' he said.
It will be the first time the Gagosian Gallery, which is the world's biggest art gallery by sales, will show works at the fair, and its first exhibition in Asia since its Beijing show in 2004.
'We will have a beautiful installation of work on show,' Mr Simunovic said. 'We will display a cross-section of our works, from young, emerging artists - although artists are already somewhat 'emerged' with some measure of commercial success, and museum and gallery shows, before the Gagosian takes them on - to mid-career artists with a deep and established international presence on the international art scene, such as Richard Prince and Jeff Koons. Then we have classic, blue-chip artists such as [Pablo] Picasso and [Roy] Lichtenstein. We will also display pieces by Asian artists, such as Takashi Murakami.'
Highlight pieces on show include a 1901 painting by Picasso, Buste de Femme Souriante (Portrait of a Smiling Woman), and a monumental Koons called Waterfall Dots (Tree Rocks) which is a photo-based painting of an idyllic landscape that serves as an aesthetic bridge between east and west.
There are also 'paintings' by New York-based performance artist Aaron Young, which were created by eight street bikers/motorcyclists skidding their machines over a vast, specially-painted platform. The tyres spinning over a large 'canvas' revealed the layers of paint below, producing graceful looping scrawls that contradict the violence of their creation. The paintings were created at a show in Moscow last year.
But how the works would be received was hard to predict, said Mr Simunovic, who describes the market now as experiencing an 'exhalation'. 'It was more predictable in the past couple of years when collectors were aggressively buying,' he said. 'But in 2007, the market was unhealthy. Collectors are now more considered, and are starting to converse with gallerists and artists. I would say I feel cautiously optimistic.'
