How to own an art gallery in your 20s: shared spaces in Hong Kong shake up the established scene
- One art gallery in Sheung Wan houses an electronic music club and, from this month, a record label. It hosts one-night-only exhibitions that then move online
- Another gallery holds pop-up exhibitions at different venues – its latest is one inside a lifestyle brand store in Central
Young Hongkongers are proving it is possible to own an art gallery before you turn 30, as long as you bypass the city’s rapacious landlords.
Their galleries are not in homes doubling as businesses, or hidden away either – they sell contemporary art in venues that attract (when the city is not suffering a surge of Covid-19 cases) a fairly respectable crowd.
Laura Zhang, a 28-year-old artist and co-founder of the gallery, explains that having these three different revenue streams allows Mihn to support fresh talent and nurture strong relationships within the art and music community “through fair financial models”. It hosts one-night-only exhibitions in its Sheung Wan space on Hong Kong Island that doubles as a club, before moving the shows online.
Its buzzy opening nights attract a very different crowd from other galleries. Those drawn to Mihn tend to be younger than 40, and do not see themselves as art collectors. Instead, they are happy to pay up to HK$2,000 (US$260) for an irreverent print about sex and censorship by local artist Claudia Chanhoi, for example. Its business model allows the gallery to charge a lower-than-average 20 to 30 per cent commission on the sale of original works.