“What we’re trying to do is to slightly counter both of these models and present an event that is a little looser, a little more relaxed.”

First Shenzhen art week aims to capitalise on nearby Art Basel Hong Kong

The inaugural edition of Supper Club has attracted an impressive list of galleries, which includes well-established names as well as promising newcomers.

Apart from PHD Group, the other Hong Kong galleries are MOU Projects and The Shophouse, owned by Alex Chan, another core initiator of the event. From China, there are the artist Xu Zhen’s Madein Gallery, Tabula Rasa Gallery and Vanguard Gallery.

From New York comes 47 Canal, from India Tarq and from Bangkok Nova Contemporary.

On the list are several galleries that showed in previous editions of Art Basel Hong Kong, but not this year.

The world’s largest art fair franchise made radical changes to the format of its Hong Kong fair during the coronavirus pandemic when the city’s borders were closed.

From 2021 to 2023, there were notably younger and smaller galleries that got through the selection process for the fair. But this year, as Art Basel returns to its pre-Covid scale, its list of 242 “premier international galleries” does not include some of its pandemic-era clients.

PHD, which has not made its Art Basel debut, has experience with other art fairs, such as the Liste Art Fair 2023, the satellite fair in Basel, and Our Week, an experimental art fair in Seoul held during Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul in 2023.

The latter was “a fun experience” that was “successful in terms of the attention it received”. But it did not attract as many sales as the galleries had hoped, Cheung says.

Supper Club has its sights on a slightly different approach, directing more energy towards VIP relations to ensure patrons and collectors in Hong Kong and from the region are acquainted with the fair’s sales aspect.

Meanwhile, the 60 works on display will include “way more video and sculptural works, as well as a higher percentage of performances” compared to traditional art fairs, Cheung says.

The event is curated by Anqi Li, the former curator at Para Site who looked after the art space’s education and public programmes.

She tells the Post: “When they asked me to be the curator for the first edition of the project, I was really excited to curate a new way of experiencing art. It’s very much like a group show, but at the same time offers opportunities to engage with collectors and art lovers and engage with the larger arts community.”

Because the Fringe Club is a heritage site, Supper Club will resemble a site-specific installation as opposed to just having booths in a traditional art fair, says Cheung.

While the list of works has not been released, Li says that Tarq, from Mumbai, is bringing an artist who’s making a new textile work for Supper Club, while South Korea’s P21 will present works by Hong Kong-based artist Wu Jiaru.

Li is also curating the live performances and panel talks, which will run every evening.

One of the performances will be from Hong Kong-based artist duo Virtue Village, presented by PHD Group.

Stacy Zhang Guoying, adviser to Supper Club and the Fringe Club, says the venue is one of the few Grade 1 historic buildings in Hong Kong, and that the Fringe Club sees itself as a facilitator of the event rather than having a say on the art presented.

“This is a good way to support emerging talents and art professionals,” she says. She hopes Supper Club will not be a one-off event.

It being Supper Club, snacks and drinks will be available throughout the evening.

Cheung says: “At the end of the day, the experience of art should not be so rigid and stiff that it’s off-putting to people. It’s all about creating that relationship with the audience and the artwork so that they respect the boundaries of the space that they’re entering.”

Supper Club at the Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central. March 25 to 30 from 4pm to 1am. More information on supperclubhongkong.com.