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Artwork by artist Tony Oursler on show at the 2015 Art Basel Hong Kong fair.

What Hong Kong galleries will show at the Art Basel 2016 fair

Two local dealers to feature in main galleries section for first time; they’ll be among 239 galleries showing, including nine Asian and 18 Western newcomers

Art Basel 2016

Enid Tsui

Published: 12:15pm, 28 Oct 2015

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Art Basel has released the list of dealers who have managed to secure a booth at its next Hong Kong fair in March 2016, and there’s particularly good news for a couple of Hong Kong galleries.

Both Blindspot Gallery and Galerie Ora-Ora are going to be in the main galleries section for the first time. Competition for space is about as fierce as in previous editions, according to the organisers. Of the 500 galleries that applied, 239 got in.

“It’s not so much what Blindspot and Ora-Ora did right in the previous fair. It’s the fact that they have both consistently put on good shows in their own spaces in Hong Kong,” said Adeline Ooi, the Asia director of Art Basel. The two were in the Insights and Discoveries sections reserved for Asian galleries and emerging artists in 2015.

A visitor to Art Basel Hong Kong 2015 looks at Sam Jinks’ sculpture"Untitled (Standing Pieta) 2014".

Local artist Samson Young will be showing the first works he created for the BMW Art Journey award, a collaboration between BMW and Art Basel, called “For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Journey into the Sonic History of Conflict” – a study of how bells are used as weapons and as symbols of peace, depending on context.

In the Discoveries section next year, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi from Berlin will show parts of Wu Tsang’s work Duilan, an exploration of the intimate relationship between two women from Chinese history: the revolutionary poet Qiu Jin and calligrapher Wu Zhiying. This project is the result of Tsang’s research as Spring Workshop’s current artist-in-residence.

There continues to be a rise in the number of major Western galleries applying, a trend the organisers attributed to moving the Hong Kong fair to a March date for the first time this year, which helped to avoid clashes with other art fairs.

Nine new galleries from Asia are entering for the first time:

Antenna Space (Shanghai)

galerie nichido (Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Karuizawa, Kasama, Paris)

Gallery 100 (Taipei)

Ink Studio (Beijing)

Lawrie Shabibi (Dubai)

Longmen Art Projects (Shanghai)

MEM (Tokyo)

Vanguard Gallery (Shanghai)

Yeo Workshop (Singapore).

Blindspot Gallery director Mimi Chun. Photo: Blindspot Gallery

Eighteen Western galleries will be showing for the first time at Art Basel Hong Kong:

Cardi Gallery (Milan, London)

Carlos/Ishikawa (London)

David Kordansky Gallery (Los Angeles)

Galerie 1900-2000 (Paris)

Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi (Berlin)

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris)

Galerie Nagel Draxler (Berlin, Cologne)

gb agency (Paris)

Greene Naftali (New York)

In Situ – fabienne leclerc (Paris)

Kewenig (Berlin, Palma)

Metro Pictures (New York)

P.P.O.W (New York)

Sabrina Amrani (Madrid)

Société (Berlin)

team (gallery, inc.) (New York, Los Angeles)

Xavier Hufkens (Brussels)

Zeno X Gallery (Antwerp)

There is also a new gallery from Africa:

Selma Feriani Gallery (Sidi Bou Said, London)

Most big names remain on the list, but Anna Schwartz Gallery from Australia did not apply, Ooi said. Wei-Ling Gallery from Malaysia, Beijing Art Now Gallery and Shanghai Gallery of Art are not in this year.

Next year’s Art Basel Hong Kong will run from March 22-26 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, with March 24-26 open to the public.

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