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It was an ugly family affair. In May, the Pottery Workshop, a fixture for 24 years at Wyndham Street’s Fringe Club, lashed out at its landlord on Facebook after being asked to move out by the end of the year to make way for a major renovation project. In what the Fringe Club’s founder Benny Chia described as a “smear campaign,” the Pottery Workshop’s Caroline Cheng accused the club of kicking them out in order to have more space for commercial purposes. Despite a response from the Fringe that the renovation was necessary to comply with safety ordinances, and that the space for art functions would not be shrunk, Cheng threatened to move the Pottery Workshop out of Hong Kong altogether, saying the blame lies squarely with the Fringe Club.

The end-of-year closing raises questions for the future of more than just the Pottery Workshop. M at the Fringe, one of the finest restaurants in the city, will also have to move out, while members of the local art scene, which relies heavily on the club for exhibition and performance space, are curious about what it means for them.

Originally founded as a group in 1982 by Chia, the club was set up two years later in the Old Dairy Farm Depot at the corner of Wyndham Street and Lower Albert Road. It has since provided regular theater and exhibition space for artists, asking for a mere 30 percent of the revenue from ticket and artwork sales, instead of levelling them with cripplingly high rents. The club also receives donations, membership fees, an annual $600,000 from the Arts Development Council, a substantial “management fee” from its long-term tenants (Pottery Workshop and M at the Fringe), and money from food and beverage services. Meanwhile, the government only charges a nominal $1 rent for the club to use its Grade II historical building. All in all, the club ends up with an overall budget of $14 million a year.

Currently the Fringe hosts around 500 exhibitions, live shows and forums every year. Small artists have enjoyed using the Fringe as a launch pad for their work, and the Fringe has never imposed any restrictions or censorship on the work it displays. Besides providing venue space, it hosts an art festival (the City Festival) and brings local artists overseas for exchange tours. More recently, it has also promoted studies and conferences on heritage preservation and city planning.

According to Chia, while it’s still up in the air whether the whole venue or just part of it will close, the $20-million renovation will definitely start next year and last 12 to 20 months. Chia is adamant that it’s necessary. “When we moved in in 1984,” he says, “it was a worn-out building that wasn’t built to serve as an art and performance venue. It’s grown into one over the past 25 years, but things have worn out; there are new building safety regulations to comply with, and we hope the renovation will improve and increase the size of the venues.” Specific improvements include fire safety installations, more exits and toilets. The reason the Pottery Workshop has to move is that the Fringe has decided to knock down the restrooms on the ground floor behind the foyer, which currently take up valuable exhibition space, and move them to the workshop’s current location. Meanwhile, M at the Fringe will have to move to make way for a new multi-purpose art venue, which will increase venue size by 25 percent.

Cheng believes these are not adequate reasons for demanding that the Pottery Workshop move. “We’ve already seen the Fringe kicking out art groups for commercial purposes in the past,” she says. “M at the Fringe is a restaurant; the Fotogalerie now serves food, and the rooftop is a bar and restaurant. We suspect the new renovation is all about adding more commercial parts.”