The art world is creeping back to “normal”. As museums and galleries reopen, art fairs are making a comeback, too. Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) finally opened on May 22, after being pushed back from its original March date, when it usually coincides with Art Basel Hong Kong. However, in Singapore, the inaugural edition of Art SG has been postponed again , from October 2020 to November 2021. During a recent interview via Zoom, The Collector asked Amber Yifei Wang, the director of GWBJ, why they decided to time the fair to coincide with Two Sessions , China’s annual parliamentary meetings, knowing security would be tight in Beijing. “This is just a happy coincidence,” Wang said. “We picked the dates back in February, when we announced the postponement, and it was much later that the government decided to hold their meetings at the same time.” We take “happy coincidence” to mean that once the Two Sessions dates had been confirmed, it signalled that any travel restrictions and social distancing rules that had been lifted were unlikely to be reintroduced. Still, GWBJ was smaller this year because of the coronavirus. Nine out of the 33 galleries that had originally signed up had to withdraw because they are located in Beijing’s still locked down Caochangdi district. It was also a wholly domestic affair. Last year, half of the VIPs came from outside the mainland but, of course, nobody flew in this time. (If you fly directly to Beijing from Hong Kong, where the virus is under control, there is no quarantine when you arrive but there is when you return to the SAR.) So, the GWBJ team ramped up its new app and online programming with features such as online seminars co-organised with Zurich Art Weekend and London’s Serpentine Galleries. GWBJ was the first physical art fair to be held since the Wuhan lockdown began in January but commercial galleries all over the world are reopening, including in places such as Milan, Italy. The conversation in the art market is now focused on just how badly the economy is going to affect sales and whether the pandemic has brought long-term changes to how we travel to view art and our tastes in it. In an Art Basel webinar last month, art economist Clare McAndrew reminded us that the market took 14 years to recover to 1990 levels after the bursting of the Japanese asset price bubble. During the 2007-08 global financial crisis, new Chinese demand lifted the art market out of the abyss, but in the current economic climate it looks like no country will be spared. That’s not to say it will be as bad as 1990, McAndrew said, “but I am thinking of a U-shaped recovery rather than a V-shaped one”. Earlier in the year, we wondered if dealers in Central would move out of their expensive and empty (of visitors) galleries. Since then, Hanart TZ Gallery’s Johnson Chang Tsong-zung has wound down his 401 Pedder Building space, with plans to hold future exhibitions at a Kwai Chung warehouse. Hanart’s third-floor neighbour, Ben Brown Fine Arts, has also moved out, reopening in a space four times as large in Wong Chuk Hang. Claudia Albertini, director of Massimo De Carlo gallery, also on the third floor of Pedder Building, says: “We have a year left on our lease so we are definitely staying here for now. But we need to evaluate how we operate in terms of costs and whether there are suitable alternative locations such as Victoria Dockside and Wong Chuk Hang.” Meanwhile, Massimo De Carlo has put contemporary artist Lee Kit’s Hong Kong solo show up on its new virtual-reality gallery as it joins others in experimenting with online exhibitions. Shasha Tittman, director of Lehmann Maupin, on the fourth floor, says: “Our lease is coming up in August. While we have not made a final decision yet, with the changes happening in the community we are exploring all our options.” There will be more galleries moving to cheaper spaces for sure but that’s a minor issue in the face of Hong Kong’s real problems. As Chang points out, the city doesn’t have the luxury of talking about post-coronavirus recovery. The number of infections has been relatively small and there hasn’t been a lockdown but now that the pandemic hiatus is over the dire political situation is back to the fore along with questions regarding Hong Kong’s standing as an international commercial centre. There are green shoots if you look hard. This period has shown how adaptable we all can be, he says. “For one, even someone like me is using Zoom and exploring ways to present art digitally.”