Ink artworks set for revival in Hong Kong with series of exhibitions, fairs and auctions

Gallerist Daphne King is on a mission. She wants to reconnect Hong Kong with an art category the city should be proud of, and is realising it with an exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

"It is the 40th anniversary of Lui Shou-kwan's passing. I wanted to reinvigorate ink art and to get people more interested in Lui," sid King, director of Alisan Fine Arts, which presents A Legacy of Ink: Lui Shou-kwan 40 years on at the Pao Galleries.

King said Lui had been credited with launching the New Ink Movement, which gave Hong Kong an important role in the development of contemporary ink art. Twenty of Lui's works, together with works from 12 of his students, will be on show.

Despite its long lineage, the market has not been keen on contemporary ink art.

Christie's records show that works by Lui sold for under HK$100,000 in and before 2010. Works by Taiwanese master Liu Kuo-song were sold for just below HK$100,000 in 2008. One year earlier, Chinese contemporary artist Yue Minjun's oil painting Execution, said to be inspired by Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, fetched US$5.9 million at Sotheby's in London, setting a new record for Chinese contemporary art at the time. "It seems contemporary ink art has been under-recognised, and undervalued," King said.

But this might change over the next few months. Amid the pessimistic economic outlook brought on by the mainland's stock market slump, the lower entry prices for contemporary ink artworks might be more attractive to collectors and buyers who are conservative, say art market insiders.