THE ART OF EVERYBODY

ART Basel Hong Kong (ABHK) 2025 is primarily a place of encounters. There is curation, there are roadmaps, and things are also left free.

- PARAMITA GHOSH

One morning you are packed into a bus to check into five galleries at a trot, running the gamut from Surrealism to pop art to artworks in which tigers and ravens turn up among everyday objects on a canvas. And then you take the bus back to walk into the art fair, where a chance remark gets you into a conversation with a gallerist who turns out to be the niece of Jane Fonda, and the daughter of a woman who had portraits done by Diego Rivera!

Art, anti-art, installations, video art, performance art—besides a ringside view of these as part of a press tour, the big excitement for me were these impromptu conversations.

Nick Cage is a Black American hip-hop artist I met at the end of a long queue at the fair. He said he decided to grow his roots in Hong Kong due to the welcome he got here, and that he has expectations from Art Basel—he wants to perform here someday. "I didn't come here to be American," he said. "I've come to see who they took a chance on in the year two after Covid-19. Hong Kong has a great mix of artists. To get a foot in here, if you are good, you can go from here to the skyscraper."

Hong Kong is a city that does take its public art seriously. Co-commissioned by M+ museum and the art fair, this year, Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen took over the museum's facade to beam his new work, 'Night Charades', an AI-generated animation of a cast of characters from the best of Hong Kong cinema, in a re-interpretation of the city's image, highlighting its ability to adapt, shape-shift and launch new creative collaborations.

The Henderson skyscraper's newly opened Art Garden and the rendering of Chinese artist Huang Yulong's hooded sculptures gazing up at the Hong Kong skyline at the Harbourfront are also areas with a new buzz.