John McDonald

Hong Kong is ideally located to take advantage an eastern economic boom that keeps defying western prophets of doom. Although it may sound scarcely believable, that defiant attitude is shared by leading western art dealers who have begun opening gigantic new spaces in a city long known as a cultural backwater. Those bad old days … More

It is scarcely believable that the Hong Kong Art Fair is only four years old. As the infant prodigy among the many, many fairs that have been breeding, virus-like, in all parts of the world, Hong Kong’s growth has been freakish. It started out as a shrewd, optimistic idea in 2008; struggled through the GFC … More

From a video by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries at the Asia Art Archive in HK… but the sentiments are pretty universal More

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A Chinese city suspended in the midst of the Art HK galleries. Liu Wei’s ‘Don’t Touch’ More

Hong Kong is very shiny. Mirrored glass buildings reflecting each other in an endless spiral of narcissism: money admiring itself. What a perfect place for an art fair. The tactic of splitting the fair into two floors has worked better than anyone might have expected. It is a clear division between the rich and powerful … More

Detail from ‘TV Lover’ by Angjki Purbanando, one of a new wave of Indonesian artists making an impression at Art HK More

In Hong Kong the only way is up. One tower block after another in neat rows, all the way from the outskirts of the city to the centre; gigantic skyscrapers protruding from the skyline. More

Hong Kong has always understood money but not art. Unlike other business capitals this hyperactive island’s passion for profit has never been translated into a desire for cultural distinction. That held true until art and money became so closely intertwined that the prices paid for contemporary works became more important than the content. When this … More