The Hong Kong International Art Fair 2011 (ArtHK11) kept a promise made to its future majority stakeholders, the owners of Art Basel, who officially took over in July. As it turned out the new investors secured the best deal of the Fair. With two hundred and sixty participating galleries ArtHK had a larger footprint than any of its three previous incarnations. The blue chip ‘Galleries’ section stayed downstairs, whilst upstairs two sections with almost one hundred galleries were revealed. ‘Asia One’ was devoted to gallerists from Turkey through to the Middle East, and India through to New Zealand, where each showed one artist in depth, and ‘Art Futures’ unveiled young dealers with less than five years in business and young artists under thirty-five.
With ample social and public program opportunities, ArtHK proved it is poised to become one of the superpower forums for art dealing. Both the seller and the buyer of the rights to stage the next event should be happy, and yet there was plenty of room for amateur hour antics during vernissage. When an official announcement was reported that the new controlling interest would move dates for ArtHK12 to February 2012, it did not take them too long to realise the sensitive matter of a clash with Chinese New Year, and the fact that in May the Hong Kong Fair is an attractive stopover for many who go on to the Venice Biennale, Art Basel or Documenta. Wealthy targets, such as the Chinese, do not mix New Year with business, whilst jet setters en route to Venice from the East and West would happily go straight there, and then to Basel, missing Hong Kong. A retraction