Art Basel Hong Kong’s Slow Start Reflects Collectors’ Shifting Tastes

Art Basel Hong Kong opened today (March 26) for its VIP Preview in a week already teeming with openings and art events. With a total lineup of 240 galleries ( instead of 242, as few pulled out before the start), the strong presence of exhibitors from across the Asia Pacific reaffirmed the fair’s role as the premier platform for the region’s dynamic art scene. During a cocktail reception ahead of the opening, Art Basel director Angelle Siyang-Le passionately spoke about the fair’s broader ambitions to evolve beyond a trade event and become a true “connector” in the art ecosystem. “Looking at the future, we want to connect with the creative fields surrounding the visual art community,” she said.

At the same time, American dealers are far less represented this year—particularly in the lower and middle segments—with the notable exception of prominent international names that already maintain a footprint in the region. This absence underscores how the distance between the two continents is becoming increasingly pronounced as geopolitical tensions rise and U.S. tariffs threaten to stifle economic exchanges.

Though the fair officially opened at noon, the Convention Center was already humming by 11 a.m., with media and VIP guests gathering at the meet-and-greet in a scene that echoed the energy sweeping through the city this week—from openings to dinners, the art events extend from brunch to late-night after parties. But while the social scene is as spirited as ever, the market itself feels more stagnant. The enthusiasm of the early crowds didn’t immediately convert into brisk sales, and by the end of the preview day, dealers were notably less forthcoming with reports than at recent fairs in Miami, Mexico City and Los Angeles. While Asian audiences tend to be more measured than their American counterparts, the day was quieter and felt more sluggish than one might expect, particularly outside the large gallery booths.

Upstairs, many dealers spent the day waiting for collectors in a curious mix of modern art galleries, large-scale digital installations, displays by contemporary art spaces and tightly curated solo presentations in the Insights section—not to mention the all-day collector lounge, which at least helped make the third floor feel packed and buzzy. Among the exhibitors nearby was Vacancy Gallery from Shanghai, a respected space with a pioneering program and strong regional following, which managed to place at least two paintings by Michael Ho—one of the program’s key artists—along with several other works by the afternoon.

SEE ALSO: Can Hong Kong Maintain Its Status as the Asia-Pacific Region’s Leading Art Hub?

While sales were slower than anticipated, things weren’t entirely dead—especially at the institutional level. “Today at Art Basel Hong Kong, the art market story we are seeing unfold in real-time is one of great positivity,” Hauser & Wirth founder Marc Payot said at the end of the day. “Art of the highest caliber is highly sought after by the astute collectors from the region.” By closing time, the gallery had placed several works by artists active in Asia, particularly those with current or upcoming institutional projects. Among them were pieces by Avery Singer ($575,000), Christina Quarles ($1,350,000), Angel Otero ($285,000), Flora Yukhnovich (£75,000), Catherine Goodman and Lee Bul. A major painting by Rashid Johnson also sold for a respectable half a million ahead of the artist’s forthcoming survey at the Guggenheim. Louise Bourgeois’s work took center stage at the booth, coinciding with an institutional-quality exhibition at the gallery timed with her major survey traveling from the Mori Museum in Tokyo to the Fubon Museum in Taiwan. By day’s end, Hauser & Wirth had placed Cove, her nature-inspired bronze cast from 1988, for $2 million, while her rare, prison-inspired panopticon cell installation—which anchored the booth—was still awaiting the right institutional buyer.

Meanwhile, Thaddaeus Ropac offered what might have been the more grounded perspective: early sales translated into “a sense of cautious optimism,” he said. “It’s been a good start to the fair. Admittedly, we weren’t sure how it would go ahead of the fair, but there is positive energy here.” The Austrian dealer has steadily built a strong following in the Asia region and noted that there has been a broader international turnout than in recent years, with European collectors returning in greater numbers. Notable sales from his booth included a €1,200,000 Georg Baselitz (whose name appears throughout the fair) along with works by Daniel Richter, Tom Sachs, Oliver Beer, Miquel Barceló and Lee Bul—who just last week joined Hauser & Wirth’s roster and, according to swirling rumors, is slated to headline next year’s blockbuster exhibition at the M+ Museum.

Another gallery that has firmly established its reputation and audience in the region—and in Hong Kong in particular—is Massimodecarlo, which reported a strong first day of sales ranging from $20,000 to $120,000. Works sold included pieces by Asian artists such as Bodu Yang, Xue Ruozhe and BAH Hejum Bä, as well as international names like Jamian Juliano-Villani and Dominique Fung, who is debuting her intricately woven Asian diasporic narratives this week with her first Hong Kong show at the gallery.

While Gagosian, unexpectedly, did sell out in the early hours, Pace also recorded a number of notable sales spanning established regional stars and newly represented talent. Among them were works by Yoshitomo Nara, currently the subject of a major multi-year traveling retrospective, and Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, whose work sold for $80,000. A new piece from Loie Hollowell’s Brain series brought in $450,000, while a $50,000 work by emerging artist Li Hei Di was acquired by a private museum. Pace also sold a 2024 sculpture by Alicja Kwade for $68,000, timed with the artist’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong at Tai Kwun. Kwade’s work will also anchor a major solo show at Pace’s New York gallery this May.

David Zwirner, meanwhile, reported several high-value sales by the evening, including Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Net from 2013, which sold for $3.5 million, and a large-scale new painting by Michaël Borremans, sold for $1.6 million to the Corridor Foundation in Shenzhen. Elizabeth Peyton’s Happy Together (WKW) (2022–2024) sold for $900,000, alongside Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Untitled (Loverboy) (1989), also placed at $900,000. Additional first-day sales included works by Mamma Andersson (ahead of her first solo exhibition in Asia at the He Museum in Foshan, opening June 2025), Oscar Murillo for $400,000, Portia Zvavahera for $380,000, Lisa Yuskavage for $300,000 and Katherine Bernhardt for $220,000. Also drawing attention was newcomer Emma McIntyre, whose abstract sedimentations sold for $80,000, coinciding with her debut solo show at the gallery’s H Queen’s space.

Meanwhile, Perrotin reported selling half of its booth—a strong showing that included a series of Lynn Chadwick sculptures priced between £40,000 and £220,000, following the artist’s major dual-location presentation last October in Paris. Other highlights included a work by Emma Webster sold for $120,000, a piece by Rao Fu sold for $95,000, a highly sought-after painting by Ali Banisadr sold for $350,000 and a work by Izumi Kato sold for $185,000.

David Kordansky Gallery also recorded several robust sales, particularly for artists with momentum in the region. A triptych by Jonas Wood sold in the area of $650,000, alongside energetic paintings by Mary Weatherford—who will have a solo show at the L.A. gallery in May 2025—and Shara Hughes, whose works ranged between $450,000 and $500,000. Following its complete sell-out at Frieze Los Angeles, the gallery also placed a work by Filipino American artist Maia Cruz Palileo for $80,000 (the artist’s first solo exhibition currently on view in Los Angeles through April 26). A sculpture by Huma Bhabha also found a home in the $250,000–$300,000 range. Additional sales from the preview day included pieces by market favorites Lucy Bull, Mario Ayala, Jenna Gribbon and Tala Madani.

White Cube—one of the heavyweight interns galleries in the region- reported several notable placements. A sculpture by Antony Gormley sold for half a million alongside a poetic neon by Tracey Emin that sold for £85,000. Also placed were more ambitious tridimensional and installation-based works, including a £55,000 piece by Mona Hatoum, an acrylic on pastel by Enrico David for £55,000 and a new, vaporous composition in pigment and charcoal by Marguerite Humeau for £40,000.

What stood out most, however, was the list of names moving swiftly at this year’s edition—an indication that the increasingly sophisticated Asian collector base is shifting its focus toward institutional-quality artists with robust CVs and museum relevance rather than blue-chip brand names alone. This evolution notably coincides with a wave of new institutional openings across the region, as collectors increasingly consider legacy and cultural impact when building their collections.

In response, many galleries tailored their presentations to reflect regional identity, prioritizing artists from Asia and the diaspora. Among them, Lehmann Maupin reported placing a significant work by newly represented artist Anna Park—Sweet Talk (2025)—with a private collection in Asia for $40,000–$50,000, ahead of the artist’s upcoming solo show with the gallery in London next fall. “As always, it’s great to be back in Hong Kong. Despite a challenging and unpredictable economy, the city continues to prove its reputation as a crucial arts hub in Asia,” said co-founder david maupin. “We’ve been participating in the fair for 15 years and have been able to see firsthand the ongoing evolution of the city. So far, we’re very pleased to report that all the works we’ve placed at the fair have been with Asian collectors, which is an excellent indication of the resilience of the art market in the region.” The gallery also sold a major work by David Salle from the artist’s Windows series for $120,000 to a private Asian collection and placed a large-scale painting by Cecilia Vicuña—recently featured in a solo show in New York—for $350,000–$400,000 with another collector in the region.

Sophisticated Asian collectors are looking for cultural relevance

While sales were slow, the week in Hong Kong brought a flurry of announcements from new institutions across the region unveiling their forthcoming launches and programming. Among them, a well-attended soirée at Carlyle & Co at the Rosewood Hotel on Monday marked the debut of the long-anticipated Bangkok-based Dib Foundation, slated to open in December 2025. Meanwhile, the Singaporean-Indonesian patrons behind the newly created Tanato Foundation extended their nomadic and increasingly dynamic programming to Hong Kong with a new installment of their “conversation series,” following the previous edition held earlier this year during SG Singapore.

With the clear shift toward institutional alignment over auction speculation, this year’s highly anticipated major Picasso show at the M+ museum has reignited interest in the Spanish master throughout the fair. Several dealers brought major and minor works by Picasso, responding to the renewed institutional relevance. Among the standout examples, Almine Rech was offering a $2.5 million painting from 1964, while Acquavella took a more tongue-in-cheek route, presenting an irreverent Picasso parody by Tom Sachs. But it was a Francis Bacon work that dominated the Acquavella booth—reportedly priced above $20 million—fresh from the major survey at London’s National Portrait Gallery and the $27.73 million result at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in New York last May for Bacon’s portrait of his lover, George Dyer.

Established blue-chip names and newly institutionalized contemporary talents alike were among the steady sellers at Gladstone Gallery’s booth, which reported strong results on opening day. Several studies by Alex Katz sold at around $110,000 each, while multiple watercolors by Ugo Rondinone placed in the $45,000–$50,000 range. Also sold were a vigorous drawing by Elizabeth Peyton for $175,000 and a Radiolaria sculpture by Anicka Yi for $225,000—a work from the same series which was featured also in her solo exhibition at the Leeum Museum in South Korea last year, which now just opened at UCCA Beijing.

On the middle tier, Shanghai gallery BANK was able to place a captivating shell-like $25,000 sculpture by Zhang Yibei with the M+ Museum – paying off the founder Mathieu Borysevicz’s early morning arrival directly from New York where the gallery just launched a pilot space.

Still, Art Basel Hong Kong’s 2025 edition lacks the true triple-A masterpieces that defined its pre-pandemic editions—works that dealers used to reserve specifically for Art Basel’s flagship Asian event. This year, amid ongoing market uncertainty, many exhibitors played it safe, leaving little room for surprise. The notable exceptions could be found in Discoveries, the section dedicated to emerging voices and curated risk-taking, as well as in Encounters, curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, which showcased large-scale, high-concept works organized under the thematic umbrella “As the World Turns.”

Among that section’s highlights was a towering painting and sculptural installation presented by Tina Kim and Silverlens featuring the work of Filipina artist Pacita Abad. Conceived by her son, Turner Prize-nominated artist Pio Abad, the monumental installation expanded her signature trapunto style into an architectural format, tracing cross-cultural and intersectional realities. It stood as a striking testament to her fierce resistance against the pressures of Westernization and assimilation. Elsewhere, DOKU the Creator by Lu Yang—presented by de Sarthe—unfurled a dystopian multimedia installation, delivering an epic digital meditation on the fate of humanity amid commercialization, mediatization, digital spectacle and fictitious manipulation.

Notable presentations in the Discoveries section included a series of new egg tempera works by Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, which sold within the first few hours at Arcadia Missa in the £10,000 range. Los Angeles based gallery Paul Soto, on the other hand, presented an ambitious video installation by Na Mira—a fragmented narrative exploring diasporic longing—this time rendered with a more tridimensional and architectural approach compared to its previous iteration at Art Sonjie in Seoul. The presentation anticipated the artist’s upcoming inclusion in SITE SANTA FE International, curated by Cecilia Alemanni, as well as the next edition of the Hammer Museum Biennial in Los Angeles.

Also drawing institutional attention was a mesmerizing solo presentation by New York-based artist Stella Zhong brought by Chapter New York. Questioning the very structure and essence of reality, Zhong unveiled a densely conceptual orchestration of materials that unfolded into a profound ontological inquiry—examining our relationship to objects and the physical forces that shape them. The gallery placed the intricate, multi-part sculpture and video installation with a private collector by the end of the day, underscoring how buyers at this edition of Art Basel Hong Kong appear increasingly drawn to works of complexity and institutional resonance—rather than offerings aimed at satisfying the tastes of a presumed local audience that may no longer be as dominant.

Overall, while Art Basel Hong Kong’s preview day won’t necessarily set the tone for the rest of the fair’s run, the results did make one thing clear: the region’s fast-evolving market isn’t slowing down for lack of momentum or capital. Rather, a more discerning generation of collectors is now approaching art with long-term intentions—prioritizing legacy, institutional alignment and cultural relevance over quick, speculative buys.

Art Basel Hong Kong continues through Sunday, March 30.