ZERO STARTS FROM THREE

Thoughts on Art HK 2010

A topic that has been on my mind recently is the concept of provinciality. Often used pejoratively to describe a state of unsophistication and limited perspective, provinciality seems increasingly relevant in the current era of globalization. For it is precisely at this moment of intensified global exchange that we are confronted not with our own worldliness but with our own provinciality. One could argue that international survey exhibitions such as documenta and the Venice Biennale and art fairs such as Art Basel and frieze, for all their worldly scope, are ultimately provincial affairs, reflecting the specific concerns and interests of their localities. And one could say that it is ultimately through the successful negotiation of its inherent provinciality that a local event can achieve international significance.

I was reminded of this train of thought by the recently completed third edition of the Art HK art fair. By all accounts the fair was a success. Dealers from all the major regional centers including Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei and Tokyo were included in the fair alongside those from places like Brussels, London, New York, Paris and Zürich. Major local and regional collectors were out in force: although most of the fair’s participants reported sales, the number of collectors present from outside the region was relatively negligible. The word is out: Art HK has been anointed Asia’s art fair and one can expect an exponential growth in interest in the event in the year-long interval until its next edition.

But as the fair continues to evolve, it seems reasonable to question whose provinciality it serves, partly because Asia itself comprises a broad patchwork of diverse provincialities. For example, Japan has a history of avant-garde and conceptual art extending to the early half of the 20th century, while Chinese contemporary art is generally considered to start with the generation of artists who came of age on the cusp of the 1980s and Australian contemporary art occupies an ambivalent position between the Euro-American canon and local developments. Will a regional market respect these and other provincialities, or is it in the market’s interest to exclude “untranslatable” difference? Are we faced with the prospect that what many assume to be the best thing for contemporary art in Asia – the emergence of a regional market – may also be something akin to an ecological disaster?

This scenario is not necessarily as hyperbolic as it may initially seem, as the absence of strong nonprofit spheres in many countries in the region (excluding galleries for or associated with private collections) means that there are few alternatives to the market. And one has only to look at the film industry, as well as the collective sigh of relief when an auteur like Apichatpong Weerasethakul took home the Palm d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, to understand what a degrading effect market globalization has had on creativity in cinema.

The future, of course, lies not with the fair organizers, who have done their part to create a forum for exchange, but with the market’s true constituents, the commercial galleries and individual collectors. They have the power to shape the market in their own image, although this requires initiative and self-organization. From the large amount of figurative, overtly saleable work on display at Art HK, it seemed that the dealers were rather complacent to let the market shape them. Without more point-to-point dialogue, and the nurturing of audiences that can appreciate diverse and unpredictable forms of expression, the success of a clearinghouse art fair in the region could result in a resetting of the clock on contemporary art in Asia. These broader issues, already under discussion for many years, gain added urgency now that Art HK is clearly worth taking seriously.

– Andrew Maerkle

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