In the midst of the Art Basel in Hong Kong fair comes the announcement that that city will host a new outpost of the international Pace Gallery, its second in Hong Kong. This news comes hot on the heels of the gallery’s expansion to Seoul, South Korea, earlier this year. The new venue will be at the H Queen’s building, at 80 Queen’s Road, in the Central district, and is set to open by the end of the year. It will be designed by William Lim, founder of the firm CL3.
In an announcement of the new facility, Pace president Marc Glimcher calls Hong Kong “a key center of the global art world,” adding that “collectors and the curatorial community rely on Hong Kong as a place where they can see important work being made by artists around the world.” Leng Lin, Pace Asia partner and president of Pace Beijing and Pace Hong Kong, says he sees the gallery as a bridge: “We hope to create more connection between the contemporary art scene in Asia and the West.”
The gallery represents canonical artists like Chuck Close, David Hockney, and Agnes Martin, as well as younger stars like Adrian Ghenie and collectives like Studio Drift, teamLab, and Random International (the creators of the Rain Room). A number of important Asian artists feature on its roster, including Hong Hao, Li Songsong, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Huan. The gallery’s announcement promises shows at the H Queen’s venue of artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, Zhang Xiaogang, and Lee Ufan.
Pace now boasts three locations in New York as well as venues in London, Beijing, Paris, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park, California. It launched a gallery in Beijing in 2008 and expanded to Hong Kong in 2014, opening in the Entertainment building, in the city’s Central district. That venue will continue operations, with shows of Leo Villareal, Kevin Francis Gray, and Prabhavathi Meppayil upcoming in 2017.