ART021 Hong Kong’s grand debut faced multiple challenges.

For one, the humid, stifling heat of late August rarely attracts the international art-buying crowd, who prefer to visit in March during Art Basel Hong Kong and satellite events. Late summer is a typically quiet season for the art world, with collectors trading their city pieds-à-terre for island hopping on private yachts. Adding to the challenge is Hong Kong’s declining status as a global art hub, evidenced by fewer international attendees to its spring season events in recent years.

That said, in an increasingly crowded art fair calendar, there are few ideal spots left for a new event to debut, and the Shanghai-based art fair organizer is well respected in the region. The ART021 Group boasts an impressive VIP network, and its flagship fair has been credited with helping to cement Shanghai’s rapid development in the contemporary art scene since it launched in 2013. And, despite Hong Kong’s waning status, many major international players still see great potential in the city; with Photofairs being another event recently introducing a Hong Kong edition for 2025.

Against this backdrop, ART021, which was announced earlier this summer, caught the attention of the art world. Industry insiders were intrigued by the short lead time, its somewhat mysterious description as a blend of “art fair + gallery week,” and significant government backing.

So, what is this ART021 Hong Kong, and can it succeed commercially? I headed to the city for 48 hours to find out.

Robert Indiana, LOVE (Red Outside Violet Inside) (1966-1999). Image courtesy of ART021 HONG KONG.

Ahead of its opening on August 29, press materials emphasized the nature of the event as more ambitious than a traditional art fair, as it promised its five sections would extend its reach across the entire city, as well as the Greater Bay Area. In order to support this ambition, it had secured a grant of HK$15 million (around $1.92 million) from Hong Kong’s Culture, Sports, and Tourism Bureau, under its Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund, which is chaired by the billionaire mega-collector Adrian Cheng. The grant was the maximum allocation for any applicant.

The core fair section was housed on three floors of the gray swanky building of Phillips’ Asia-Pacific headquarters, located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District. Some 82 galleries from 13 countries participated in this event, although only 31 had physical booths at the fair.

The inaugural ART021 Hong Kong. Image courtesy of ART021 Hong Kong.

The remaining galleries were dispersed across “non-fair” sections of the event, such as the video section at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, the public sculpture display on a meadow at Victoria Park, and the expansion section at the Fringe Club, a colonial-era building in Central, which collectors might remember as the location of Supper Club this past March, a non-fair satellite event to Art Basel Hong Kong.

Visitors on the ground nearly all noted the large number of Mandarin-speaking attendees among their first impressions. According to ART021 cofounder, David Chau, some 20,000 VIPs RSVPd to the event, with more than half being visitors to Hong Kong. More than 7,000 people showed up on the opening day.

“I can sense that most of the attendees are from mainland China,” said Elsa Wang, the founder of Bluerider ART, at her booth. Her gallery has spaces in Shanghai, Taipei, and London. “But I also feel that many of them are collectors I don’t know,” she added.

The booth of Antenna Space at ART021 Hong Kong. Image courtesy of ART021 Hong Kong

As a gallery that has long collaborated with ART021 in Shanghai, this was her first time participating in an art fair in Hong Kong, without the worry of being overshadowed by mega art fairs and international blue-chip galleries. Her gallery brought works by Chinese artist Cao Jigang, including tempera landscape paintings, Christiane Grimm’s light installations, and abstract paintings by Josep Riera i Aragó, with most pieces priced around $50,000.

Across the rest of the fair, the majority of the works on display were paintings, with prices ranging from $10,000 to $60,000. Still, a few mainland galleries betting on ART021’s ability to draw in its existing clientele to the new event, were confident enough to bring a small number of higher-priced works. Liu Jie, founder of Thousand Plateaus Art Space in Chengdu, showed me a large painting by He Duoling hanging in the lounge, priced at 3.8 million RMB ($537,000), alongside a smaller floral painting priced at 600,000 RMB ($84,600).

At the booth of K Gallery, artist Zhou Chunya was surrounded like a superstar. His newest acrylic on-paper painting, depicting his iconic subject of Shanghai’s Yu Garden, was priced at 700,000 RMB ($98,687, and quickly sold on the first day). Another high-priced work at the booth was an abstract painting by Shang Yang, priced at 2.8 million RMB ($395,000).

Li Binyuan, Long Farewell, ART021 Hong Kong Expansion section at Fringe Club. Image courtesy of ART021 Hong Kong

One talking point at the fair was its decision to pivot to Hong Kong from nearby Shenzhen. After establishing its flagship in Shanghai and sister effort JINGART in Beijing, ART021 Group launched their third fair in Shenzhen in 2021. However, the Shenzhen event was discontinued after the announcement of ART021 Hong Kong due to the proximity of the two cities.

“From a collector’s perspective, Hong Kong has a more comprehensive appeal than Shenzhen. Collectors, especially from mainland China can enjoy the city’s food, shopping, and entertainment while collecting art. International flights are also very convenient, which is still an advantage Hong Kong has,” Bluerider ART’s Elsa Wang said.

By the end of the first two VIP days, some galleries reported sales. ShanghART Gallery sold two editions of Yang Fudong’s photographs at 320,000 RMB each (around $44,960). Each Modern from Taipei brought Araki Nobuyoshi’s Polaroid series, priced at $1100, which were highly sought after, with some collectors sharing their acquisitions on social media immediately.

Sculpture section at ART021 Hong Kong, Lu Pinyuan, Look! I’m picasso!, 2018, Aluminum Alloy, 380 × 224 × 165 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Mao Space

Still, there were some clear growing pains. At the fair, cofounder Chau addressed questions regarding the relatively small number of galleries in the main fair section, most of which were mainland Chinese galleries, with only five having spaces in Hong Kong.

“The space is limited this year, and we don’t want to impose a financial burden on participants. Some galleries are part of the Greater Bay Area program, so people can visit their galleries,” he explained. The organizer’s ambition extended beyond the city of Hong Kong through a collaboration with the Greater Bay Area Art Week, which covers a region encompassing nine cities in southern China and two special administrative regions. While my 48-hour stay didn’t allow the opportunity to participate in any outbound trips, visitors were provided with a detailed viewing guide recommending current projects at museums and galleries in the region.

Chau added, “Ultimately, we want to change our fair model. So it’s something like a small version of the Venice Biennale. Not just the main hall—you get to go to a lot of different venues and sites.”

However, due to the hot weather and the galleries being spread across the city, some visitors expressed a desire for more organized and guided tours to better understand the local gallery projects or artist studios. The cofounder took the feedback in his stride: “We’ve never wanted to be more than a commercial art fair, and this is our ‘trial and error,’” Chau said. “ART021 should be something additional to what’s happening in Hong Kong.”