Workers hang Yoshitomo Nara's Wish World Peace at Sothebys New York. / AFP / TIMOTHY A. CLARY / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

Pace will inaugurate its new Hong Kong gallery in March with an exhibition of work by Japanese market darling Yoshitomo Nara. The opening coincides with a solo show of drawings and paintings by New York artist Loie Hollowell at the gallery’s existing Hong Kong space, as well as the start of Art Basel Hong Kong.

The opening of Pace’s fourth gallery in Asia comes as a growing number of Western art businesses are expanding eastward. And these galleries’ inaugural shows—including Mark Bradford at the forthcoming Hauser & Wirth and Michaël Borremans at the forthcoming David Zwirner, both in Hong Kong—have been closely watched as a bellwether of their broader strategies to tackle the growing Chinese market.

Pace’s East/West one-two punch is a fitting acknowledgment of its American roots and its decade-long engagement with Asia, which began with the gallery’s expansion to Beijing back in 2008. (It was the first Manhattan gallery to open in the Chinese city.) Ten years later, the gallery is firmly established in the region with additional branches in Hong Kong’s Pedder Building (opened 2014), and Seoul (opened 2017).

Pace’s new Hong Kong gallery. Photo: courtesy of Pace.

Nara is extremely popular with Asian collectors, and this show will include the artist’s paintings, drawings, and ceramics. Perhaps more surprising is the selection of Hollowell, who last year emerged as a market darling in Europe and the US, but who is not yet a household name. Her prices have more than tripled in the past two years, according to Bloomberg.

Looking ahead to later this year and next, the gallery says it plans to host exhibitions of work by a variety of international names, including Mao Yan, Leo Villareal, Robert Rauschenberg, Nigel Cooke, Adam Pendleton, Alexander Calder, and Adrian Ghenie.

Pace’s new Hong Kong gallery. Photo: courtesy of Pace.

“Our engagement with the Asian market continues to inform the way we see and work around the world,” Pace’s president Marc Glimcher said in a statement. “The arts renaissance that has been underway in Asia for the last 30 years or so has triggered a global shift and brought new energy to artists, collectors, and institutions across the art world and it has been a privilege to play a role in that evolution. The opening of the new gallery in Hong Kong represents an important continuation of this commitment to the region, but certainly not the culmination.”