Hong Kong: Bedazzled by Basel?
By Kathy Zhang
YAYOI KUSAMA, Flowers That Bloom at Midnight, 2009, installation view at Art HK, Hong Kong, 2012. Photo by Ann Woo for ArtAsiaPacific.
It was the question on the tip of every reporter’s tongue. What will Art Basel, opening this Thursday in Hong Kong, bring to the city? At a press conference earlier this year to mark the flagship’s take-over of local art fair Art HK, Marc Spiegler, the director of Art Basel, responded that the brand would boost Hong Kong’s international profile, citing the economic and cultural precedents in Miami Beach. But what has Art Basel actually done for Miami?
