Covid-19 continues to upend all aspects of life, particularly in the promiscuous little art world. In Hong Kong, after the cancellation of Art Basel, the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association (HKAGA) made a whole-hearted attempt to create local buzz, while the new nonprofit booster group #ArtPowerHK was turning heads. To win back attention, the HKAGA cozied up to Asia Society Hong Kong for an outdoor sculpture exhibition, which opened just as the government re-imposed restrictions on public gatherings of more than four people—how unfortunate! Its gallery days then had to be postponed for three weeks, though some dealers were open, discretely, for private rendezvous and even masked group soirees.

Several months of semi-secret art-world meet-ups were followed by HKAGA’s 11-day mini-event Unscheduled, which awkwardly debuted itself as “neither a traditional art fair, nor a museum exhibition,” and was held within the premises of Tai Kwun, the former police station and prison turned cultural-shopping-dining complex, with the Hong Kong Jockey Club footing the bill. The only costs paid out by participants were for the architects’ fee and construction costs. Yet in the end, most galleries opted out of this “grassroots” visibility campaign, with only 12 local presentations when organizers hoped for twice that number. Naturally, all the big international galleries gracefully declined, while even stalwart local galleries like Blindspot, Galerie Huit, and Catherine Kwai’s gallery, Kwai Fung Hin—all run by HKAGA board members—also said “no thanks” to the nonrefundable fee should the fair get canceled. Or perhaps that was a convenient excuse to back out. The art fair that wasn’t one unfortunately resembled a claustrophobic rabbit warren, with ticket fees and restricted entrance capacity. If this is what post-Covid art fairs will look like, the future of art world flirtation is looking very bleak indeed.