As 2022 comes to a close, people in Asia are finally taking off their masks and slipping back into the global groove as far as Covid-19 is concerned.

Since March, Southeast Asia has drawn the roadmap for most of its East Asian neighbors to escape Covid armageddon, and Art Jakarta was the main beneficiary in late August. Collectors and curators from afar flew in for the real-life event—so many of them, in fact, that fair director Tom Tandio organized 20 large buses to cart them around. Homegrown galleries such as Nadi and Lawangwangi reported selling multiple hangs many times over. And while the few regional galleries that did participate only issued a small handful of invoices, they did not complain. They were upbeat about the throngs of visitors—from Gen Zs to Boomers—and vowed to return after tweaking their booths to accommodate Indonesian tastes.