Asia joins art fair boom with Tokyo, Hong Kong debut

By Sophie Hardach and James Pomfret

TOKYO/HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Outrageous parties, rich collectors, flamboyant art dealers and even the odd artist: contemporary art fairs are booming, thanks to a thriving art market and an international crowd of new rich socialites.

Asia has been striving to latch on to the global art fair trend, led by events such as ShContemporary's acclaimed debut in Shanghai last year. This year, both Tokyo and Hong Kong will launch new events modeled along hip fairs such as Art Basel and London's Frieze.

A satellite fair to the larger and more mixed Art Fair Tokyo in April, 101TOKYO bills itself as "the city's first truly international contemporary art fair".

In May, Hong Kong will host ART HK 08, featuring a stable of 100 galleries including New York's Max Lang and London's Albion Gallery, to showcase mostly Asian, but also top-tier Western art.

"I think there is room for a major destination art fair in Asia. There hasn't really been one to date with the exception perhaps of ShContemporary, which made some headway," said Magnus Renfrew, director of the Hong Kong fair.

"All the fairs that take place in Asia at the moment are very much rooted in the countries that they take place in," he added.

Hong Kong's zero import and export taxes for art, strategic Asian location and free flow of capital has already seen it become the world's third most important art auction hub behind New York and London.

Affluent Asian collectors have driven Asian art prices higher, and Renfew said Western art was now creeping onto the radar of top Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Korean and Chinese buyers.