The long-awaited green shoots of recovery have tentatively poked their heads above ground at this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong.
The first sales were reported within hours of Wednesday’s opening, which was restricted to invited VIPs only.
Mainland Chinese collectors were seen to be buying despite new economic headwinds and uncertainties amid an intensifying trade war with the United States and economic challenges at home.
At the booth of gallery David Zwirner, the Shenzhen-based Corridor Foundation, a non-profit organisation founded by collector Wang Yongli and investor-philanthropist Li Feng, paid US$1.6 million for a three-metre-high (10-foot) oil painting by Belgian painter Michaël Borremans. Titled Bob, it shows a mysterious figure wearing a padded costume looking away from the viewer.
“What is nice is that this painting, which is supposed to be the star piece here [at our booth], was sold to a Shenzhen private foundation,” said David Zwirner, the gallery’s owner.
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