Art Basel Hong Kong ended Sunday (March 29) with the one thing dealers wanted from it: proof that collectors in Asia are buying again. The fair says it drew 91,500 visitors across its run at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which started March 27 for the public after a VIP preview earlier in the week.
The money moved early. On opening day, David Zwirner sold a 2006 painting by Liu Ye for $3.8 million, and Hauser & Wirth placed two Louise Bourgeois works, À Baudelaire (#1) at $2.95 million and the fabric sculpture Couple at $2.2 million, plus George Condo’s Prismatic Head at $2.3 million. A Tracey Emin nude, Take me to Heaven, went at White Cube for about $1.6 million.
The pop end of the fair was just as busy. Perrotin said it sold 70 percent of its booth on day one, with Takashi Murakami works going for $600,000 to $800,000 each, according to Art Basel’s sales report. Hypebeast’s walk-through of the floor also spotted Hajime Sorayama’s chrome robots, Yoshitomo Nara and Kasing Lung among the street-adjacent names.
Not everyone was cheering
ARTnews found a split room on preview day. Pace’s Marc Glimcher, who brought a Modigliani portrait reportedly bid from about $13.3 million, said the city’s energy had been “downhill from Covid” and that this year felt different.
Things are better in Hong Kong than they have been in a long time
Marc Glimcher, Pace Gallery, ARTnews
Others were less sure. Charmaine Chan of Pearl Lam Galleries said the fast-moving local buyers Hong Kong is known for were missing: “It’s obvious that sales are slower than usual.” Dealer Richard Nagy, who showed a Paul Delvaux, said pricing confidence is the sticking point.
Why it matters
The fair’s own pitch is generational. Art Basel reports a notable rise in younger and first-time buyers, and more than 170 museums and foundations from 27 countries and territories attended, from M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum to the Met, MoMA and Tate. Zwirner said it plainly: “A new generation is entering the Asian art market.”
It was also the Asia debut of Zero 10, Art Basel’s digital-art sector, where a Plan X panel sold for $50,000, and the week Art Basel announced a new five-year collaboration with Hong Kong’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau. The next test is Basel in June; see how that fair closed and what the UBS report says about Gen Z collectors.
- Dates
- March 27–29, 2026 (VIP preview earlier in the week)
- Where
- Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Wan Chai
- Attendance
- 91,500 visitors; 170+ museums and foundations
- Next
- Art Basel in Basel, June 18–21, 2026
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
