Conversations: Art Basel´s 2018 program in Hong Kong

Conversations, Art Basel’s talks series that runs alongside the fair, will bring together a strong line up of leading art world figures to participate in a wide range of panels and discussions in Hong Kong. Free to the public, this year’s program consists of 26 talks, addressing highly relevant art industry topics such as the future of public and private collecting, alternative business models for galleries, current developments within the art market in Asia, as well as gender politics in the arts. The program will feature prominent artists from across the world such as Sophia Al-Maria, Rasheed Araeen, Astha Butail, Samuel Fosso, Guerrilla Girls, Antony Gormley, He Xiangyu, Kim Yong-Ik, Yurie Nagashima, Gabriel Orozco, Lisa Reihana, Nilima Sheikh, Timur Si-Qin, Melati Suryodarmo, Charwei Tsai, Anton Vidokle and Yu Hong. Conversations is held daily from Wednesday, March 28 to Saturday, March 31 in the Auditorium on Level 1 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Art Basel, whose Lead Partner is UBS, takes place at the HKCEC from March 29 to March 31, 2018.

Curated by writer and editor Stephanie Bailey for the fourth consecutive year, the program will start on Wednesday, March 28 with Dr Clare McAndrew, Founder of Arts Economics, in conversation with culture writer Enid Tsui about the state of the art market, with a special focus on collecting trends in Asia over the last year. The discussion will explore McAndrew’s findings from the second edition of The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report.

With a career spanning over 50 years, Rasheed Araeen will talk about his shift from creating works as a painter in Karachi to becoming a Post-Minimalist sculptor in London. Gabriel Orozco will be in conversation with Doryun Chong, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of M+, about how his nomadic lifestyle and living in Asia have influenced his more recent work, while Sophia Al-Maria and actress Bai Ling will discuss Al-Maria's recent video work 'Mirror Cookie' (2018), which will be on view at Project Native Informant's booth in the show’s Discoveries sector.

‘Bodies in Practice | On Figures and Figuration’ will bring together Xavier Cha, Antony Gormley, Donna Huanca and Melati Suryodarmo in a comparative discussion about representations of the body. ‘Feminist Aesthetics? | Movements and Manifestations’ will investigate gender politics and the arts with Guerrilla Girls, Yurie Nagashima, Nilima Sheikh and Yu Hong.

'The Collecting Institution | Acquisitions and Representations' will discuss how institutions respond to their evolving roles not only as curators and cultivators of cultural knowledge but also as collectors in their own rights. Panelists include: Agustín Pérez Rubio, Artistic Director, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern; Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Juan Andrés Gaitán, Director, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo; and Eve Tam, Museum Director, Hong Kong Museum of Art.