Art Basel Hong Kong took place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center (HKCEC) in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong from May 23rd to 26th. The center is located in a quintessentially Hong Kong location, connected to a chaotic shopping mall.
Art Hong Kong, which had been held there until last year, was acquired by Art Basel, the world's largest contemporary art fair, which is held in Basel, Switzerland, and Miami, USA. This marked the first time that Art Basel was held in Asia.
245 galleries from 35 countries exhibited at this fair, more than half of which were from Asia and the Pacific Rim, representing over 3,000 artists.
22 galleries from Japan participated, including Mizuma Art Gallery, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Ota Fine Arts, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, SCAI the Bathhouse, Chiba Yumiko Associates, Takaishi Gallery, Aratani Urano, and Nanzuka. Arataniurano commented, "The customer demographic has changed significantly since last year, with an increase in Western visitors. Some galleries that exhibited last year have been forced out." A new initiative this year was the collaborative exhibition between Japanese and European galleries. Ota Fine Arts collaborated with London's Victoria Miro Gallery, located in the neighboring booth, and used both booths to showcase a major solo exhibition of Yayoi Kusama's work. Nanzuka also exhibited in collaboration with the Dresden- and Berlin-based Geburder Lehmann Gallery. This created a space where artists from the two galleries could fully intermingle and coexist. The venue was divided into three sections: "Gallery," "Insight," and "Discovery." The Gallery section featured 171 galleries exhibiting their regular works, while the Insight section featured 47 galleries from the Asia-Pacific Rim region, specially curated exhibitions of art from the region.

In the Discovery section, 27 galleries showcased works by emerging artists. The fair also featured the Discovery Prize, which awarded US$25,000. The winner was Navid Nuur + Adrian Ghenie's "The Possibility of Purple," exhibited by Galeria Plan B, a Berlin- and Cluj-based gallery in Romania. The work, based on the theme of "painting," is an installation created through a "dialogue" between the opposing positions of abstraction and concreteness, representation and archetype, and form and memory. Wall-hanging paintings are also a mainstay of the art fair.

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