Your Guide To Art Central 2023: What To Know & Expect

Here’s a handy guide to Art Central 2023, with everything to know, the exhibitions, galleries and artists to keep an eye out for and more!

It’s almost Hong Kong Arts Month, and we can’t wait for the return of the city’s biggest art-related events, exhibitions and fairs like Art Central! Here’s everything we know so far about Art Central 2023, taking place this year at the HKCEC from Wednesday, 22 to Saturday, 25 March. Make sure to keep this page bookmarked — we’ll be back with our personal favourites and insider tips. Read on for a full breakdown of this year’s Art Central.

Read More: Must-See Hong Kong Art Exhibitions

Jump To:
What Is Art Central?
When Is Art Central 2023 & How To Get There
Art Central 2023 Highlights
Team Sassy’s Favourites At Last Year’s Art Central

What Is Art Central?

Running alongside Art Basel Hong Kong, this year’s edition of Art Central is held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre — so make sure to look up and follow the right banner!

A “cornerstone event of Hong Kong Art Week” (we like to call them headliners), Art Central is one of the city’s most anticipated fairs, not just in Hong Kong but in the Asia Pacific region. The contemporary art fair really showcases new, emerging talent, consistently promoting up-and-coming local artists and galleries alongside more established creators and greats.

Art Central’s charm is pretty clear: the fair calls itself an “incubator of art” and delivers on that promise. This year is its eighth edition, with 72 influential galleries and over 300 artists.

Read More: Your Ultimate Guide To Art Galleries In Hong Kong

Chung Dim 2023 – Soyoung Chung, Mirrors for Mirok Li, 2021, Exhibition View.

When Is Art Central 2023 & How To Get There?

Art Central will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from Wednesday, 22 to Saturday, 25 March, running from 2pm to 8pm on the first day and closing at 6pm on Saturday. You can find the rest of the dates and opening hours on the site here.

You can make your way to the HKCEC in whichever way you’d like. We like going from Exhibition Centre Station’s MTR Exit B3 (on the East Rail Line Cross-Harbour Extension!). You can also walk about 5 minutes from the Wan Chai ferry pier. Once you walk into the centre, the escalator for Art Central will be on your right at the Harbour Road entrance.

When: Wednesday, 22 to Saturday, 25 March; Wednesday, 22, 2pm to 8pm, Thursday, 23, 12pm to 8pm, Friday, 24, 12pm to 8pm and Saturday, 25, March, 11am to 6pm
Where: Halls 3FG, 3/F, Old Wing, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
How much: From $175 to $275; Advanced (until Monday, 20 March) – $175 for Weekday, $225 for Weekend; Full price (after Tuesday, 21 March) – $225 for Weekday, $275 for Weekend. More pricing details are here. Buy your tickets at HK Ticketing.

Duk Dak 2023 – Sammi Mak, We Are Only An Ocean Apart, 2022.

Art Central 2023 Highlights

If you’ve already given the site a skim or are familiar with the fair, you might know about its sectors and projects, as well as the dedicated programme with Asia Society Hong Kong Centre. But as a refresh (or catchup!) for the rest of us, here’s what makes up Art Central 2023.

As you walk around the fair, booths and spaces will have each participating gallery, or galleries, and which platform they are all clearly labelled — indicating what’s being showcased.

Yi Tai 2023 – Bev Butkow, reflective connections, 2023.

These platforms include:

• The Chung Dim Central Galleries — established galleries presenting museum-quality installations with leading artists from across the globe. Anticipated booth presentations this year include overseas exhibitors like 021gallery in Daegu, South Korea and Art Underground in Manila, Philippines as well as pioneering HK galleries like Soluna Fine Art!
• Gwo Wai Curated Booths, developed specially for the fair. These are platforms for projects of up to three artists, with a non-traditional approach to visual display of artwork. This year’s booths will be presented by Artemis Art from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Suomei M50 Gallery in Shanghai and Literati Artspace in Hong Kong.
• Duk Dak Solo Presentations named after a Cantonese phrase that means “individually special”. Booths with this label are showcasing solo artist projects, featuring emerging and established talent presented by their representing galleries. A highlight is József Csató presented by Double Q Gallery.
• Curated by the Fair’s 2023 Curatorial Advisor Chris Wan, this year’s Yi Tai Sculpture and Installation Projects feature installations by four artists representing a diversity of backgrounds, materials and experiences. These will be scattered all over the exhibition space.
• And the onsite Gok Dou LIVE programme of talks, performances and video art, presented by Asia Society Hong Kong Center, will continue to bring together artists, curators, collectors, writers, publishers, and critics for panel discussions, one-on-ones and interviews alongside video art screenings.

Yang Yongliang’s “Glows in the Night”

Plus a few special extras and highlights this year:

• Over the five-day run of the 2023 Fair, three performance artists will deliver a series of intimate displays of movement thematically centred on displacement, personal discovery, and survival. Held in the onsite Talks Theatre, and presented by the Asia Society Hong Kong Center.
• Art Central 2023 will also feature internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Yang Yongliang’s “Glows in the Night”, a video artwork presented on an 18-metre LED installation, the largest-ever presentation of the artwork.
• Curated by Chris Wan (2023 Curatorial Advisor) and Jeremy Ip (curator and founder of the independent art space Wure Area), special exhibition “Blue Throat: Start the Churning” will bring together sixteen artists from Hong Kong to examine and reinterpret the relationship between the individual and the collective, self and the contemporary world through the lens of art.
• Citrus Worlds (part of Gok Dou LIVE), a collection of video art projects presented by Asia Society Hong Kong Center, showcases ten Hong Kong artists’ digital narrations. Featured artists include Herman Chan, Jeff Cheng, Choi Sai Ho, Colbie Fung, Lau Wai, Florence Lee, Masahiro Nakamura, So Siu, Tsui Hou Lam and Winsome Wong.
• And free small group tours of the Fair are also on offer with your Art Central ticket, led by trained docents and industry professionals. Held twice daily and run on a first-come-first-serve basis (space is limited and can not be guaranteed or booked in advance!) at no charge.

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Team Sassy’s Favourites At Last Year’s Art Central

Here are some of the works that caught our eye at last year’s edition of Art Central:

Dog Dreams by Lousy, presented by Square Street Gallery, B24

We loved the printable colouring book up for grabs on the booth’s outer wall and walked around to see a foil statue and loud, bright pieces.

Coins – Memories of Hong Kong by Giraffe Leung, presented by La Galerie Paris 1839, A3

Our Partnerships Support Executive Kiran’s favourite, a beautiful piece made up entirely of 20 cent coins.

Life: Countryside by Ryota Unno, presented by Art Projects Gallery, A10

From afar, these pieces look like traditional Japanese scroll paintings but as the gallerists told us, Ryota Unno’s work is about injecting humour and reality — upon closer inspection, you’ll find everything from folklore figures (like fox kitsune spirits) to cartoon characters (Totoro makes an appearance in another Unno piece).

The 2022 Sovereign Asian Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, A11

This series of works features artists from 16 regions across Asia-Pacific, with backgrounds including Bangladesh and the Philippines across various mediums like cloths and fabric, oil on linen and more.

Split by Kwabena Lartey, presented by Art Perspective, A19

Partnering with the Noldor Residency (Institute Museum of Ghana), ART PERSPECTIVE is showcasing new, emerging African talent alongside its rosters of masters. Kwabena Lartey is young, with gorgeous pieces to his name.

Cityscape Series by Shazia Imran, presented by AAD Gallery Australia, B19

Shazia Imran flew to Hong Kong for Art Central, so make sure to have a chat with her if you spot her! We loved this sunset and sunrise cityscape series, where the location, Shazia told us, was whatever we interpreted it to be.

The Made in Hong Kong Special Exhibition at A15-A16

Over 650 individual artwork applications were received for this special exhibition — only 65 works by 40 artists were selected!

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Editor’s Note: “Your Guide To Art Central 2023” was most recently updated on 14 March 2023 by Sakina Abidi.