At Art Basel Hong Kong, Blue-Chips Report Flurry of 7-Figure Deals, While Others Lament ‘Slower Than Usual’ Sales

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. Cash flowed, but confidence trickled on Day 1 of Art Basel Hong Kong, where a cross-section of the 240 galleries offered a spectrum of responses to one simple question: How are sales? At Hauser & Wirth, Marc Payot, presiding over a packed booth, described a “phenomenal” start, citing attendance from serious collectors across Asia. By 5 p.m., several key works had sold. Louise Bourgeois’s 2002 sculpture Couple, a tender late-career figurine, fetched $2.2 million, and her 2008 etching and mixed media on paper piece, À Baudelaire (#1), went for $2.95 million. Prismatic Head (2021), a painting by George Condo, who recently left the gallery, went for $2.3 million. According to Payot, there was high interest in the booth’s two priciest offerings: the 1956 Alexander Calder mobile Horizontal and Pablo Picasso’s 1965 Chat et crabe sur la plage (Cat and Crab on the Beach). The gallery did not state a price for either work. Meanwhile, Lee Bul, the subject of a stellar survey at M+, has entered another private museum in Asia with Untitled (“Infinity” wall), which sold for $275,000. “What we have done differently this year is this mix of historical material with contemporary program, so a Calder paired with an Avery Singer; a Picasso with Roni Horn,” Payot said. “We try to keep as much available as possible for the fair.” He added, “We don’t bring this level of material to any other Asian art fair.” David Zwirner reported selling a 2006 painting by Liu Ye for $3.8 million and a 2002 painting by Marlene Dumas for $3.8 million. Other seven-figure sales included the 1964 Pablo Picasso oil painting Le peintre et son modèle for €3.5 million at Berlin’s Bastian gallery, works by Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun for $2.8 million and $1.3 million respectively at Waddington Custon, Alex Katz’s Flowers 1 (2011) for $1.3 million, and Tracey Emin’s Take me to Heaven (2024) for £1.2 million at White Cube. Lehman Maupin reported selling two early 2000s works by Lee Bul for $200,000–$300,000 each with an Asian museum, and a Kim Yun Shin sculpture around $100,000–$150,000 to a European collector. In a statement, cofounder David Maupin, said “Hong Kong’s art market is clearly in a steady phase of recovery, with a renewed energy felt across the fair and the city. As a gallery with strong roots in Asia, the region continues to play an essential role in our business.” Perhaps no dealer appeared more gratified than Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace Gallery. “Things are better in Hong Kong than they have been in a long time,” Glimcher said, noting that the city’s energy had been “downhill from Covid,” compounded by the “obvious political situation.” Without naming prices, he mentioned that a new painting by Anicka Yi, who recently joined the gallery’s roster, had sold, and that the gallery’s strong showing of Chinese painters—including Mao Yan, Wang Guangle, and Zhang Xiaogang—had proved popular. But the moment belonged to Modigliani, the subject of a catalogue raisonné from Institut Restellini, 30 years in the making and the focus of a 2027 exhibition jointly organized by Pace and Restellini. Glimcher told ARTnews he hoped the Restellini raisonné would finally supplant the Ceroni-produced book, which he declined to deem a true catalogue raisonné. And if Modigliani fans aren’t yet enthused, Pace is bringing a piece from the Restellini catalog to every upcoming fair, with prospective buyers reportedly bidding from the equivalent of $13.3 million for the portrait on offer in Hong Kong—the priciest work at the fair, we’d wager. More highlights from that approximate price-range include—Tracey Emin’s vast acrylic painting Take me to Heaven (2024), at White Cube, for approximately $1.6 million; a 2006 painting by Liu Ye, at David Zwirner, for $3.8 million; and Martha Jungwirth’s Ohne Titel (2021), at Thaddaeus Ropac, for roughly $532,000. (The Liu painting sold, as did the Jungwirth, which went to a Chinese institution.) Entry-level-priced works also got their due: Busan’s Johyun Gallery reported 37 works sold, ranging from $9,000 to $180,000, among them pieces by Park Seo-Bo, Kim Taek Sang, and Lee Bae. Zero 10, the digital-focused sector making its Asia debut, proved a favorite with curators and collectors, and buyers generally engaged beyond conventional painting and sculpture. In the sector, Asprey Studio sold works by Qu Leilei ($45,000) and Tim Yip ($35,000). Lauren Tsai, whose Instagram following surpasses the gallery’s, marked her first collaboration with Perrotin via a sculptural and video installation: a puppet whose head went to bed without its body, accompanied by a flickering television. The entire installation remains on hold, with two pieces already sold. In the same booth, Steph Huang’s installation Grafting, which spills into the Encounters sector, had been earmarked by influential (but unnamed) institutions across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In from San Francisco, Jessica Silverman placed Atsushi Kaga’s Homage to Jakuchū – Panel 7 (2025) with a US institution. The booth also featured a series of new Judy Chicago works: pearlescent panels evocative of “hothouses”—à la Anaïs Nin—one of which pre-sold for $165,000. Despite Chicago’s stature within the US, she’s had little market exposure in Asia, Silverman said. “Collectors haven’t had an opportunity to buy her art,” she explained, noting that outside this edition of Art Basel, Chicago rarely appears at Asian fairs. Sales typically occur through direct gallery or auction-house channels. By contrast, almost four hours into the preview, the upper floor remained relatively sedate. Silverman attributed this to the fair’s layout: with blue-chip galleries concentrated in Hall 1, crowds naturally flocked there first. Richard Nagy, whose eponymous gallery had yet to make a sale by 7 p.m., credited his showing to differences in taste rather than geography. “Well, this year there are pretty much no galleries showing pre‑war art apart from us,” he said, having noted earlier Acquavella’s absence. “Last year this section was all secondary market,” he added, gesturing toward a long row occupied by Asia Art Centre. “I’d guess the balance between the cost of Art Basel and the returns wasn’t good enough,” he said. Explaining further, he noted his gallery’s price points—$200,000 to $4 million—were higher than most, with the top spot held by Paul Delvaux’s monumental Nudes with the Statue of Marcus Aurelius. “People are not confident about how the pricing is determined, so they probably come, ask, and then go away—logging onto Artnet instead,” he concluded. Elsewhere on the floor, Charmaine Chan, a director at Hong Kong’s Pearl Lam, struck a more measured note. While reporting several five-figure deals by 5 p.m., she observed that the “decisive” buying typical of local collectors was noticeably absent. “It’s obvious that sales are slower than usual,” she said, speaking as a veteran of the Art Basel Hong Kong branch. “Usually, Hong Kong buyers are quite decisive. Three years ago, we had Mr. Doodle in the booth, and we sold out on the first day.” Her perspective contrasted with that of Pace’s Marc Glimcher, who framed the absence of some big collectors as a more relaxed dynamic. The gallery was in “no rush” to make a sale, he said. Chan, in turn, saw the slower pace as a sign of Hong Kong’s unpredictable collecting environment. “And we don’t know the solution to that,” she said. “In general, our market is still a question mark.”