Every March, art lovers from all over the world congregate in Hong Kong for what’s fondly become known as "Art March".
At the centre of it all is Art Basel Hong Kong, the marquee event of Art March and Hong Kong Art Week.
Launched in 2013, the 13th edition was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from March 27–29, with preview days on March 25–26. This year, the fair welcomed 91,500 visitors, reflecting the scale of engagement across both the event and Hong Kong’s broader cultural landscape.
Featuring 240 galleries from 41 countries and territories across two halls, the fair can be as exhilarating as it is overwhelming for first-time visitors.
Beyond its main sector of leading modern and contemporary galleries, the fair is organised into dedicated sections: "Insights", showcasing curated projects by artists from Asia and the Asia-Pacific spanning the 20th century to today, and "Discoveries", highlighting solo projects by emerging artists from around the world.
Blurring the lines
The "Encounters" sector extends beyond the conventional gallery booth, showcasing large-scale sculpture, installation, and performance works.
Under the direction of an international curatorial team led by Mami Kataoka, alongside Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, and Hirokazu Tokuyama, the 2026 edition presented 12 works guided by a vision inspired by the Five Elements – a cosmological framework widely recognised across Asia. Each element – space/ether, water, fire, wind, and earth – was assigned a dedicated area within the convention halls.
Yeoh Choo Kuan, represented by Richard Koh Fine Art, became the first Malaysian artist selected for "Encounters", with his work Streaming Mountain (2018–2026) representing water.
In this scroll-like installation, Yeoh reinterprets the traditional Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) landscape, allowing black and white paint to flow down the canvas in mesmerising rivulets. The resulting 20m-long work cascades – or undulates – before the viewer, prompting you to wonder whether what you’re looking at is mountain or water.
“Usually, in traditional Chinese landscapes, mountain is mountain, water is water. But in this piece, I blur the line between the stream and the mountain, meaning that as you’re looking at the mountain range, you’re also looking at the flowing stream – the two elements have merged together," said Yeoh at Art Basel Hong Kong.
“This is actually my first time seeing it in its entirety – I had to paint it in sections due to its sheer size. It turned out better than I had envisioned,” he added.
As the first Malaysian selected for "Encounters", Yeoh expressed pride in the achievement, noting that much of his work is inspired by Buddhist cosmology, Taoist philosophy, and childhood visits to the temple.
“I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese landscapes, but I was never formally trained in the style – I actually first learned about it at temples, from the murals illustrating opposites such as heaven and hell.
"Streaming Mountain reflects similar dualities and contrasts: black and white, yin and yang, restraint and excess, violence and transcendence. I hope people take the time to look closely at the work and its many layers,” said the Kuala Lumpur-based artist.
Other highlights of the section included a multimedia textile installation landscape by Suki Seokyeong Kang, representing the element of space/ether, presented by Kukje Gallery, Parag Tandel’s yarn-based installation exploring ancestral connections to the sea, representing the element of water, presented by Tarq, shapes in glazed ceramics by Masaomi Yasunaga, representing the element of fire, presented by Lisson Gallery, and Geraldine Javier’s monumental eco-printed fabric columns resembling trees, representing the element of earth, presented by Silverlens.
Between private and public
Fellow Malaysian artist Justin Lim exhibited paintings at the Richard Koh Fine Art booth, exploring outdoor and semi-private spaces bridging the domestic and the public.
His triptych, I keep inside my private museum, everything I have seen and loved: A day (dream) at the museum (2026), is a celebration and reflection on his journey as an artist over the past few years.
“This is my third time at Art Basel, having been at Art Basel Miami last year. In the past three years, I’ve been presenting a body of work, which are mainly images of still life and private living spaces inspired by the time we were all staying indoors during the pandemic," said Lim.
“For this piece, I decided to create this imaginary space, a museum show featuring some of my works in the background and all the places they’ve been – New York, Singapore, Paris. I also included some familiar faces in there – people I work with, some staff members of the gallery and some friends. I wanted to talk about this whole notion of the works being displayed in an art fair,” he added.
Lim added that returning to Hong Kong was “a nice full circle moment”, as he had first started showing this body of work, titled Private Vanitas, in Hong Kong in 2023.
"Private Vanitas is my take on Dutch still life paintings called 'vanitas', which was a genre of memento mori that looked at the transience of life," he explained.
Reflecting on changes since his last visit, Lim noted that the atmosphere at Art Basel Hong Kong now feels different.
“We’re also living in very strange times right now. Everyone is concerned about the state of the world and where we’re headed, so I think it reflects in the art and reflects into some of the works that the gallery brings,” he said.
Going digital
This year also marked the Asia debut of Zero 10, Art Basel’s global initiative dedicated to art of the digital era, following its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach last December.
The title references 0,10, Kazimir Malevich’s seminal 1915 exhibition in Petrograd (the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia), a historic point of departure for the avant garde that redefined creative language for a new century.
In this spirit, Zero 10 aims to transform how digital art can be exhibited, contextualised, and collected within today’s art economy by bringing together practices at the forefront of digital creativity – spanning code-based work, algorithmic systems, immersive installations, robotics, light, and sound.
Here, visitors could become either artist, artwork or both, such as with SEAL, a participatory blockchain-based work by Robert Alice exploring digital provenance through the East Asian tradition of seals, presented by Onkaos.
Curated by Eli Scheinman and presented by GoTone Privilege Club, Zero 10 featured 14 exhibitors, including Lili, a large-scale installation by Oscar-winning artist Tim Yip (best known for his work as a wardrobe designer in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) that served as the centrepiece of the section, digital animations by DeeKay exploring psychological states through the visual language of early video games, presented by AOTM and a silver sculptural project by Jack Butcher examining systems of value, presented by Silk Art House.
