White Cube takes its art to Chinese

On show: the latest exhibition by Jake and Dinos Chapman at the White Cube in London

©Reuters

White Cube, the influential London gallery best known for pioneering the works of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, is opening its first overseas branch in Hong Kong early next year.

Owner Jay Jopling is following in the footsteps of powerful art dealer Larry Gagosian, who launched his first Asian gallery in Hong Kong in January, as the region’s collectors exhibit a growing appetite for western contemporary art.

Tim Marlow, White Cube’s director of exhibitions, said the gallery – which has a long association with a group of British artists who came to prominence in the 1990s with their confrontational style – wanted a base from which to observe what’s happening outside the European art market.

He said there was “absolute evidence” that mainland Chinese taste in art was broadening, adding that Hong Kong’s status as a major contemporary art market has also been boosted by Art HK, the four-year-old annual art fair that is now the biggest of its kind in the region.

At this year’s Art HK, White Cube sold the Chapman brothers’ apocalyptic Dass Kapital ist Kaput? Ja? Nein! Dummkopf! to a non-Chinese Asian collector for £525,000.

However, Chinese demand has been the driving force of the region’s art market. China, including Hong Kong, is now the world’s second-largest art market by value, accounting for 23 per cent of global sales. While most mainland collectors still show a preference for traditional Chinese artwork and antiques, a growing number are following more experienced Asian art collectors in buying contemporary works of art by well-established names.

Nick Simunovic, managing director at Gagosian Gallery Hong Kong, said response to its exhibits had been “extremely positive.”

“Sales since the gallery opened have been strong. I would estimate that 15 to 20 per cent of our clients are based in greater China, with the balance coming from the rest of Asia,” Mr Simunovic said. “And while they might be initially drawn to the gallery because we represent artists like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami, collectors are equally interested in supporting artists who are less well known in the region.”

White Cube would focus on bringing its current stable of western artists to Asian buyers but would also look for ways to work with Chinese artists, Mr Marlow said. New works emerging from China had the ability to resonate with a broad audience and challenge the established art world, he said, but they also had unique qualities stemming from the country’s “extraordinarily deep” cultural history and technical expertise.

“In the next decade or two, it is perfectly possible for some of the most significant artists as perceived internationally to come from China,” he said.

Mr Marlow said the biggest challenge of setting up a gallery in Hong Kong was finding a good space. White Cube has signed a three-year lease for a 6,000-square-foot space in 50 Connaught Road Central, a new office building in Hong Kong’s central business district. The space the gallery will use for exhibitions has the advantage of a six-metre-high ceiling, a rarity in the city.

The gallery had not decided on its first line-up of Hong Kong exhibitions but it planned to represent Mr Hirst in the city despite the Gagosian opening its Hong Kong gallery with his works, Mr Marlow said.