By Alexander Forbes, Artsy’s Executive Editor
The sixth edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong opened on Tuesday with 248 galleries setting up shop for the week in the massive Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which overlooks Victoria Harbour. With each passing year, as the market in Asia and the sophistication of the audiences are both on the rise, the quality of work dealers bring to this fair increases, as does the number of curated, single-artist presentations outside of the fair’s designated sections for solo booths. From the cutting edge of virtual reality to historical works that command historically high sums, here are the 10 booths not to miss.
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Lehmann Maupin, Thaddaeus Ropac, and König Galerie
Encounters Section, Booth 1E02
With works by Erwin Wurm
Art Basel in Hong Kong is known for the “Do Not Touch” signs hanging next to the many works in its halls that beg for a quick swipe of the finger. But in Erwin Wurm’s presentation, part of the fair’s set of large-scale installations called “Encounters” and curated by the executive director of Artspace, Sydney’s Alexie Glass-Kantor, viewers can not only touch the art—they can become the art. Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures (2000–18) were as immediate a hit in Hong Kong as they were at Lehmann Maupin last March and in the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale last May. Minutes into the opening, fairgoers were lining up to hold a Birkin bag or try to see their eye in a mirrored plinth through a hole in a pair of tennis balls.
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