Wow – I can’t believe it, I actually made it to the preview evening of the Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong this year. I was worried that I would not make it again, as I have been quite busy with work. But I was lucky, I finished almost on time yesterday and my friends had a spare ticket, so I went along.
The Affordable Art Fair is in halls 3D and 3E at the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre. The exhibitors include Hong Kong galleries such as the Cat Street Gallery or Karin Webber Gallery (which I frequent regularly) but also galleries from Singapore, South Korea and other places.
When I arrived around 6.45pm the place was just filling up – by 8pm it was packed and several people were already carrying art works that they had just bought.
However, ‘affordable’ still comes with a price tag! There were lots of pieces in the range of 50,000-60,000 HKD and several ones around 30,000 HKD. But not that many below 10,000 HKD. The ones that were cheaper, tended to be prints. But nonetheless, there was some great art on show!
I loved that not every artwork was a painting – there were quite a few installations, sculptures and mixed art works.
Andy Bridge did some fun work with paper cut-outs in the form of beer displays, Elisabeth Lecourt folds maps into cute little dresses and Waller Hewett did some fun work with pompoms.
There was also a section with art from pupils and students – if I had to vote for one winner, I would pick this red painting by a 17-year old student who captured Hong Kong very well, including the Cheng Chau buns and the pawn shop signs!
One section featured works from Korean artists – Woo Byung Chul pains city landscapes that are very modern, but I actually like the classic style of Park Wan Yong much better:
Of course, being an exhibition in Hong Kong means that you have to feature Bruce Lee somehow and somewhere – and it has been done in a clever, modern style of painting!
Dganit Blechner is an artist from Israel, who has a very unique style and combines many different visual sources into a very colourful and personal composition. I really liked this big frame painting of Hong Kong, but it’s too girly and with too many butterflies, we can’t really hang it in our flat.
My colleague loves the work of Laura Jordan – but it’s difficult to take a picture of the very delicate drawings of Hong Kong or London. She hand paints them and they are filled with a lot of detail, but you have to stand really close to take it all in!
There were also several happenings throughout the show – artists were working on pictures, like this very talented man did…
… and a girl was body-painted to blend in with the wall behind her.That made for an interesting photo opportunity!
All in all, it was a fun evening out and about, but I didn’t find anything that I really wanted to own. There were some interesting art works that I enjoyed, but I couldn’t really foresee them fitting into our flat, so I kept my wallet closed!
The Affordable Art Fair 2014 is open today from 12-6pm, Saturday March 22 from 11am-7pm and Sunday March 23 from 11am-6pm.
bluebalu 
I love the 17 year old’s painting and would happily own that, if only to remind me of Hong Kong. A very talented young person! They have the Affordable Art Fair here in Singapore, but I’ve never been, perhaps I should next time…
It’s a nice evening out – you meet all kind of quirky people and see some very interesting art work. I would just never go with the mindset that ‘I want to buy something…’. I did this at my first AAF in London and failed miserably! I didn’t go back to an AAF for about three years after that!
That’s probably the best idea, it’s like clothes shopping, you always find something gorgeous when you are not looking for it!
Thanks for the review! I was planning to go… to pick up something for our apartment. But now I think… perhaps not.
Oh no – I hope I did not spoil it for you! You should still go and look around, even if it’s not in your price range. It’s very inspirational! Plus you could always contact a gallery to find out if they have smaller/more affordable versions (which are just not shown at the show). My friend has done that and she’s going to purchase an artwork separately, after the fair, as she wanted to have a smaller size – and the artist said she can do it!
Oh that’s helpful! Thanks a bunch :-) I’ll check it out then.
I am going tomorrow. How big is the exhibition? I was hoping it was quite big …
Sorry for the late reply – the exhibition is pretty big, it took me 2.5 hours to see most of the art work! Hope you enjoyed your visit!