Art Central returns to Victoria Harbour with more than 100 participating galleries, 30 of which have never shown in Hong Kong before. There is a stronger emphasis on talks and discussions for its second edition. The talks programme, presented by the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, boasts an impressive line-up of speakers, including Alexandra Munroe, the senior curator of Asian art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York, Karin Oen, the assistant curator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum San Francisco, and the award-winning choreographer and visual artist Shen Wei. The fair is also staging new, round-table discussions throughout the week, in collaboration with the Sydney-based 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Speakers include Melissa Chiu, the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Entitled Roundtable X 4A, the programme “aims to break down the stigma surrounding contemporary art by inviting visitors to join a communal table and participate in the discussion with curators, collectors, artists, gallerists and museum directors”, says the fair’s director, Maree Di Pasquale. “It’s a very rare and intimate inside view of the art world,” designed to engage new audiences and not just art-world professionals. With more than 70% of the exhibitors hailing from Asia, “we feel that it is important for us to highlight artistic practice and stimulate critical discourse that is relevant to the fair’s content and to the market in which we operate”, Di Pasquale adds.
• Art Central Hong Kong, 23-26 March, Central Harbourfront Event Space, 9 Lung Wo Road