Today we had the pleasure of going as a family to the Hong Kong Affordable Art Fair.  This is a traveling fair where dealers from around the world can come with their art and sell it.  I have been to it in Stockholm and also now in Hong Kong, and they have them in many other cities around the world.  The art ranges in price from maybe around 1500 HKD (1600 SEK, 200 USD) to 100 000 HKD (115 000 SEK, or 13 700 USD) for more well known artists like Damien Hirst.  At the show, there is everything from photography to paintings and sculptures.  A lot of the art there is a bit higher than our definition of “affordable”, but it is fun to go nonetheless.

We did walk away with a few good works, so we are pumped because now our decorations for our apartment here are somewhat complete.  I am most excited by some works by South Korean artist Jung Ji-Hyun.  The artist uses layers of paper on top of canvas to create the structural element to the paintings, and then paints all the people on top with acrylic.  He’s from the same place in South Korea as the Hyundai factory, so apparently the work is a bit of a commentary on factory life.  These works are very similar in feel to Norwegian artist Pushwagner, but more clean and with less color.  To me this is ironic given the Scandinavian sense of clean design and art, but it’s fine for me.  Anyway, Jung Ji-Hyun is an up-and-coming artist who is already in a few museums and has done well in some auctions, and I also noticed his work was at Art Basel Miami, which is awesome.

The other artist we found was a British guy named Orson Kartt.  Apparently this guy goes by another name in real life and is playing on the sound of the name.  If you say it with British English, it sounds like “horse and cart”.  Oh, those British and their sense of humor ;P  Anyway, we found a lovely series by this guy, and were happy to come home with 2 pieces from him as well.  The great thing is that all pieces are unique because the book page behind the print is a real book page.  Many follow a Shakespeare theme and all are really witty.  One I kind of liked was “Two Bees or Not Two Bees” (two bees printed on a page of Hamlet).  Really cool things and very affordable, so we bought a pair.

Even if you do not buy any art, it is always worth going to these kind of events if you can – simply because it is interesting to see what the art world is throwing out there.  For example did you know that there are a lot of beaches and a lot of bookshelves being featured in art right now?  And skulls.  It was a fun day to go out, see what was going on, and spend some time together as a family enjoying the art.  See if the next Affordable Art Fair is coming to you by checking their website here!