Sotheby’s Asia has opened its long-awaited Maison space in Hong Kong with two non-selling exhibitions. The 24,000 sq. ft space spans two floors of the Landmark Chater building located in the city’s central business district.
Designed by Rotterdam-based architecture studio MVRDV, Sotheby’s Maison’s street-facing ground floor boasts 6m-high ceilings and “presents visitors with a state-of-the-art, museum-quality space for an immersive viewing experience”, says the Sotheby’s Asia chairman Nicolas Chow.
This space will open with two shows: Bodhi: Masterpieces of Monumental Buddhist Art and Ice: Two Masterworks on Loan from the Long Museum (both until 11 September). The former is “an exhibition of sacred art [and] seemed the best show to celebrate our new beginnings,” Chow says, while the latter, pairing Gerhard Richter’s Eisberg and a Ru ware Chinese brush-washer, celebrates “the interconnectedness of art across time and geography”.
As with the Shanghai headquarters unveiled in May last year, the new Hong Kong Maison will cater to direct sales as much as auctions. Sotheby’s offices in the city will remain elsewhere, with the Maison dedicated to exhibitions, retail, programming and “aesthetic experiences for clients and the wider community,” Chow says.
Sotheby’s Salons, on the first floor, is “a concept store which provides an ultimate curated retail experience with diverse offerings across geography and time,” he says. Works will be shown there on a quarterly rotation: the first being Banksy’s Girl Without Balloon, which was famously shredded during a live auction in 2018, using a device the artist had hidden in the frame. (Although there is a growing interest in “cross-category” collecting, art constituted most of Sotheby’s transactions in Asia last year).
Sotheby's Salon in the new Maison space Courtesy of Sotheby's
The Maison is down the hill from cultural institutions such as Tai Kwun Contemporary, and its direct neighbours include the luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental. “The area gathers some of the most prestigious brands in the world, boasting not only the finest luxury flagships, but offers a diversity of restaurants, arts spaces and many other heritage attractions,” Chow says. “You have the historic sites from decades ago on one side, and the highly modern skyscrapers on the other, and there is no other place like here in the city.”
Despite Hong Kong’s ongoing economic slump, political turmoil and population exodus, Sotheby’s, like other auction houses, maintains its long-term confidence about the city it has for decades called its Asia home. “In Sotheby’s first half of 2024, millennials and young generations [under 40] accounted for nearly a third of all clients,” Chow says. “In 2023, Asian clients contributed 30% of Sotheby’s global transaction volume, ranking as the second largest market.” He adds: “This is an exciting new chapter for Sotheby’s which has long been in the making and speaks to our long-term commitment and confidence to Asia.”