First time visitors to Hong Kong may either be struck by how locally rooted the tradition is, or how much the Western lifestyle courses through the veins of the city; they are like oil and water, co-existing but not quite put together, not to mention other influences such as the rest of Asia, Africa and beyond.
So comes Pearl Lam, the Hong Kong native who runs her eponymous gallery in the city and Shanghai. “Our relationship with the British makes us a very successful trading hub, which is important. But we have neglected culture until recent years.” After graduating from the US and the UK, Lam decided to follow her passion in art and design instead of joining the family venture in real estate.
For decades, she devoted her business and collecting practices to artists across borders. From Mr. Doodle, Yinka Shonibare CBE and Su Xiaobai, to the most recent representations of Nigerian textile artist Samuel Nnorom and Johannesburg-based artist Serge Alain Nitegeka, Lam takes pride in keeping an open mind and forging dialogues with voices less pronounced in the local art crowd.
Like many, Lam was reeled in a post-colonial narrative between East and West, until a chance visit to the Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent show at Hayward Gallery in London. Enchanted by the craftsmanship, colour palette and subject matters of the works there, she subsequently travelled to West Africa, touring artist studios and gaining insights from artists and their respective disciplines.
“There’s no culture without artisans,” comments Lam, as she draws parallels between what she saw and the longstanding tradition of Chinese literati and their appreciation of all things intellectual: calligraphy, sculptures, ink paintings, and more. “The word artist was adopted only in the early twentieth century in China, following the influx of Western conventions,” the gallerist continues. “People in the West like to talk about Modernism, but so much of arts and culture come from history and heritage. We need to expose people to those expressions and learnings, in order to understand how we arrived here, today.”
It is not an easy job to take on, especially when both the market and institutions rely heavily on established names and familiar works to keep up the confidence and traction (note the HK$167-million* Picasso at Christie’s Hong Kong in September, and the Picasso for Asia show earlier this year at M+, a contemporary visual culture museum).
When asked if Hong Kong is ready for more adventurous undertakings compared to other Asian art destinations such as Singapore and South Korea, Lam answered with a note of caution. “We have great infrastructure and an art eco-system in Hong Kong to rival our neighbours. But it’s the collectors in Mainland China that show the curiosity and willingness to acquire works outside of their usual taste profiles.”
This seems to echo the findings from the latest Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025 report by Arts Economics, where 56% of HNWIs surveyed in Mainland China had no particular regional preference for artists. “It is always an education initiative more than a profit-making decision to bring Contemporary African art here,” she adds. “Interest needs to be nurtured; and that takes time.”
Luckily, Lam is not the only one putting faith in the receptivity and connoisseurship of the city’s art enthusiasts. Christie’s, for example, brought 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair to Asia for the first time last year during Art Basel Hong Kong. Gallery 1957, a contemporary art gallery specialising in West African art, also participated in the fair second time in a row this year.
What about the public sector? “The government needs to do more!” Indeed. It takes two to tango, or in Chinese 孤掌難鳴. The real magic happens when everyone makes space for different elements to mix. Lam took the first step, and now it’s our turn. ■
*Excluding buyer’s premium
