This year’s Art Basel Hong Kong, taking place from 21 to 25 March, will more than ever cement Hong Kong as a pinnacle of the global art scene. Move over, Basel and Miami—you now have to share that space. At the time of writing, official hotel partner Rosewood Hong Kong was already at nearly 100 percent occupancy, with every top name in the global list of sellers and buyers. The hotel, an anchor of Victoria Dockside in Kowloon, will be running continuous, direct luxury yacht shuttles across to the show on Hong Kong Island, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai.
With stylish new managing director Hugo Montanari in charge, Rosewood Hong Kong is celebrating its fourth birthday this year. He held a luncheon court at the must-visit new Bluhouse eating delight, the ideal venue for dining in, or out, on the terrace gracing Avenue of Stars. Over genuine Andria burrata—obviously unadulterated but for sea salt, fresh-cracked black pepper, and a smidgen of Puglia olive oil, plus the last black truffles—he waxed lyrically about Rosewood Hong Kong’s own Art Basel art. The hotel has commissioned Year of Flowers, a metahuman digital art installation that will update itself in real time throughout Art Basel. Watch it during the days of the show as it metamorphoses, continuously evolving (remember amoeba sessions during school biology lessons?).
Rosewood Hong Kong’s Year of Flowers is being created by digital metahuman artist MonoC, short for Monochromatic. This is the meta-disguise of Aaron Lau, a Hong Kong-based YPO long-timer whose creative endeavours included partnering with Samsung and founding Bravo Asia Ltd digital marketing before establishing Gusto Collective, cited by Forbes Asia as one of Top 100 Companies to Watch. With 200 geniuses based around Asia, Gusto Collective creates immersive customer experiences operating within the spheres of VR, AR, and XR, blockchain and the metaverse, and NFTs.
Hotels are interacting with art in ever more creative ways. Miami—which has its own Art Basel the first week of every December—has a noteworthy new art hotel, CitizenM Miami Worldcenter. Designed by Dutch wunderkinds Concrete, the building’s façade features sculptures by Los Angeles-based FriendsWithYou, a partnership between Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III from Cuba (they exhibited Happy Rainbow in Hong Kong’s Tuen Mun Town Plaza in 2012). FriendsWithYou, an expression of playfulness in art, was published 2014 and they have collaborated with Pharrell Williams, the polymath just announced as Louis Vuitton Menswear’s creative director.
What is art, you may well ask? Yes, it can be the look and character of an opera house, and of something to wear. Nick Fouquet’s bespoke hats are already a hush-hush secret among Hollywood heavyweights. Now, despite the hats taking two days to handcraft in his Venice Beach studio, they’ll become better known. On Saturday, 18 February, a who’s-who of Swiss society gathered, with plenty of Moët to hand, to celebrate the mad-hatter’s partnership with The Alpina Gstaad. Each hat is unique, fashioned for men or women in European felt with highlights of Ecuador straw. A toast was also drunk, that day, to the fortieth birthday of the designer, an inveterate hobo who years ago borrowed his mother’s credit card to see the world.
Art in all forms penetrates lifestyle. Marcel Thoma, after years of running Swire Hotels’ Upper House in Hong Kong, moved to Mandarin Oriental Marrakech. On 11 February, he hosted a 10.30 pm unveiling of Joël Andrianomearisoa’s specially commissioned Legends Of Daylight, part of the Madagascar artist’s ongoing “Our Land Just like A Dream” exhibition at Marrakech’s MACAAL gallery. Andrianomearisoa has partnered with Dior on its Labyrinth of Lady Dior; he worked with Olivia Giacobetti, nose of Diptyque, on a commemorative fragrance for the brand’s sixtieth birthday; he exhibits in Zeitz MOCAA’s atrium in Cape Town; and his non-profit Hakanto Contemporary is an artists’ space in his home city, Antananarivo.
