Southeast Asian buyers boost Hong Kong art market

Art fairs accounted for 35% of global dealer turnover in 2025.

Hong Kong’s art market is attracting more Southeast Asian collectors as buyers seek established artists and high-value works closer to home.

“People want to be sure that they purchase something that has a certain established career and background,” Carola Wiese, senior advisor for family advisory, art and collecting at UBS Group AG, told Hong Kong Business via Zoom.

Collectors who attended Singapore’s Art SG in January later travelled to Hong Kong with a stronger interest in blue-chip works, she said.

Art Basel Hong Kong drew 91,500 visitors during its 28-30 March run, slightly above the previous year’s attendance.

Global art sales rose 4% to $467.1b (US$59.6b) in 2025, supported by stronger auction activity and dealer sales, according to the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2026 published in March.

“In 2025, net art exports from Hong Kong increased year-on-year substantially to 27%,” Wiese said.

Dealer sales increased 2% to $272.7b (US$34.8b), whilst art fairs accounted for 35% of market turnover, up from 31% a year earlier.

Fabio Rossi, owner of Rossi & Rossi (Hong Kong) Ltd., said the gallery has seen stronger engagement from Southeast Asian buyers this year, as well as from collectors in Mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.

“However, we have seen a decrease in visitors from the West,” he said in a Zoom interview.

The US and Europe remain important markets, though many experienced collectors are still based there, Rossi added.

Younger collectors are becoming more active, particularly those in their 30s and 40s. Rossi said these buyers tend to be more price-conscious and prefer works that are easier to understand.

“They are most comfortable buying works priced between $5,000 and $25,000,” he said.

Digital art is also drawing interest from younger collectors, according to Angelle Siyang-Le, director at Art Basel Hong Kong.

She said buyers are exploring nonfungible tokens, generative art, and software-based works. “However, painting is still one medium that is very much leading the way,” she said in a Microsoft Teams interview.

She said collectors are increasingly focused on the long-term purpose of their collections rather than individual purchases. Women collectors are also becoming more prominent in the market.

“Legacy building is very much at the forefront of their minds today, thinking about what their collections will mean for the next generation,” Siyang-Le said.