Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong, March 27th (Reporter Ding Zizhang and Zhang Yashi) The first online exhibition hall of Art Basel, Art Central online exhibition hall, long-term online platform ART Power HK ... Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Hong Kong's cultural and art circles have launched online Display platform, online and offline integration has become the new normal in the field of art exhibitions.
This year's Art Basel Hong Kong exhibition was held in a new format from March 20th to 25th. Compared with hundreds of Hong Kong dollars of offline tickets in previous years, the online exhibition hall is free to the public. People just need to move their fingers to browse more than 2000 artworks from 235 top international art galleries in 31 countries and regions through the official website or mobile app.
"You can enjoy top-level artworks without leaving the house. This new form provides the audience with an opportunity to appreciate art." Mr. Li, a citizen of Basel, has been a fan of the Basel exhibition for three consecutive years. He had previously been disappointed when the physical exhibition was cancelled this year, but the online showroom made up for the regret. "Although online exhibitions are not as enjoyable as face-to-face appreciation, I believe this is a new trend and people will accept it."
In fact, the online platform has long been an important channel for promoting art works at Art Basel. Huang Yajun, the Asian director of Art Basel, said in an interview with media recently that in the past, participating art galleries will upload and share the artwork and artist graphic information that will be presented at the exhibition on the Internet, and build a "cloud" connection with the audience. More than 10,000 art entries.
Although the show moved online, people's response was still very enthusiastic. Gagosian Gallery Director Sam Olofsky said that in the past few weeks, Gagosian's online sales, new contracts, and website views have increased significantly. "Physical galleries and art fairs are closed behind closed doors, and technology is more important than ever."
Art Basel is a large-scale art exhibition worldwide, held annually in Basel, Miami and Hong Kong. Huang Yajun revealed that the online exhibition hall will be a long-term project in the future, which will be held in parallel with the three exhibitions and become an exhibition space parallel to the exhibition.
In order to add cultural vitality to Hong Kong under the epidemic, Hong Kong's cultural institutions jointly launched an online platform ART Power HK in early March, collecting 60 art galleries, museums and auction houses, including online galleries, interviews with Hong Kong artists and collectors, online Lectures and other items.
According to the platform staff, the online initiative launched by the platform and multiple partners has been extended to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, universities and the media industry. At present, art institutions such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the West Kowloon Cultural District M + Museum and the Liangyi Tibetan Museum have all settled on the platform.
Many cultural and recreational activities in Hong Kong are being held online. Due to the cancellation of multiple concerts, the performers of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra have selected some passages to play on social media. In addition to their friends, they also encourage everyone to unite to fight the epidemic. The Hong Kong Repertory Theatre allows the public to vote for the repertoire that they would most like to review, and plays the repertoire on social networking sites based on the voting results.
To reduce crowd gathering, public cultural and recreational facilities in Hong Kong, such as libraries and museums, are temporarily closed. However, the library has e-book resources for the public to read. The Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Hong Kong Heritage Museum also uploaded some of their collections to Google Art and Culture for public viewing online.
Schools are closed, interest classes are suspended, and students' extra-curricular cultural life is shifted from offline to online. There are educational institutions that transfer classrooms to virtual spaces for real-time video teaching. Mrs. Liang's son studying in elementary school, the recent Dizi interest class was changed to online classes. Mrs. Liang believes that it is a good way to allow children to continue to absorb all aspects of knowledge during the extraordinary period.
March is Hong Kong's Arts Month each year, but many cultural and artistic activities have been cancelled or postponed this year, which has hit the industry a lot. To help the industry overcome the difficulties, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government allocated HK $ 150 million in the "Anti-epidemic and Anti-epidemic Fund" to implement the funding scheme for the arts and culture industry. The first batch of funding has been issued this week to the venue partners of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Civil Affairs Bureau Arts and Energy Development Funding Group and Maritime Museum.
In March, nine major performing arts groups also received government funding to pay employees, contractors, and freelance workers. According to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, entrusted by the SAR Government, the agency has issued HK $ 80,000 to each of the 40 groups and HK $ 15,000 to multiple event plans.