Adrian Cheng has been a number one determine in Hong Kong’s artwork world for the previous 20 years. He has performed a central position throughout the spheres of artwork, design and retail because the particular administrative area has grown as a centre for the south Asian artwork market, with worldwide artwork galleries and public sale homes more and more basing themselves there, the museum sector increasing and the Artwork HK artwork truthful turning into Artwork Basel Hong Kong.
In 2008, Cheng based K11, a property enterprise devoted to “cultural commerce”—integrating museum-standard artwork with high-end procuring malls in Hong Kong and mainland China—and accountable for creating the Victoria Dockside world artwork and cultural district, house to K11 MUSEA, on Hong Kong’s harbourfront.
For a few years, he held management roles at K11 and at New World Growth Firm, the main Hong Kong property enterprise based by his grandfather.
The K11 mannequin made headlines in 2014 when K11 Artwork Mall in Shanghai hosted 40 work by Claude Monet, together with works from the Water Lilies and Wisteria sequence, lent by the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris lent. Cheng tells The Artwork Newspaper that the choice was partly impressed by his love of the foundational set of Monet’s Water Lilies within the oval gallery on the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.
The Monet present at K11 Artwork Mall, Shanghai, in 2014 Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
The transfer coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of Sino-French cultural relations, a topic the 2 foundations based by Cheng have shut connections to. The K11 Craft & Guild Basis (KCG), established in 2018, helps conventional Chinese language craftsmanship, and is at current supporting a two-year analysis challenge with the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles. The K11 Artwork Basis (KAF), in the meantime—arrange by Cheng in 2010—helps Asian modern artists and has fashioned partnerships with establishments together with the Palais de Tokyo and the Pompidou Centre in Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork and New Museum in New York Metropolis; the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork (Lacma); and Serpentine Galleries and the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London.
One other main K11 Artwork Basis enterprise is its common salon, launched in September 2024 throughout Frieze Seoul artwork truthful. The salons have a powerful emphasis on the junction of artwork and know-how, and Cheng describes them to The Artwork Newspaper as “a assume tank for cultural evolution, attuned to the calls for of at the moment’s hybrid artwork financial system”.
The most recent iteration was held on 23 October, as a part of the Asia Now artwork truthful, throughout Paris Artwork Week. It featured the London-based Chinese language artist Vivien Zhang and the curator and author Alexis Loisel-Montambaux (one of many curatorial duo CRO), in a dialogue exploring ecological relationships and multisensorial approaches to exhibition making, moderated by the curator, artwork historian and author John Tain.
The artist Vivien Zhang (left) in coversation with the curator and author Alexis Loisel-Montambaux (proper, one of many curatorial duo CRO), moderated by the curator, artwork historian and author John Tain, at a K11 Artwork Basis Salon in Paris, October 2025 Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
Additionally this 12 months, Cheng launched K11 by AC, his newest enterprise in cultural retail growth and administration. The corporate is designed for a variety of audiences from artwork lovers to millennials and Gen-Z. He has additionally based the ALMAD Group, a conglomerate targeted on tradition, leisure, sports activities, media, healthcare, industrial administration and cultural tourism.
Cheng spoke to The Artwork Newspaper about Hong Kong as a worldwide artwork centre; his life as a collector; and what most excites him in regards to the work of artists and curators who work on the junction of artwork and know-how.
The Artwork Newspaper: You’ve been championing Hong Kong as a world centre for high-quality artwork for greater than 15 years. How do you view the way forward for Hong Kong throughout the world artwork market?
Adrian Cheng: Hong Kong is unquestionably going to play a key position as a centre for worldwide artwork commerce. The Hong Kong authorities arrange a Mega Arts and Cultural Occasions Fund in 2023 to encourage large-scale cultural occasions in Hong Kong and to make it an East-meets-West worldwide hub and gateway to mainland China. Seventeen such mega arts and cultural initiatives have been authorised previously three years, with complete funding of over HK$198 million.
Hong Kong has a supportive artwork and tradition ecosystem with establishments comparable to M+, Tai Kwun and the Hong Kong Palace Museum encouraging engagement and schooling, and cultivating new collectors and patrons of artwork. As well as, Hong Kong doesn’t impose import duties, VAT, or items and providers tax on artworks and is house to main public sale homes comparable to Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips.
The K11 Artwork Basis Salon at Serpentine Galleries, London, in October 2024 Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
K11 Artwork Basis (KAF) has been in operation now for 15 years. What are its fast and longer-term plans?
The inspiration itself focuses on nurturing rising Asian artists and curators—with biennial artist and curator prizes falling in alternate years—and fosters modern artwork growth. It organises exhibitions and residencies, in partnership with world establishments, to advertise cross-cultural collaboration. Since its basis it has helped help 1,600 exhibitions and academic programmes, involving over 900 artists, curators and organisations.
The K11 Artwork Basis Salon is a current addition to the inspiration’s work, with a deal with cutting-edge discussions in regards to the assembly of artwork and know-how, protecting matters comparable to digital transformation and the digital preservation of artwork. Previously 12 months we’ve held 10 salons in seven cities, together with the occasion throughout Paris Artwork Week this 12 months. We have already got plans in place for 2026, with salons scheduled for Hong Kong Artwork Week, Artwork Basel in Basel and Berlin Artwork Week.
I see the salon as a cross-cultural open platform that cultivates dialogue between artistic insiders and the broader public. It’s greater than a showcase—it features as a assume tank for cultural evolution, exactly attuned to the calls for of at the moment’s hybrid artwork financial system. It sits inside a broader ecosystem dedicated to cultural retail: a fusion of commerce, creativity and neighborhood. K11 Artwork Basis Salon is properly positioned to form conversations round the way forward for artwork, the place boundaries between disciplines, media, and audiences are more and more fluid.
The event of the K11 Artwork Basis Artist Prize has been supported by our worldwide council, which we plan to broaden and recognise within the coming months.
An exhibition of the work of the artist Martin Gross at K11 artwork village, Wuhan, following the artist’s March 2019 residency in Wuhan introduced by the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), London, in partnership with K11 Artwork Basis Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
What are your upcoming plans for K11 Craft & Guild Basis (KCG), together with its present collaboration with the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles (CRCV)?
KCG is sponsoring a two-year analysis challenge led by Mathieu Da Vinha, director of the CRCV. The challenge enhances Sino-French cultural alternate by finding out craftsmen working on the Château de Versailles beneath the rule of Louis XIV and evaluating them to their Chinese language counterparts. The findings shall be made accessible on CRCV’s educational platform Prosocour.
KCG performs a pivotal position in conserving and rejuvenating fast-disappearing Chinese language craftsmanship by fostering educational analysis, public schooling, tradition alternate and cross-disciplinary collaborations. KCG’s core focus is on Guangcai (Canton enamel porcelains), Baibaoqian (semi-precious stone inlays), Luodian (mom of pearly inlay), gilt-decoration, plaster moulding, picket structure and Kesi (silk tapestry method). The inspiration positions these crafts on a worldwide stage via collaborations with museums, luxurious manufacturers and educational establishments. This brings conventional craftsmanship into the current, connects Chinese language tradition and aesthetics with the world, nurtures the following technology, and achieves sustainable craft conservation and growth.
This 12 months, the inspiration has been specializing in goldsmithing: Xinjiang Province model goldsmithing—a legacy of cultural alternate and dialogue alongside the Silk Street; and Beijing Imperial goldsmithing—an beautiful artwork of the Imperial Qing Court docket.
The artist Zhang Jian-Jun throughout his September 2019 residency on the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) Faculties, London, introduced by the RA in partnership with K11 Artwork Basis Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
What was the primary work you got?
My first buy was a limited-edition lithograph by a younger Hong Kong printmaker, acquired at a scholar showcase throughout my faculty days. That modest funding ignited my ardour for championing rising voices and jogs my memory that accumulating is as a lot in regards to the tales and connections behind every work as it’s in regards to the object itself.
What was the final work you got?
My most up-to-date acquisition is a generative digital work by Cheng Ran in collaboration with the utilized science artist Solar Bohan. It’s pushed by algorithmic code. I used to be drawn to the way it blurs artwork and know-how—every viewing feels each acquainted and brand-new, a meditation on reminiscence, time and the evolving nature of notion.
Adrian Cheng on the present of work by Claude Monet at K11 Artwork Mall, Shanghai, 2014 Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
What do you remorse not shopping for once you had the prospect?
I remorse not securing a site-specific portray by Matthew Wong. We had commissioned him to create an unique work for considered one of our public-development initiatives in Hong Kong, and he accepted the fee enthusiastically. Tragically, he handed away earlier than finishing the piece. I didn’t have the chance to introduce his luminous imaginative and prescient right into a public area.
For those who might have any work from any museum, what would it not be?
If I might “have” a single masterpiece in its truest sense—remaining in dialogue with its meant area—it could be Claude Monet’s Water Lilies on the Musée de l’Orangerie. That piece impressed me to host the primary Claude Monet exhibition in China at K11 Shanghai in 2014 [with paintings from the Musée Marmottan Monet]. Greater than 300,000 individuals skilled these luminous lily ponds firsthand, and I witnessed how artwork can remodel an area right into a collective sanctuary of mindfulness.
Who’re the guy collectors you most admire—whether or not contemporaries or from earlier eras?
My admiration goes to the Medici household of Renaissance Florence. They invented artwork patronage as a public drive, commissioning masterpieces that wove artwork into politics, philosophy and civic life. By nurturing artists like Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi and Sandro Botticelli, they remodeled accumulating right into a catalyst for cultural renewal. Their legacy reminds us that true patronage is about empowering creativity and shaping society.
What most pursuits you at the moment on the earth of artwork and know-how? And the way is that mirrored in your plans for each foundations and the K11 Artwork Basis Salon?
In an period the place synthetic intelligence (AI) evolves each day, essentially the most thrilling frontier is the emergence of real machine-human partnerships—catalysts for cross-disciplinary dialogue. When know-how turns into as intuitive and expressive as paint, the boundaries between disciplines start to dissolve. Engineers, scientists, dancers, musicians and visible artists can collaborate in actual time, exchanging strategies and sparking concepts. This fluid interaction accelerates innovation, making certain that breakthroughs come up not from remoted silos however from the convergence of numerous minds.
At K11 Artwork Basis Salon, we’re curating a dynamic suite of programmes that commemorate this new mannequin of cross-disciplinary partnership.
What most pursuits you about how artists are utilizing AI?
What fascinates me most is how artists are utilizing code as a brush—remodeling algorithms into expressive instruments. Artists are writing code the way in which painters combine pigments, shaping generative techniques that reply, evolve and shock. As a substitute of controlling each element, artists set the situations and let the machine collaborate—introducing unpredictability, nuance, and even emotion into digital creation. It’s a brand new type of craftsmanship, the place logic meets instinct.
How do you see the way forward for accumulating?
I see extra collectors holding hybrid portfolios combining bodily works with digital editions. Fractional possession fashions will democratise accumulating. Augmented and digital actuality instruments will proceed to allow immersive show and interplay. Clear provenance on public ledgers will change how collectors conduct analysis.
The artist Chris Huen Sin Kan throughout his 2022 residency on the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) Faculties, London, introduced by the RA and K11 Artwork Basis Courtesy K11 Artwork Basis
Do you assume the markets want to maneuver past the gallery custom of star making, to permit extra variety?
I feel galleries will stay indispensable as trusted curators and champions of inventive high quality, however we will’t ignore how social media reshapes discovery, style and community-building. Platforms comparable to Instagram, X, and TikTok enable rising artists to bypass conventional gatekeepers, domesticate area of interest followings and interact collectors immediately. To foster true variety, I consider the market will shift to a hybrid strategy that leverages each gallery experience and digital channels—assume on-line partnerships and community-driven platforms—in order that under-represented voices can thrive alongside established stars.
Does the conjunction of up to date artwork, supported by K11 Artwork Basis, and craft, inspired by K11 Craft & Guild Basis, function a reminder of how crafts comparable to jewelry, wine making and style sit in clear firm with high-quality artwork?
The divide between high-quality artwork, craft and design has been beneath debate ever since industrialisation shifted how we produce and devour objects. Historically, high-quality artwork was prized for posing questions—philosophical, social, formal—whereas craft and design have been seen primarily as purposeful.
However at the moment that hole is closing. I see jewelry designers, vintners and style makers who should not simply perfecting method; they’re partaking with narratives, cultural critique, even political concepts via their work. In each hand-woven textile or custom-blended wine, there’s an intentionality that rivals a gallery set up.
To me, “the artwork within the craft; the craft within the artwork” is a reminder that mastery and which means co-exist. When a jeweller chooses a setting to evoke reminiscence, or a winemaker adjusts fermentation to inform a terroir story, they’re asking questions simply as deeply as any painter or sculptor.
