The Emerging Era of Art Spaces: Taking Small-scale Artist-run Spaces as Examples

In the past twenty years, the discourse on artist-run spaces or alternative art spaces in Hong Kong since the 1990s has been focusing on their origins. Nonetheless, because of various factors, there have been changes to the way in which these art spaces operate. As for commercial art activities, apart from the fact that many foreign-owned and local galleries have been open for business, ART HK was held in Hong Kong in 2008. Parties that are supposedly irrelevant to the arts of Hong Kong, such as foreign galleries, have altogether become stakeholders of the local art scene. On the other hand, non-profit or artist-run spaces that are neither selling commercial art nor relying on government funds have been emerging in the recent five years, gradually creating a new force in the construction of art and cultural space in Hong Kong. From a broader and general point of view, this essay attempts to illustrate some of the major artist-run and nonprofit art spaces newly set up during the recent five years and explore the differences between the recent mushrooming and its initial occurrence in the 1990s. The comparison will serve as the departure point for an analysis of the roles and positions of small-scale art spaces in the current art ecology.