When German curator Tobias Berger moved to Hong Kong 20 years ago, the city’s cultural landscape was what he describes as a half-formed pyramid. “You need a museum at the top, commercial galleries and non-profit spaces filling out the rest of it,” Berger says. But at the time, apart from non-profit mainstays Asia Art Archive and Para Site (which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year), little of that existed. Today, the scene is transformed: from the 2000s on came the blue-chip galleries, Art Basel, the M+ museum, the Tai Kwun cultural centre and, more recently, a proliferation of independent art spaces and alternative projects.
Berger is set to make his own contribution with Gold, the city’s newest art space, opening just ahead of Hong Kong Art Week. The space is housed in a former jewellery shop in the industrial district of Wong Chuk Hang, on the southern part of Hong Kong Island. The generous, high-ceilinged ground-floor venue will form part of Serakai Studio, a cultural think-tank co-founded by Berger and art patron Benjamin Cha, founder and CEO of property investment firm Serakai Group. Gold will offer programming across art, design, fashion, performance and music; its model, according to Cha, is inspired by listening rooms and concept stores.
