Johnson's artists however break ground on another frontier. They absorb the trends and ideas sweeping western art without committing outright mimesis. Most interesting perhaps is Qui Zhijie (born 1969 in Fujian, China) whose "Interface" series is based on the transfer of patterns from an engraved bamboo mat onto human skin. One of the artists whose work was included in the landmark international travelling exhibition "Inside Out: New Chinese Art", Qui Zhijie's photographs of his own body marked by the bamboo tiles are at once erotic, disturbing and deeply poetical. The artist rebels against the traditional craft of metal and stone seal carving, creating impressions that can be only temporary.
 

The new wave is his speciality, but Hanart TZ Gallery also represents heavyweight old masters Wucius Wong and the Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming. Another artist championed by Johnson is Qui Shihua who represented his country at the Venice Biennale (1999). He creates eloquent paintings that at first glance appear almost minimalist monochromes until you perceive delicate landscapes emerging from the carefully crafted paint layers. 

Johnson does not have much competition in Hong Kong but there are a few galleries challenging his position and doing it reasonably well. All the mainplayers are situated in the Central business district, hoping to catch the passing trade of bankers and shakers who arrogantly strut the city streets. The John Batten Gallery will seem like a safe bet for newcomers to Hong Kong due to its English name. They show art from all over Australasia and are not restricted to Chinese artists: everyone from Yoshiko Shimada to NZ photographer Laurence Aberhart. On the same level is Plum Blossoms Gallery, who represent the increasingly successful Beijing based figurative artist Zhu Wei. 
 

Lastly there is a newcomer on the scene, the Japanese owned 'J Gallery' which occupies a two storeyed gallery on the ground floor of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. With galleries in Shanghai and Tokyo, they can afford heavy advertising and have an intensive rapid exhibition program. Not so experimental as the other three, they still come up with interesting artists crossing that East West divide like the calligrapher Huang Gang who inserts antique Tibetan wood printing bocks into his richly textured panels. Huang's works can seem like abstract expressionist compositions until you get close and decipher the layers of calligraphy and symbols imbedded into the surface.
 
 

Contemporary art in Hong Kong still has a long way to go. There is no permanent home for the public exhibition of  Contemporary Art and none of the commercial galleries mentioned are of the size or style to compare with galleries in sister cities New York, London, Tokyo, Sydney or Berlin. The money is there, but the incentive isn't. Ex pats in Hong Kong have long been avid collectors of chinese antiquities filling their glass towers with objects from another culture, so it cannot be that the majority of art sold in Hong Kong galleries is Chinese. As for the Chinese themselves, collecting art has yet to enter their collective psyche as something of importance. Perhaps it is simply a case of waiting for the current world mania for collecting new art to hit this bastion of capitalism. The younger set will realize that owning art is just as cool as owning a new porsche you have nowhere to drive and the older set will copy their charity mad counterparts in the US and UK and start spending their fortunes on young artistic talent. One problem I encountered in talking to the younger set was wall space. A chic horribly rich young Chinese wife explained to me "I would love to buy more art but you know, in Hong Kong our homes are quite small." 
 

Report by 
Raichel Le Goff in HK