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As I arrive in Hong Kong and check into my hotel, the lobby is dominated by a gigantic sculpture of two Chinese soldiers, one clutching Mao's Red Book, the other a red cellphone. It is entitled: "Red Guard - Going Forward! Making Money!"
This is just the first example of how striking modern art is present everywhere you look in this city. A new skyscraper has a 30 metre-high photo collage decorating its futuristic entrance hall, every restaurant and bar commissions artists to create works for the interior design, and now, walking into the Grotto Fine Art gallery, the first piece that catches my eye is a simple graphic ink painting with the statement: "HONG KONG IS A CHINA TOWN".
Well, wandering round the chic gallery district in Soho, it is apparent that the art scene here is dominated by either mainland or Hong Kong artists, and my first impression is that realist, figurative art is the current trend for buyers.
Grotto Fine Art is owned by David Au-yeung, a former art professor, who wanted a space that was devoted exclusively to the works of Hong Kong artists. "I have enormous faith in young local artists, who I felt weren't being allowed to develop because galleries were not giving them space to express themselves," he says.
Grotto is situated right in the heart of Hong Kong's fine art scene, a golden triangle between Wyndam Street, Hollywood Road and Old Bailey Street. There are dozens of galleries, and the pioneering space for contemporary mainland Chinese art is undoubtedly Schoeni Fine Art. Looking round the gallery, I am surrounded by intense, unsettling works, many by painters from the recently formed China Realism Group, such as Shen Hua's haunting portraits of the Chinese proletariat. Looking at the catalogues on display, nearly every painting seems to have a red dot.
Business is obviously booming, and Schoeni's director, Selena Liu, explains: "We have 10 house artists, and there are waiting lists of around two years for almost all of them. Prices have been steadily going up for some time now. To be honest, it looks like the market will carry on booming as long as the economy keeps growing, and China's economy certainly doesn't look as if it will...