UBS, a partner of Art Basel since 1994 and Lead Partner of Art Basel’s Hong Kong show since 2014, will present a curated arts program at this year’s show, including:

  • A special exhibition in the UBS VIP Lounge themed around the human figure, featuring work by internationally renowned artists such as Cindy Sherman, John Baldessari, and Xu Zhen
  • The return of the popular UBS Junior Arts Hub, which provides children with free, art-inspired activities throughout the show
  • A new version of the UBS Planet Art app, featuring an expanded library of news sources and a new Android platform
  • A dedicated presentation on the UBS commissioned project WOMEN: New Portraits, a global touring exhibition of newly commissioned photographs by Annie Leibovitz

Hong Kong, 29 February 2016 – UBS will present a comprehensive program of public, client and employee activities during the fourth edition of Art Basel’s show in Hong Kong, which will take place from 24 to 26 March at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Featuring 239 leading international galleries from 35 countries, Art Basel in Hong Kong will showcase the best in Modern and contemporary art, particularly from the Asia and Asia-Pacific regions, which account for half of the galleries in the exhibition.

Continuing its tradition of presenting artworks from the renowned UBS Art Collection, UBS will host an exhibition of works by internationally renowned artists in its VIP lounge. This year’s presentation features artists who have studied the human figure in their practice, including Cindy Sherman, John Baldessari, Xu Zhen, Franz Gertsch, Yasumasa Morimura, Michael Borremans, and Sandro Chia.

Kathryn Shih, President, UBS Asia Pacific said: “UBS is proud to support the Art Basel show in Hong Kong – Art Basel is an important and historic part of our global contemporary art portfolio. The show in Hong Kong showcases the best art from the region and we are delighted to see how the show has developed from strength to strength, bringing the city’s cultural life to the foreground for this special week and marking Hong Kong as a truly international arts hub.”

The popular UBS Junior Art Hub will be reinstated at the show this year, providing children with free and engaging art-inspired activities throughout the week. This year’s focus for the UBS Junior Art Hub is photography and portraits.

Beginning in March at the Art Basel show in Hong Kong, Planet Art for Android will make the app available on devices world-wide. Planet Art presents a snapshot of trending topics and relevant contemporary art news based on data gathered from global media sources. The app is a simple, effective tool to objectively navigate and distil vast amounts of information about contemporary art, collecting and organizing news, features, and market stories into custom content streams for users. Planet Art can be downloaded via the Apple App Store or Google Play.

In collaboration with the Financial Times, UBS will again host a private forum on collecting contemporary art, featuring art world experts, who will provide insight into collecting trends and advice on how to start a collection. Additionally, a series of talks will be held in the UBS VIP Lounge featuring cultural opinion-formers, artists and representatives from art institutions, who will speak on such topics as the development of the Hong Kong art scene, the intersection of art and luxury, the role of the museum in the city, first steps for building a collection, and trends in photography.

The UBS VIP Lounge will feature an introduction to the UBS-commissioned project WOMEN: New Portraits, a global, touring exhibition of newly commissioned photographs by celebrated photographer Annie Leibovitz. The exhibition is a continuation of a project Leibovitz began more than 15 years ago, and will be shown alongside work from the original series to reflect changes in the roles of women today. The new portraits feature women of outstanding achievement, including artists, musicians, CEOs, politicians, writers, and philanthropists. The exhibition will open in Hong Kong in June as part of a ten-city tour over the course of 12 months. Other cities include London, Tokyo, San Francisco, Singapore, Mexico City, Istanbul, Frankfurt, New York, and Zurich.
www.ubs.com/annieleibovitz

For enquiries about UBS’s partnership with Art Basel:
Lucie Sherwood / Jessica Tedd, Sutton Hong Kong
Email: lucie@suttonpr.com / jessica@suttonpr.com
Tel: +852 2528 0792

For inquiries about UBS:
Mark Panday, Executive Director, Corporate Communications Asia Pacific
Email: mark.panday@ubs.com
Tel: +852 2971 8221

Notes to editors:

About UBS and Contemporary Art
UBS has a long and substantial record of patronage in contemporary art and actively enables clients and audiences to participate in the international conversation about art and the global market through the firm’s contemporary art platform. UBS’s extensive roster of contemporary art initiatives and programs currently include: the UBS Art Collection, one of the world’s largest and most important corporate collections of contemporary art; the firm’s long-term support for the premier international Art Basel shows in Switzerland, Miami Beach and Hong Kong, for which UBS serves as global Lead Partner; and a collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation on the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. These activities are complemented by a number of regional partnerships with fine art institutions including the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. UBS is also partnering with world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz on WOMEN: New Portraits, a global exhibition tour of newly commissioned photographs. In addition, UBS provides its clients with insight into the contemporary art world through the free art news app Planet Art; collaborations with the Swiss Institute and the online resource Artsy; as well as services offered by the UBS Art Competence Center and the UBS Arts Forum.

About the UBS Art Collection
UBS holds one of the world’s most important corporate collections of contemporary art, with over 30,000 works by the newest talents as well as some of the most recognized artists of the last 50 years. At least 40% of the annual acquisition budget is currently dedicated to Asia Pacific.

About UBS Planet Art
UBS Planet Art – Art news and information at your fingertips. The smart app developed by UBS, offers a distilled view of the vast range of art news, reviews and information across the art world. It uses a proprietary algorithm to aggregate contemporary art information from a broad range of online news sources and allows users to customize content streams. Now with over 40,000 users, Planet Art offers an objective snapshot of the most relevant and trending topics, allowing you stay firmly on top of the world of contemporary art. Beginning in March at the Art Basel show in Hong Kong, Planet Art for Android will make the app available on devices world-wide.

About Art Basel
Art Basel stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary works, sited in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition. In addition to ambitious stands featuring leading galleries from around the globe, each show's singular exhibition sectors spotlight the latest developments in the visual arts, offering visitors new ideas and new inspiration.
artbasel.com