A group of galleries have written to Art Basel Hong Kong expressing concerns about the current political situation in Hong Kong, and pushing for concessions from the fair on booth fees and other costs.  “VIP registration numbers are consistent overall with previous years—and especially strong from the Asian region, where we have actually seen an increase in VIP registration from mainland China.” reads a reply from global director Marc Spiegler and Adeline Ooi, the fair’s Asia director. “We fully acknowledge that this year is not business as usual, and we are thus doing everything we can to support all the galleries coming to Hong Kong.”
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A piece on Russia’s new culture minister, Olga Lyubimova in the BBC notes her past statements about a sense of disdain for the arts. “I’ve been to the British Museum, National Gallery and a few dozen more European and Russian museums and reckon I wasted my time there,” reads a blog post she wrote years ago.
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Thomas Campbell gets a profile in Art Newspaper this week, as he sizes up his new position at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and looks forward to the coming years.  “We’re hitting the 125th anniversary of the de Young in April and the 100th anniversary of the Legion in 2024, so it’s a good time to examine where we’ve come from, who we are, and what our priorities are,” he says. “I’m prioritising being an institution of thought leadership, audience engagement and connoisseurship, for example.”
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