Throughout Asia, economies are waking up to the UN call for culture to be given top priority in the post-2015 global development agenda. Hong Kong, for one, hopes to derive fresh economic benefits as an arts hub, buoyed by the success of Art Basel on May 15-18.
But the connection between artistic progress and economic development goes well beyond the economic data as artists are transformed by society’s material wellbeing to produce works that reflect their preoccupation with notions of progress.
The artificial flower, an object that generated one of the region’s biggest rags-to-riches story, namely that of one of Asia’s richest men Li Ka-shing, was the...