Asia Society Hong Kong brings our global ‘Art for Breakfast’ Series to the city during Hong Kong’s international Arts Month. Members are welcomed to our JC hall for a light breakfast and conversations with new perspectives on the art market.

After a year of turbulence and despite the general depression of the global economy, topics of Greater China and Asia-Pacific’s art market are still rapidly expanding. As we watch the region overtake the US to become the largest market share of public auction sales, Christie’s headline Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art piece selling for a record-breaking $69 Million USD to a Singaporean blockchain entrepreneur, and a record high of $12.4 Billion USD for online art sales. It’s about time to re-engage with innovative speakers and look to the future.

In collaboration with our Zurich Center, a live-streamed conversation and studio tour with Ghiora Aharoni, interdisciplinary artist and designer whose works have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent collections of The Pompidou Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Vatican and The Beit Hatfutsot Museum in Tel Aviv, to name a few. He will showcase several of his works over the years and life under a pandemic followed by an audience Q&A.

Ghiora Aharoni founded his multi-disciplinary studio for art and design in New York City in 2004. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums, institutions and galleries—including solo exhibitions at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York and the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. A graduate of Yale University, Aharoni’s work is in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pompidou Center, The Vatican, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, The Morgan Library & Museum, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and The Beit Hatfutsot Museum—as well as numerous private collections in North America, Europe and India.

Aharoni’s artworks are characterized by engaging time and text as a medium, and an interest in exploring dualities, such as the intersection of religion and science, and the intertwined relationships of seemingly disparate cultures. Much of his work involves traditional objects or symbols—such as cultural artifacts or sacred texts—that have been recontextualized and imbued with a new meaning that asks the viewer to question or reconsider their conventional social/cultural significance.

Aurelia Rauch (Moderator) is the Senior Art Consultant at Bergos. After her training in museum education at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster, Aurelia Rauch received her Magistra Artium in Art History at the University of Münster in 2010. Until 2018, she lived and worked in New York City and played an important role in New York's vibrant contemporary art scene, alongside her work in commercial and non-profit art organizations. Most recently she worked as Creative Director at Sperone Westwater on projects with artists such as Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Richard Long, Tom Sachs and Ali Banisadr. Since 2018, Aurelia has been the Head of Communications at Bergos & Senior Consultant, Bergos Art Consult – formerly Bergos Berenberg. Bergos is a Corporate Partner of Asia Society Switzerland.

S. Alice Mong (Host) became the Executive Director of Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) in August of 2012. Prior to ASHK, she worked in New York for almost a decade in the non-profit sector in senior management position. While in New York, Ms. Mong was the Director of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) from 2009 till 2011. Ms. Mong left MOCA in July 2011 after successfully transforming the museum from a New York Chinatown institution to become the leading national museum. Ms. Mong also served as the Executive Director for the Committee of 100 in the United States, a Chinese-American non-profit membership organization founded by architect, I.M. Pei and cellist, Yo-Yo Ma. Prior to New York, Ms. Mong worked in Hong Kong from 1992 to 2002.