Early in the afternoon of Wednesday, March 27, when the Art Basel fair had just opened its doors to a few thousand hand-picked international VIPs (the exact number and the names remain a closely guarded secret), the aisles were already packed with a motley crowd of the lucky few, eager to discover what some 242 galleries from 40 countries were choosing to show this year.

The "buzz," as those in the industry like to call it, seemed well and truly back – and this was despite the relative economic slump in China and Hong Kong. In 2023, art market sales rose by 9% in China, to an estimated $12.2 billion. China now occupies second place in the global art market (19%), behind the US and ahead of the UK. And, according to a wide-ranging study published by Art Basel and its sponsor UBS, the market owes its resilience to the new generation of collectors.

"In my case, it was my mother who suggested I start collecting [contemporary art]. But it's also an activity that many of my friends, most of them artists, have recently taken up with a passion," said Bonnie Chen, a Chinese actress-turned-model-turned-director, as she wandered from gallery to gallery, stopping at random when something caught her eye, soon after the fair opened. "So it's only natural for me to get involved too." She mentioned very active networks of artists, gallerists and private collectors in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as in Chengdu and Shenzhen. "Many young artists exchange their paintings with each other, and several galleries have sprung up from groups of artists joining forces," said Silvia Sun, from the Don Gallery in Shanghai, who confirmed that the artistic ecosystem in China is in the throes of change. Her youngest client is 22.

Alice Lin, 27, originally from mainland China, studied in the UK and now works in finance in Hong Kong. She was attending Art Basel with a small group of stylish friends who described Lin as the most serious collector among them. She began her collection with two works by Damien Hirst. "They were just lithographs," she said, "bought online." Since then, she has considerably expanded her knowledge and network. She and two friends even set up a young collectors' club, with branches in London and Hong Kong, "to help young aspiring collectors build a collection with taste, quality and potential," she said in front of the stand of Beijing Commune Gallery, established 20 years ago in the heart of Beijing's 798 Art Zone. Lin is part of what UBS, Art Basel's historic sponsor, calls the "New Gen," a necessarily heterogeneous group of newcomers to the contemporary art market.

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