Coronavirus pandemic prompts visual art to turn virtual

HONG KONG -- When the annual art fairs Art Basel and Art Central were canceled in March, accompanied by widespread closures of galleries and museums, the coronavirus pandemic appeared to be a disaster for Hong Kong, the world's third-largest art market.

But the crisis triggered Art Basel to bring forward the unveiling of online viewing rooms to show works from all 235 participating galleries, attracting 250,000 visitors in a week, far surpassing the 90,000 who normally attend in person. The response to Art Central's digital website on Artsy, a New York-based global platform for galleries, has also been "phenomenal," according to director Corey Andrew Barr, with 105,000 page views compared with 19,000 last year. Art Central extended the fair, normally limited to five days, to May 1.