«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

White Cube, the influential London gallery best known for pioneering the works of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, is opening its first overseas branch in Hong Kong early next year. Owner Jay Jopling is following in the footsteps of powerful art dealer Larry Gagosian, who launched his first Asian gallery in Hong Kong in January, as the region’s collectors exhibit a growing appetite for western contemporary art. Tim Marlow, White Cube’s director of exhibitions, said the gallery – which has a long association with a group of British artists who came to prominence in the 1990s with their confrontational style – wanted a base from which to observe what’s happening outside the European art market. He said there was “absolute evidence” that mainland Chinese taste in art was broadening, adding that Hong Kong’s status as a major contemporary art market has also been boosted by Art HK, the four-year-old annual art fair that is now the biggest of its kind in the region.