Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 Encounters: Performance by Kongkee.
Date: 26 March 2026 (Thursday), 13:00-13:30
Venue: Level 3 - Booth EN7, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
With PRICE / VALUE / TAOTIE, Kongkee stages the collision of art, money, and desire. Extending the mythic continuum of Dragon’s Delusion, he reanimates Taotie in neon—greed refracted through Hong Kong’s capitalist skyline—by way of two neon works: PRICE OR VALUE and TAOTIE.
In PRICE OR VALUE, upon acquisition, the collector must choose between “Price” or “Value.” The artist then smashes the other, leaving its fractured remnants as the work itself. This act is refusal: a refusal to let price dictate meaning, and a reminder that value—cultural, human, symbolic—endures beyond the marketplace.
Beyond the transaction price, what is the true power of art? Can we touch upon the dilemmas humanity has faced for millennia and continue to make our voices heard amidst the cracks of capital? Kongkee cordially invites the audience to contemplate the intriguing question of contemporary art’s dance between “artwork” and “commodity” at the moment the neon tubes shatter.
Kongkee (Kong Khong-chang), born in Malaysia in 1977 and raised in Hong Kong, is a visual artist and animation director. In 2022, his major solo exhibition “Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk” premiered at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and toured to Wrightwood 659 in Chicago and Tai Kwun in Hong Kong.
Image: Kongkee, PRICE / VALUE / TAOTIE, 2026 (artist sketch). Courtesy the artist.
Learn more--
https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/103804/Kongkee-PRICE-VALUE-TAOTIE/69953
