The word “Dangdai” means “contemporary”.《Taipei Dangdai》is a Taiwan trade fair on international contemporary visual arts. I flew to support: the scale was relatively small as they had only 90 booths. Visitors were mostly local or from China and Japan. The exhibits could be more attractive. The location Nangang is slightly off the business centre.

Unlike Hong Kong, Taipei seems to be less excited by an international art fair. It is not the talk of the week and the peripheral celebrating events in the city are not many. When one compares the “art January” of Taipei and “art March” of Hong Kong, the observations will inevitably be that Hong Kong is still the most international and foreigner-friendly city in Asia, suitable for holding international art events and activities. Besides, Hong Kong enjoys 4 competitive advantages as far as art deals are concerned: (1) tax is seldom levied on exhibition transactions (2) it is a liberal city with the freedom of art expressions (3) there is no foreign currency control and (4) import and export of art and antique items are not subject to any restriction.

This article can also be found at the following site: