Tobias Berger Strikes Gold: Inside Hong Kong’s Latest Cultural Space

There’s no shortage of gold-related idioms: strike gold, gold standard, heart of gold, goldmine. Phrases that would feel fitting for a new art business. But the reason why Gold, the latest art space to arrive in Wong Chuk Hang, is so named is far more direct.

That’s because its previous two occupants were tied to gold and money. About 15 years ago, the space was occupied by HSBC. Then came a retail shop selling jewellery, catering to mainland Chinese visitors who wanted to stop by on their way to Ocean Park, the amusement park just 10 minutes away by foot. 

Founded by Serakai Studio, where Tobias Berger serves as co-founder and curatorial director, Gold is part of a wider ecosystem under Serakai, a property developer that invests across multiple cities.

Berger calls Gold a salon. The term evokes the cultural gatherings of 18th century Paris, where writers, political philosophers and artists would gather at private residences to exchange ideas on art, literature and politics, seeing intellectual debates as a path to knowledge and enlightenment. Berger speaks of exhibitions, performances and private dinners. The artworks on display are not necessarily for sale, and while the aim is to eventually break even, there is no immediate pressure to do so.

Gold has lofty aims, but its entrance is subtle. Designed like a side door, it’s easy to miss it if you aren’t looking for it. Once inside, a narrow entryway ushers you into an airy 3,500-square-foot space with white walls and high ceilings. “We wanted to be humble,” says Berger, who gives Empty Gallery, a gallery located in Tin Wan, as an example. “They took the time to build up their name before becoming what it is now,” he notes, referring to the space’s reputation as an edgy, experimental art space. 

At the end of the entryway, visitors encounter Tozer Pak’s “Using the Light of a Waning Moon to Draw a Full Moon” (2007), a poignant work in which the artist turns a natural phenomenon into a gesture of authorship. 

Nearby is Santiago Sierra’s “250 cm Line Tattooed on 6 Paid People” (1999), a controversial piece in which six unemployed Cuban men were paid US$30 dollars each — equivalent to more than four days of their daily working wages, or a half month salary — to have a single continuous line tattooed across their backs, raising questions about the uncertain relationship between the men and the artist. Is the latter critiquing social inequality, or is he exploiting them as much as anyone else? 

Berger sees such uncertainty as a source of possibility. “This is a space where we don’t know the exact outcome,” says the veteran curator, who brings to Gold more than two decades of experience working at institutions across Asia. For him, Hong Kong in the 2000s was an interesting place to be, politically and culturally. “It was evident that the future of the relationship of China with the rest of the world would change dramatically and that Hong Kong would be an amazing place to witness it,” says Berger. “There is a small art community, like in most Asian cities, but we also realised there was a lot of potential to grow the cultural ecology.”

An experimental space

When Para Site offered him the role of executive director in 2005, it was an “easy decision,” he says. The city continues to exert its pull on him. While he had a brief stint as chief curator at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul from 2008 to 2010, he returned to the city to take up the role of inaugural curator of visual arts at M+ in 2010. From 2015 to 2023, he was head of arts at Tai Kwun.

“At Tai Kwun, the mission was very clear, which was to build one of Asia’s leading venues for contemporary art,” says Berger. “At M+, too, the goal was clearly defined. Here, there is a bit more uncertainty. We have the flexibility to present exhibitions, performances and to collaborate with third-party organisations. We don’t have to sell, but we can also sell, if that’s what the artist wants.”

Even during his institutional years, the curator is no stranger to navigating uncertainty. The opening of Tai Kwun Contemporary was delayed by a year and a half following the collapse of a wall on the historic site. Its inaugural exhibition, Rehearsal, ran for just 22 days as a ticketed, no-photography show, an intentional trial to test the space with a smaller, trusted audience.

But what, ultimately, is Gold’s mission? Berger pauses. “We want to create the most exciting space in Hong Kong,” he replies. “We want something edgy, something that bridges art, design, fashion, music and performance.”

The timing couldn’t be better, he suggests. The audience is ready. With an ecosystem of museums and institutions like Tai Kwun, WestK, alongside independent spaces such as Para Site, the city seems primed for something a bit more experimental. 

Gold follows from a strong lineage of such experimentation in Hong Kong. 15 years ago, two floors above Gold’s current space, Mimi Brown founded Spring Workshop, a five-year initiative that brought together contemporary art exhibitions and music programming. A decade ago, Chantal Wong and Lee Kit launched Things That Can Happen in an unassuming walk-up in Sham Shui Po, hosting exhibitions alongside performances and readings during its two-year run. In the same neighbourhood, Eunice Tsang established Present Projects, an experimental space and shop. When that lease ended, she went on to found Current Plans, located in the space Spring Workshop once occupied. (Berger sits on the board of Current Plans.) 

He is adamant that Gold wants to contribute something meaningful to Wong Chuk Hang and the wider Hong Kong art scene. “There is a real sense of community here,” he says. Compared to Tokyo, Seoul or New York, he notes, gallerists and curators in Hong Kong take their visitors to other galleries. “Maybe it’s because a lot of these [blue chip] galleries aren’t based here,” he speculates. “They come in, and so they need friends.”

To bring something new to Gold, Berger has assembled a team with diverse expertise and perspectives: Shirley Lau, a curator deeply immersed in fashion and design; Aaditya Sathish, who is also a performance artist; and Mildred Cheng, whose official title is Design Lead but who, Berger notes, is also “an amazing DJ.”

Perhaps the most certain thing about Gold is its 10-year lease, something of a rarity in Hong Kong (though Berger is quick to point out that the space is not owned by Serakai). It is also one of the few ground-floor gallery spaces in Hong Kong. 

Room to dream

While Certainly adopts a relatively traditional exhibition format, the next show will begin to push beyond those boundaries. Titled Dreamcore, it is half exhibition, half retail concept, bringing together young Chinese fashion and furniture designers. “One could argue this has been done before, but they have usually been retail-first. But our approach will be quite different,” says Berger, mysteriously. 

There are also plans to open a salon space in Tokyo within the next two years. The concept will be similar to Gold, though it won’t necessarily carry the same name, unless it happens to occupy the former site of a bank or jewellery shop. While the programming between the Hong Kong and the Tokyo spaces won’t be directly linked, both are part of a broader, ongoing inter-Asian dialogue.

Berger is quick to note how things have changed over the past decade or so. Before, he says, “everyone was looking to London, New York and Paris. Nobody was thinking about going to Shanghai or Tokyo.” 

The rise of Asia’s art fairs and biennales has significantly shifted this perspective. Berger points in particular to the Gwangju Biennale 2002, where curators Hou Hanru, Charles Esche and Sung Wan Kyung invited galleries from across Asia to present together. “With that, you suddenly had this incredible network, with people telling each other, ‘You do a show here, I’ll do a show there,’” he says. “The cheaper airfares also helped,” he adds half-jokingly. 

Berger is clearly excited about the talent emerging across Asia. In China and Thailand, he says, there is a kind of critical creativity. “It’s not just about making beautiful things, but about doing something crazy, something different.”

For someone who relishes in uncertainty, Berger says he only has one tiny thing keeping him up at night. “Normally, you plan shows one or two years in advance,” he says. “But right now, we’re in conversation with different collaborators. We don’t yet know who will play with us.” What makes Gold glitter? We’ll soon find out.

Certainly runs at Gold until 3 May 2026. Click here for more information.