Even before the doors opened, it was inevitable that the 11th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong would be trumpeted as a massive success. Not even a new round of national security laws announced shortly in advance of the fair’s opening could dampen the enthusiasm of organisers, dealers and collectors who were determined to act as if the pandemic and the politics had never happened.

With 242 galleries from all over the world taking part – up by 70 from last year – it felt like old times. The uber galleries were there in force, and quick to announce million-dollar sales. Dealers discouraged by Hong Kong’s political tightening, who decided to opt out last year and show with Singapore’s Art SG, were back in the fold. Although it may be Singapore’s cherished desire to be a hub for the global art market, there is a cultural problem, an uptightness, that needs to be overcome. Hong Kong is a far more extroverted city, in which the art fair has been embraced by locals and by cashed-up buyers from the mainland.

If there is a difference between today’s Hong Kong and the city of five years ago, when the first national security laws were passed, it’s to be found in the routines of everyday life, in a greater sense of caution that influences people’s words and actions. In the art fair, with its influx of foreign dealers, artists and collectors, there were no tangible constraints. Although contemporary artists love to moralise about political issues, they still seem happy to consign their works to the apolitical mechanism of the marketplace to be sold for high prices to wealthy collectors, with no questions asked about where the money was made.

One might view China’s hard-line attitude as cynical or merely pragmatic, but Xi Jinping’s regime is effectively calling the bluff of those artists who adopt strident political attitudes but still need to maintain a lifestyle. It’s a dance I’ve been watching from the sidelines for many years.

There were five Australian galleries taking part: Sullivan + Strumpf, who must rank as our most assiduous attendees of international art fairs; Ames Yavuz, now firmly based in Sydney and freshly renamed; STATION, another gallery with genuine international ambitions; Fox Jensen, which has always combined local and international artists with strong abstract tendencies; and the emerging Fine Arts, Sydney, which showed a sprawling, tubular metal sculpture by Yona Lee.

STATION and Sullivan + Strumpf have outlets in Melbourne, but most of the 2024 participants are Sydney-based. This may be taken as confirmation that Melbourne, despite its more dynamic public art culture, remains commercially less adventurous than the harbour city.

Looking back over my snapshots of the fair there were relatively few new discoveries that caught my eye. Maybe it’s simply down to personal taste and familiarity, but the things I most enjoyed were often by past masters rather than contemporary stars.

It was hard to go past Annely Juda Fine Art, from London, with small works by Russian revolutionary artists and paintings by Leon Kossoff. There was an unbelievable ink drawing of a Chinese cabbage by Shao Fan at Urs Meile; a densely compacted abstraction by Eugene Leroy at the Michael Werner Gallery; expressive paintings by Karel Appel at the Max Hetzler Gallery; a room of serene pictures by the late Park Seo-bo, courtesy of Johyun Gallery, Busan; two small wooden figurines by Stephan Balkenhol at Mai 36 Galerie Zurich; hilarious restagings of public statues by Tatzu Nishi at Anomaly, Tokyo; textured abstract canvases by Park Young-ha at Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul; a huge Philip Guston at Hauser & Wirth (which sold for $US8 million, or about $12.3 million); two utterly eccentric figure paintings by Rose Wylie, at David Zwirner’s; and powerful ink works by Li Huasheng at Ink Studio, Beijing.

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Were I one of Australia’s 150-plus billionaires, these works might have been on my shopping list. Instead, one wonders just how many wealthy Aussie collectors made their way to Hong Kong. They seemed to be less visible than in previous years.

One indisputable highlight was the Encounters component, put together by Alexie Glass-Kantor, director of Artspace, Sydney, who has become an accomplished selector of artists able to deal with the demands of a large-scale installation. Aside from the pieces already discussed, exhibits ranged from a dramatic, sweeping seascape by Cuban artist Yoan Capote made from fishhooks to a cluster of larrakitj poles by Naminapu Maymuru-White from Arnhem Land.

The most eye-catching of the lot was probably a hyperrealist sculpture by Chinese artist Li Wei, who created a playground in which world leaders sit around in the form of small children. Vladimir Putin is especially well-imagined as a sullen, nasty-looking little brute who has turned his back on the rest of the kids. Give me the child till he’s seven, said St Ignatius, and I’ll show you the man.

Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 took place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from March 28-30. John McDonald was a guest of Art Basel Hong Kong.