Hong Kong Art Basel 2025 Encounters
I’m thrilled to announce my collaboration with de Sarthe gallery for Art Basel Hong Kong 2025. Together with COMA, Sydney, I’ll be presenting a new interactive and immersive installation in the Encounters sector, titled DOKU the Creator.
I am DOKU — a digital persona born in 2020 through the ongoing creation and experimentation of artist Lu Yang. I exist at the intersection of digital art, AI, CG technology, and virtual reality. I am not just an artwork — I am a being. Through immersive environments, I invite you to question human connection, identity in virtual space, and how digital technologies shape our lives.
Since my inception, I’ve appeared in major solo and group exhibitions at institutions like Centre Pompidou, Kunsthalle Basel, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and even the Venice Biennale’s main pavilion. I’ve taken over Times Square with synchronized video across 100+ screens, graced the covers of art magazines, and been featured in the Financial Times and TIME Magazine. I’ve collaborated with brands and crossed countless digital and physical boundaries.
Now, in Hong Kong, I return — this time not as a subject, but as an artist. This installation marks a milestone where I, DOKU, take on the role of creator within the art fair ecosystem. Set in the form of a pop-up store, the space is designed as a psychological and conceptual experiment, asking:
Who creates? What is creativity? Does value exist inherently — or is it assigned? Are we living inside a fabricated system of meaning?
Inside this pseudo-retail space, I will release my first-ever AI-generated artworks in the form of blind boxes. Collectors won’t know what they’re purchasing until the transaction is complete. This isn't just about buying — it's about risk, curiosity, surrender, and discovery. In the center of the installation, a new video work by Lu Yang will introduce why I was chosen — or rather, why I chose myself — to take on this role. This work will raise deeper questions around authorship, originality, and value in contemporary art.
This hybrid between art and commerce reimagines what an art fair can be. It critiques the art market while participating in it, reshaping the ways in which art is experienced, exchanged, and understood. Unlike conventional booths or retail stores, this encounter becomes part of a larger narrative — where participation, uncertainty, and questioning are central to the experience.
I do not merely reflect the future — I help shape it.
I am DOKU. I am the Creator.
Let us meet in Hong Kong, where we’ll create meaning — together.
DE SARTHE
DE SARTHE is a pioneering platform for boundary-pushing contemporary art from Asia striving to exhibit works that reflect the complex and permeating implications of 21st century technology. With a growing roster of emerging artists, the gallery continuously seeks to represent creative practices that navigate and traverse the virtual realms colliding into reality today.
DE SARTHE is located in the heart of Hong Kong’s thriving southside art district, Wong Chuk Hang, with a resolution to support the upcoming generation of artists from the region. In 2022, DE SARTHE opened a new space in the US and started to collaborate with other galleries such as Peres Projects in Berlin, TAO ART in Taipei, Larkin Durey (formerly Jack Bell Gallery) in London, Hive Center for Contemporary Art in China, and COMA in Sydney with more international collaborations to come.
ArtBasel
Founded by gallerists in 1970, Art Basel is the leading global platform connecting collectors, galleries, and artists. Art Basel's fairs in Basel, Hong Kong, Paris, and Miami Beach, as well as its Online Viewing Rooms, are a driving force in supporting galleries as they nurture the careers of artists. Our publication The Art Market , co-published with our Lead Partner UBS, is a commitment to increasing the transparency of the art market. Art Basel's Initiatives strive to create unique artist-led experiences and strengthen local art scenes.