Source: International Herald Tribune
On March 31, 2006 the International Herald Tribune reported, "Two substantial Asian art fairs have taken over the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue and the Gramercy Park Armory. About two dozen special gallery exhibitions are spread around the Upper East Side. Timed to coincide with the fairs and mounted by local and visiting dealers, some are sublime. But this year the movable feast that is Asia Week is more in flux than usual, jostled by changes from all sides. These include the exploding economic growth of China, which has created a market there for Chinese art of all kinds, driving up prices and limiting the dwindling amount of top-quality historical material coming to the West. Adding to the overall shortages are the complex issues of legitimate provenance and new attitudes regarding exports. Locally, the impetus for it all - the uptown International Asian Art Fair, before which Asia Week did not exist - is very much in transition. The fair's purview has been expanded to include art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, much like its less patrician rival, the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show. The fair this year also includes unprecedented quantities of contemporary Korean, Japanese and Chinese art."