As many as 50,000 people may converge on a BMW M3 race car custom painted by Jeff Koons and thousands of other contemporary works as Hong Kong consolidates its position this week as Asia’s place to buy art.

ART HK 11, the fourth edition of the Hong Kong International Art Fair, opens to the public from today through May 29 with works ranging from Pablo Picasso to Andy Warhol to contemporary Chinese painter Zeng Fanzhi. About 6,000 Veuve Clicquot-sipping VIPs got first picks at the preview yesterday.

The gathering of 260 galleries from 38 countries is part of an eight-day spending spree in the city that includes Spring auctions by Bonham’s and Christie’s International, a wine sale by New York-based Acker, Merrall & Condit, and gallery shows including those by Chinese performance artist Zhang Huan at Edouard Malingue and American photographer David LaChapelle at de Sarthe Fine Art.

“You better get some sleep in advance,” said Nick Simunovic, director of Gagosian’s Hong Kong gallery, which is simultaneously running a one-man show featuring biker girls and nurses by American artist Richard Prince and a booth at ART HK selling works by artists including Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

In four years, ART HK has become a major stop of the global art fair circuit, closing in on London’s Frieze and Art Basel Miami Beach, which draw crowds of about 60,000 to 70,000.

“The art market tends to follow wealth and the greatest wealth is being created in Asia,” said fair director Magnus Renfrew.