Hong Kong opens high-end art gallery amid cultural fears of ‘dark ages’ | Art and Culture Issues

Hong Kong, China – Its reception hall offers a glimpse of Victoria Harbor. Its collection promises visitors the opportunity to see some of the world’s most iconic paintings.

M +, produced by Herzog & de Meuron, builder behind Tate Modern in London, has been called the world’s largest museum in Asia.

The 14-year-old museum, which is a gemstone of Hong Kong’s cultural district in West Kowloon, will open on Friday during a political rally.

While part of China is calling for a place on the world cultural map and clearing away the past that is driven by trade preferences, a black cloud is a screen in the name of security. national security has reached its climax.

“It’s a big, long-term development. M + has global, regional and global needs,” said Paul Gladston, a Chinese contemporary art expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. That said, it “must” agree to find solutions to these problems in a more formal way on the surface. It is true now. ”

In March, when the executive director of M + Suhanya Raffel insisted on a media briefing that it would not prevent conflicting activities, Henry Tang, West Kowloon regional director, was quick to point out that all protests should be followed by National. Security Law, enacted by China in June last year.

The law suspends Beijing’s actions as a violation of the law, terrorism, alliance with foreign troops and isolation from life imprisonment, with critics saying “is ruined‘Hong Kong’s democratic rights.

The law “limits what M + can do, and gives the impression that it limits what M + can do,” Gladston told Al Jazeera. “This is difficult.”

During a secret visit to the museum last week, Doryun Chong, Chief Curator of M +, was asked about how his career has changed compared to when he was first elected in 2013.

“The world has changed,” he said, “and things have changed. There are a lot of things to look forward to and to enlighten. ”

That same year, the largest exhibition by American artist Andy Warhol was on a tour of Asia, and when his Mao silk paintings were banned in Beijing and Shanghai, they were shown in Hong Kong.

This year, just months before the grand opening, the museum announced that a photo taken by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who was flown to Ai showing the bird in Tiananmen Square in Beijing would not be included in any of the opening exhibitions.

The remarks were seen by many as a stepping stone to the head of a museum in the face of pro-Beijing political threats. A description of the 1997 project, Study of Perspective: Tian’anmen, is on the page of a museum, but there is no picture.

That is not all.

Beijing’s popular rival has several pieces in the M + category, which is also available online. There is no picture of ‘Study of Perspective: Tian’anmen’ although some parts of the list are shown [Al Jazeera]

Over the past few months, threats promoted by government-controlled journalists to a wide range of artistic activities – from visual to graphic media – have all undermined the freedom of speech that was so important in Hong Kong.

Called “a troublemaker” in a Beijing affidavit in August, outspoken songwriter Adrian Chow, best known for composing Cantopop political songs, resigned from his hard-earned seat at the city’s development council.

“I’m concerned that Hong Kong is being plunged into the dark ages,” Chow said, “and it is possible that technological development will be affected.”

‘Playing well’

A few weeks ago Danish artist Jens Galschiøt was protesting against the expulsion and destruction of the Pillar of Shame, which commemorates the bloodshed in 1989. Tiananmen Square.

The disgusting has been a university student since the night Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 following British rule for more than 100 years, but authorities have recently ordered the removal of the monument.

An eight-meter-long ‘Pillar of Shame’ from Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot has been standing in the courtyard of the University of Hong Kong since 1997. It has now been demolished. [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]

Now all eyes are on what will be missing on the M +, with officials emphasizing that only a small portion of the 6,000 collections can be displayed at the 17,000 exhibit (183,000 square feet) at any one time.

The first prize for more than 1,500 paintings – including a few Ai – from Uli Sigg, a former Swiss ambassador to China and secret collector, is the basis for the M + offering. It appears that some of the Sigg fragments, which are prohibited by security regulations, will remain in the seven-story concrete museum opposite the museum.

Meanwhile, filmmakers in the ancient East Hollywood are under increasing scrutiny. In defiance of regulations regarding the regulation of COVID volumes, officials are sent as dots to enter the confidential viewing and close it.

Almost three new publications of the pro-democratic party of 2019 have been banned from their release.

The Kiwi Chow filmmaker ignored the ban with his new film Revolution of Our Times by making his first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival this year as an amazing addition to the show and the recent sale of the rights to a European publisher. In anticipation of a crisis with Hong Kong officials, Chow destroyed all the raw paintings.

However, for artists whose work needs to roam in your area, self-examination becomes a way to protect yourself.

Journalist Justin Wong admitted that he avoids dangerous situations and approaches safety issues, but admits that even safe play may not be enough.

“In fact, if people are willing to pile up sin against me, they can create a Mickey Mouse mount that I can draw,” Wong said.

Asian Field, the establishment of British artist Antony Gormley, at the new M + Museum, which opened Friday after years of delay. Gormley organized the project after inviting people to a village in Guangdong to build a massive clay model five days earlier in 2003. [Jerome Favre/EPA]