How the Hong Kong Museum of Art can stay relevant, during a time of political turmoil and beyond

The return of HKMoA in a time of crisis is an important reminder of what shaped Hong Kong. In future, however, will the government-run museum be able to showcase Hong Kong contemporary art that is critical of the status quo?

Vivienne Chow

Published: 9:00am, 1 Jan 2020

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I am standing in front of floor-to-ceiling windows admiring the view I will never tire of: a dense jungle of skyscrapers against the backdrop of Victoria Peak under a blue sky; in front, a vast body of water on which ships, ferries and junks sail from one end to the other, with wakes spreading out behind. The vitality of Hong Kong lives on.

This glorious living scroll of Victoria Harbour is the latest and perhaps most magnificent exhibit at the recently reopened Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA), following a HK$934 million (US$120 million) expansion and facelift. In the midst of the ongoing protests, tear-gas canisters could be flying around on Salisbury Road, where the museum has been located since 1991, and it might seem incongruous to be hiding away from the chaos and appreciating art.

But, the truth is, the return of HKMoA in a time of crisis is an important reminder of what shaped Hong Kong.

One might question whether the exhibits, mostly historical, are still relevant to the unprecedented political turmoil rattling the city: isn’t the protest art on the streets much more relevant than artefacts telling the same old Hong Kong stories in some secure, insulated white cubes?

The value of the artworks on show at HKMoA lies not only in their artistic, aesthetic or historical merits, but also in the stories behind them: where they came from, how they ended up in Hong Kong and what they say about the city’s cultural roots.

Students gather for a rally near the Hong Kong Museum of Art on December 13. Photo: AP

Despite being a 57-year-old government-run museum, HKMoA has a vast and often underrated collection of over 17,000 pieces – Chinese ink paintings and antiquities from centuries ago, China trade paintings from the pre-colonial days, Hong Kong modern and contemporary art – a collection that has been witness to, and a vessel of, the city’s unique cultural history.

Like the boats sailing in Victoria Harbour, these cultural treasures leave a wake for us to retrace the city’s history: for centuries, Hong Kong has been a safe haven for cultural treasures, a land of freedom for generations of artists to reinvent and express themselves, drawing on the hybrid cultural lineage of East and West.

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Of the 11 exhibitions that make up the ambitious inaugural programme and are spread out in 12 galleries spanning 10,000 square metres, 10 are drawn from the museum’s collection (only the blockbuster show, “A Sense of Place: from Turner to Hockney”, is on loan from the Tate in Britain).

Through the museum’s art collection, we revisit the history of Hong Kong: a small watercolour painting of the waterfall at Aberdeen circa 1816 is one of the earliest visual records of the city. It is believed to have been painted by William Havell, a draughtsman with Lord Amherst's embassy, and the painting is regarded as a record of discovery of Hong Kong Island, which would be ceded to Britain as a colony decades later; Hong Kong’s earliest collection of art, the Chater collection, was donated to the government in 1926.

Many pieces of the collection were thought lost during the second world war but were recovered and returned by residents and organisations – an early example of Hong Kong’s crowdsourcing spirit.

(From left) Wu Keyu, son of artist Wu Guanzhong, attends a donation ceremony at Government House on August 22, 2018, with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and the Hong Kong Museum of Art’s curator, Szeto Yuen-kit. Some of Wu Guanzhong’s best works have been left to Hong Kong. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

The city owns some of the most precious Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy works dating from as early as 500 years ago, including those by the fabled Ming painter, Tang Yin, and scholars with roots in the late Ming dynasty, who refused to succumb to the Qing rule of Manchurian invaders from the northeast.

These important works were kept safe from the political upheaval in mainland China, thanks to private collectors who brought them to Hong Kong, which was a sanctuary for Chinese treasures for decades because of its unique political status.

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For decades, many masters also left footprints as well as artistic creations in the city: the late, great Wu Guanzhong left some of his best works to Hong Kong, which now boasts the biggest collection of his art in the world.

One of the new exhibitions at HKMoA, which attempts to retrace the development of Hong Kong contemporary art from the 1960s to recent years, also reflects the former British colony’s changing sentiments about art, culture, society and politics.

HKMoA has outdone itself in its bid to transform the city’s oldest museum into a space that is welcoming, pleasant and relevant (within the confines of government bureaucracy). But how the museum can stay relevant in the years to come remains a big question.

Yes, the museum features local artists’ new creations in a dialogue with the classics. For example, Rosanna Li Wei-han’s Beyond , an installation which includes her chubby ceramic figurines against backdrops such as a glass window that is overlooking Victoria Harbour and also covered with colourful Post-it notes, does two things at once. It is a response to Boat People on the Sea, a 1981 ink painting of Vietnamese refugees by Fang Zhaoling (the mother of Anson Chan Fang On-sang). It is also an obvious reference to the Lennon Walls that have sprung up during the Hong Kong protests.

But will the museum be able to showcase more artistic creations that are critical of the status quo? Judging from its current presentation, a great deal of avant-garde, conceptual art by local artists over the past two decades has not been covered. Will the museum be free to fill this vacuum in future?

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Now that HKMoA has reopened, all eyes are on the West Kowloon Cultural District on the other side of the Kowloon peninsula, where the much delayed M+ is being completed. The renewal of HKMoA has certainly raised the public’s expectations for this new mega museum of visual culture that brands itself as a global institution with a Hong Kong perspective.

Past and present events, such as the inaugural Sigg Prize exhibition featuring avant-garde works by contemporary artists from Hong Kong and mainland China at the M+ Pavilion, offer a clue about how relevant a global institution with a Hong Kong perspective will be when it finally opens.

After all, the Hong Kong perspective is a complex matter and should be open to interpretation, and HKMoA will continue to have a key role to play in the city’s cultural ecology, but only if it’s given a free hand.

Vivienne Chow is a Hong Kong-based journalist and critic specialising in art and cultural affairs. She is the founder of Cultural Journalism Campus

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