Opinion | Enough of the cute: Hong Kong’s Year of the Rabbit stamps reflect a taste for tame public art
- Some netizens may prefer the city’s floral bunny stamps to China Post’s mischievous grinning rabbit, but if public art is to inspire rather than bore, originality and dynamism must be nurtured
Much better, they say, to have something like Hong Kong’s philatelic tribute to the new year, pointing to the doll-like, porcelain white, sedate creature decked out in pastel flowers designed by Kan Tai-keung.
Huang’s creation may look as mad as a March hare but it is by far the more striking, dynamic and interesting of the two. Its scarlet eyes and grinning mouth glow like embers against its cool, blue-gray fur. It stands assured and ferocious on its hind legs, holding up pen and paper in its distinctly human hands. An image to arouse great resolve.
As a kind of public art commission, stamp designs are as official and decided-by-committee as they go. They are collected and widely seen, especially during the festive seasons when more snail mail is exchanged. So, to have a stamp provoke shock in a country where harmony and respect for traditions are the values usually celebrated in public art is rather exciting.
The 98-year-old Huang probably couldn’t care less. The erudite, much-loved artist is the epitome of cool – just a few years earlier, he was still driving around Beijing in an open-top red Ferrari.
And this rabbit is just one of many zodiac animal paintings and sculptures that he’s done over the years. In fact, he could be said to have kick-started the tradition in China of issuing stamps that feature animals of the Chinese zodiac, when he made the first such stamp for the Year of the Monkey in 1980.
