Advertisement
West Kowloon Cultural District
LifestyleArts & Culture

New Hong Kong museum will uphold artistic freedom, director says as it is unveiled, and show art by Ai Weiwei and about Tiananmen crackdown

  • At museum of visual culture’s unveiling, director is asked whether it will show controversial art after the introduction of Hong Kong’s national security law
  • ‘A city can only be a welcoming arts hub if it offers an open environment for artists and for different views,’ Suhanya Raffel says

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
4
A view of the main gallery floor of Hong Kong’s new M+ museum of visual culture. The radical design by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron places all 33 galleries on one floor. Photo: Enid Tsui
Enid Tsui

Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual culture will show works by outspoken Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and art referencing the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy students despite the introduction of a national security law in the city, its director said on Friday.

Advertisement

Suhanya Raffel was speaking during the first press tour of the just-completed building, ahead of its scheduled opening at the end of this year.

The focal point of the government’s ambitious West Kowloon Cultural District, the museum has had a difficult gestation, and will open in a political environment very different to that which existed when the planning for it began more than 15 years ago.

The long-delayed museum was originally to open in 2017. In 2018, with building work far from complete, its main contractor, Hsin Chong Construction, declared insolvency and was removed from the project. In 2019, cracks in a cofferdam caused flooding and a sinkhole to open near the M+ site.
Lights inspired by the plastic, red lampshades in Hong Kong wet markets illuminate the central information counters in the main lobby of the newly completed M+ museum. Photo: K.Y Cheng
Lights inspired by the plastic, red lampshades in Hong Kong wet markets illuminate the central information counters in the main lobby of the newly completed M+ museum. Photo: K.Y Cheng
Then, in June 2020, the national security law was introduced by Beijing, raising fears that Hong Kong museums would no longer be allowed to show content critical of government officials or the Chinese Communist Party. And in September, the chief executive of the body in charge of the arts hub project, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Duncan Pescod, was fired without any official reason.
Advertisement

Raffel, who vowed to see off political interference when she took over the directorship of the museum in 2017, said on Friday in response to a question that there would be “no problem” showing Ai’s works and other pieces included in the M+ permanent collection, because their inclusion was based on research developed from “historical facts”.

Advertisement