‘It started as an inside joke’: Hong Kong artist Mak2 on her new web series that channels Queer Eye to parody the city’s art scene
- Hong Kong’s Next Top Artist, a mockumentary based on the Queer Eye concept, will debut on February 17, as part of West Kowloon’s SerendiCity art festival
- Mak2, who is behind the series, talks about poking fun at the art world, and how work on her first big production brought her ‘a different sense of achievement’
Mak Ying Tung changed her artist name to Mak2 in 2018 on the advice of a fortune-teller, and it seems to have done wonders for her career. Since then, she’s become one of Hong Kong’s bestselling millennial artists, and is now represented by De Sarthe, one of the city’s most prominent art galleries.
Now, the visual artist is getting ready to share hot tips with aspiring entrants to the art world via her new mockumentary “Hong Kong’s Next Top Artist”. The web series launches as part of SerendiCity, an upcoming media arts festival taking place at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District and online.
“It started as an inside joke,” she says of the series, which she co-wrote and directed. “There’s this artist whom my friends and I thought was talented and had interesting things to say; however, he hasn’t been able to make a name for himself in the art world, perhaps because of the way he presents himself.”
Hong Kong’s Next Top Artist comprises five five-minute-long episodes released weekly that follow Mak2 as she attempts to transform an average Joe into a commercially viable art “product”.
