Pillar of Shame sculpture marking Tiananmen Square crackdown is a ‘sham’, University of Hong Kong’s former council chairman says
- Arthur Li claims creator Jens Galschiøt had repurposed statue for Hong Kong after it was rejected by the United States as a memorial for a different event
- Galschiøt hits back, says Li was trying to ‘erase the story’ of the statue which had stood at the University of Hong Kong’s campus since 1997 before it was removed on December 24, 2021
The former chairman of the University of Hong Kong’s governing council has called a sculpture commemorating the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown a “sham”, prompting a war of words with the artwork’s creator.
Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, a member of the Executive Council, the city leader’s de facto cabinet, said on Saturday the Pillar of Shame’s creator Jens Galschiøt had repurposed the statue for Hong Kong after it was rejected by the United States as a memorial for a different event.
Galschiøt hit back immediately, saying Li was trying to “erase the story” of the statue.
“It’s strange he called me a liar,” Galschiøt told the Post during a long-distance phone call.
A former member of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which received the statue, also said he had never heard of the version Li suggested.