The West Kowloon Cultural District Museum of Visual Culture M+ announced on Wednesday (8th) that it will officially open on November 12 and will display 1,500 M+ collections in 33 exhibition halls and exhibition spaces.
Within one year from the opening day of the museum, Hong Kong residents holding a valid ID can visit the exhibition in the M+ exhibition hall for free.
There will be live performances, lectures, guided tours, workshops, screenings and online activities for the public to experience art together.
The concept of "M+" (Museum Plus) was first proposed in 2007. The bureau hopes to build M+ into a forward-looking cultural institution, with a flexible and forward-looking approach, showing the 20th to 2nd from the perspective of Hong Kong and today. The visual culture of the eleventh century.
At that time, the bureau intends to design M+ as a museum community with both outdoor and indoor spaces, as well as a platform for cultural exchanges and activities.
However, when I check the official website of M+, I only describe it as a brand new museum dedicated to the collection, display and interpretation of visual art, design and architecture, mobile images, and Hong Kong’s visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. The ideal of transcending museums and architectural spaces is far away.
Moreover, only relying on a museum to provide the citizens with one-way information, it is difficult to respond to the various ambitions at the beginning, such as the purpose of initiating, teaching and attracting citizens, encouraging dialogue, promoting creativity, and exploring the diversity of visual culture. A strong response.
The problem of overspending and unsettled exhibits has risen again
Construction of the M+ building started in 2014, completed in 2018, and finally opened to the public in 2021. The entire building took six years to open to the public. Naihe is already one of the first major landmarks completed in the West Kowloon Cultural District.
The construction of the building not only takes a long time, but also a storm of overspending broke out in 2018, involving an amount of about 6 billion yuan.
However, in view of the government’s consistent bureaucratic and procedural style, I am afraid that the Hong Kong people are not surprised by the above problems. We can only hope that the government can recover the amount from the developer, so as not to burden the people with hard-earned money.
In addition to problems with the construction project, the exhibits in the collection also caused heated discussions in the community.
At the beginning of the year, New Democrat Party Legislative Council Member Rong Haien said at the Chief Executive’s Q&A meeting that there are artworks in the M+ Museum that are suspected of violating the “Minato National Security Act” and insulting the dignity of the country, including works by Ai Momo.
West Kowloon’s chairman Tang Yingnian responded at the time that there is no plan to exhibit Ai Weiwei's work when the museum opens, and the M+ Museum will definitely abide by the laws of Hong Kong.
The museum originally spent more than HK$170 million to purchase the collection from Uli Sigg, a Chinese contemporary art collector from Switzerland, with a "half buy, half free" method, and accepted 1,463 works donated by the fund established by Dr. Sigg , Including Ai Weiwei's photographic work "Perspective Study: Tiananmen Square".
If the relevant exhibits are really inappropriate, why didn't the museum notice it early?
Tang Yingnian, who has served as the chairman of the West Kowloon Region for many years, has no opinion on this?
Furthermore, the museum has spent a lot of money to purchase collections. If the collections cannot be displayed for different reasons, the public will naturally also question the criteria for purchasing the collections and spending.
The government hopes to build Hong Kong into an Asian cultural and artistic center, and it is absolutely worthy of support to wash away the cultural desert.
It is a pity that only a good starting point is not enough to make the whole thing go smoothly.
No matter in terms of construction, operation or even administrative policies, the entire M+ plan is not satisfactory. Only hope that the bureau can manage finances and administration prudently in the future, so as not to waste public funds and invite others to talk about it.
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