Time to refine the business of culture
The exhibition of works from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, beginning later this month, will mark the second year running that the Hong Kong Museum of Art has splashed out on a display of French collections. Happily for art lovers, this means more is likely to be spent on delivering artworks to the public than on overheads such as electricity, cleaning and security, not to mention salaries - which is the usual case in our government-run museums.
Last year's Impressionism exhibition from the National Collection of Treasures of France cost more than HK$10 million to stage. The Pompidou paintings, sculptures and installations will cost no less. This is a significant investment in a vision of a cultural life fitting for an international business centre. The sad likelihood, however, is that many will see it as dubious and elitist. The Impressionism exhibition drew 95,000 visitors in two months. That falls well short of crowds at the science and space museums.
The government is to be commended for such high-profile support for the arts, but it is not an investment that will pay off without fundamental reform of the culture of government-run museums. Generally speaking they do not give the highest priority to acquisitions and displays that will attract crowds. Not surprisingly, they lose money.
The West Kowloon cultural hub project has focused attention on the arts sector and the way museums are funded and run. Wherever they thrive elsewhere, private or corporate philanthropy plays a significant role. Hong Kong's super rich have a tradition of giving to the needy or the worthy - such as medical research - but giving to the arts generally is in its infancy. A recent HK$36 million donation by Swire Pacific to the Hong Kong Philharmonic is an exceptional corporate gift rather than the rule. One aim of the government's original plan for the West Kowloon cultural complex was to encourage business investment in the arts. The plan has gone back to the drawing board, but a new model should include features to promote business sponsorship, such as matching grants and tax breaks.
More funding is no guarantee that exhibitions will succeed financially. But it should lead to planning and promotion of exhibitions that attract fee-paying crowds. Printed programmes and merchandise based on exhibitions or collections could be other sources of revenue.
The West Kowloon project still offers a commercially successful city the opportunity to show it can manage its own cultural venues without depending on a drip feed of public money or management by overseas institutions, and to showcase the cultural achievements of our own and the wider Chinese society.
A mix of private, corporate and public support could eventually liberate our cultural organisations, subject to scrutiny by official audit and through annual reporting to the Legislative Council.
