MEGartSTORE: Not For Sale
Heritage Museum, Sha Tin
MEGartSTORE, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum's latest exhibition, uses the metaphor of department stores to create an accessible and familiar setting for art. It's divided into departments such as food and beverage, and home and garden. Works from the museum's collection related to 'departments' have been chosen by artists.
There are two major problems with this exhibition - the assumption that shopping is a suitable metaphor with which to connect art to daily life, and the execution of that premise.
MEGartSTORE could have taken this as a chance to critique Hong Kong's obsession with shopping, and investigate what's lacking in a society so strongly driven by consumerism.
Or, conversely, it could have copied the layout and aesthetics of Wal-Mart, the US mega-chain stores that inspired the concept behind the exhibition.