Classic nudes fail to get watchdog to bite
An aesthetics professor released analyses of world-famous nudes to test if the city's media and publishing watchdog has learnt from a very public past mistake.
Compared with pseudo-models' photo albums, which excited and revolted many, the book by Professor Eva Man Kit-wah, Hong Kong Baptist University's head of humanities programme, has even more flesh. But she said: 'It's not just about career lines' - popular Cantonese slang for cleavage. 'They teach us a lot in many ways.'
The book, Nudity and Nakedness: Representation of Nude Art in Chinese and Western Contexts, contains analyses of 15 visual artworks whose subjects' nudity is central to them.
The works include Edouard Manet's Olympia and Gustave Courbet's L'origine du monde, which is a close-up view of the genitals and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed.
'The naked body can be interpreted in many ways, and all paintings and photographs I've included in the book are all established works in world art history,' Man said.
At the 2007 book fair, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority advised banning the sale of a book on Greek mythology, whose cover depicted French artist Francois Gerard's 1798 painting, Cupid and Psyche. The decision caused an outcry.
The next day the authority made an embarrassing about-face and told the Trade Development Council, the fair's organiser, that the book was cleared
Jimmy Pang Chi-ming, who published Man's book, said: 'They [the authority] said they would learn from the [2007] mistake. I just want to check how much they've learnt so I've invited this world-renowned academic to test their boundaries.'
The authority said it received no complaints on the first day of this year's fair. A spokesman said inspectors were at the fair and would continue to monitor it.
The Trade Development Council said only books under category one - meaning good for all - were allowed to be exhibited. It would not contact the Obscene Articles Tribunal to judge the book, a spokesman said.
A spokesman for the tribunal did not say if they had received any requests to review Man's book.
Meanwhile, Sun Hung Kai Properties founder Kwok Tak-Seng's personal assistant of eight years, Alice Poon Wai-han, released a book about how she thinks the property market players are de-facto rulers of Hong Kong. Poon said: 'Not only has the SAR government played deaf and blind, its approach towards setting land and competition policies has made matters worse.'
Carmen Kwong Wing-suen, editor-in-chief of publishing company MGuru, wanted to express her discontent with the city's 'government-business collusion', and did it in the most local of ways - through mahjong.
Tiles for north, east, west, and south are replaced by four Chinese words describing the collusion; and what used to be flowers are now animals.
Players can play the city's stories out satirically, she said. 'For example, our chief executive often looks like an 'um chun' - a Cantonese word meaning quail, also slang for coward - when he meets Beijing leaders, what with his notepads and forward-leaning posture. That's what Hongkongers would like to hit.'
