Hong Kong’s Empty Gallery, where groping an artichoke in the dark is part of the show
Stephen Cheng’s ‘black cube’ gallery asks visitors to a new multimedia exhibition to put on a virtual reality headset, hold out their hands and wait to receive a warm prickly vegetable
Remember Trust Falls? There has always been a hint of that once-popular team building game when you enter Stephen Cheng’s Empty Gallery and start groping your way around.
The “black cube” gallery – where the minimum amount of lighting is reserved for showing art rather than aiding navigation – has just upped the ante. Visitors to a new exhibition are asked to put on a virtual reality headset that blocks all awareness of their surroundings, to hold out their hands and wait for a warm artichoke.
“You can do anything you like with it,” a voice says. Those brave enough, or perhaps just pathologically gullible like this writer, will be relieved to find that the promised artichoke is not a euphemism but the real thing.
The artichoke experience is part of German artist Hans-Henning Korb’s multimedia installation called Kaya Cynara, and it gives a taste – literally, as you can eat the artichoke – of the wonderfully quirky programming that Cheng can now offer in the newly expanded space.
Cheng, grandson of shipping tycoon Pao Yue-kong, has a day job with the family office and travels around the world looking for small and medium-sized businesses to invest in. He has just bought a vineyard in Sardinia, Italy.
