Long live the king

Collector Joel Chung Yin-chai pulls out a red plastic box from behind his work station and takes out a piece of navy-blue fabric the size of a table cloth, bearing the jet-black calligraphy of the late "King of Kowloon".

The toothless, shirtless graffiti specialist hobbled around the city on crutches, clutching a dingy plastic bag of brushes and ink, writing on walls, lamp posts, electrical switchboxes, post boxes or any available surface in Kowloon and on Hong Kong island between the 1950s and the early 2000s.

Some called the imagery art, but others, including the Transport and Highways Department, regarded it as vandalism, swiftly removing it from public areas.

Opinions change. The government is now aiming to showcase a pair of wooden doors bearing the writing of the late self-proclaimed majesty, an artist more formally known as Tsang Tsou-choi, at the upcoming M+ museum, at the West Kowloon Cultural District.

Tsang is at the vanguard of a price boom in Chinese contemporary art. Collectors recently paid HK$120,000 for a smelly, worn-out T-shirt Tsang wore. Last month, a cream-yellow Vespa scooter festooned with his black-paint writing (see cover), sold for HK$1.84 million, a record for a Tsang artwork.

Tsang's writing emerged as a favourite of contemporary art collectors in an art boom in Hong Kong driven by mainland demand.

"It is a natural progression, like the Western world, that the mainland consumers taste the satisfaction of owning Louis Vuitton handbags, limousines, real estate, yachts, private jets and then move on to art, wine or collectables," said Angela Li, the owner of a gallery in Sheung Wan dealing in painting, photography and sculptures largely by contemporary mainland artists. Li, treasury banker by training, travels around the mainland scouting for new artists and art pieces. "They begin to appreciate art and climb the cultural ladder."