All eyes on M+, and Hong Kong, as Chinese Contemporary Art exhibition set to open
The opening this week of the ‘Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art’ exhibition, which provides a taster of the astonishing collection Uli Sigg has donated to Hong Kong, marks a crucial moment not just for West Kowloon’s M+, but also for the city itself, writes Enid Tsui
Rarely has there been so much riding on an art exhibition. With “Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art”, which opens on Tuesday, the custodians of the future M+ will try to convince a sceptical Hong Kong public that the much-delayed opening of the museum, which is now expected in 2019, will be worth the wait.
They will do so by giving locals a first glimpse of some of the most important contemporary art the city has ever owned. But given the nature of the exhibition – selected highlights from the M+ Sigg collection: 80 pieces by 50 artists presented in chronological order – the curators have a significant additional burden. They must prove they can relate the politically charged history of Chinese contemporary art without interference, that the HK$5 billion Herzog and de Meuron-designed waterfront landmark will be home to uncensored exhibitions and research, and that the West Kowloon Cultural District will not turn out to be a white elephant that confirms Hong Kong is losing its freedom of expression.
Watch: Hong Kong's contemporary art exhibition restores historic moments in China
In 2012, Uli Sigg donated the bulk of his Chinese art collection to M+. The 1,510 pieces, including 47 works that the museum bought separately from the Swiss collector, were valued at a total of HK$1.3 billion, and that figure will have risen since. Sigg’s is widely considered to be an unrivalled collection of Chinese art produced since the 1970s, based on size, quality and temporal span.
“It is a significant collection by somebody who hasn’t tried to amass it in a short space of time, someone with a long connection with China,” says Paul Gladston, director of the Centre for Contemporary East-Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham and an author of several books on Chinese contemporary art. “It probably is the most representative archival collection of its kind.”
