Museum gets 'kissing guards' from first local art donor
Museum's first local donation is a performance work posing questions about art and politics
The West Kowloon museum has received its first donation from a Hong Kong collector, who hopes to challenge people's ideas about art and politics with a performance work featuring two security guards kissing.
Hong Kong collector Alan Lau has donated performance work Guards Kissing to the yet to open visual culture museum M+.
Created in 2002 by British-German artist Tino Sehgal, who was shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize last week in Britain, the work is a "constructed situation" where a pair of museum guards - two men, two women or a man and a woman - kiss each other when a visitor enters an exhibition space.
The live encounter comments on different issues, said Lau, who has been collecting contemporary art for eight years. He said the work posed questions such as whether witnessing a public display of affection was an intrusion of private space.
"This work also comments on issues around LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] rights," he said, adding that performers were paid the minimum wage so the work also brought up the minimum wage issue.
"In response to [pro-Beijing lawmaker] Chan Kam-lam's remarks, does art really have nothing to do with politics?" Lau asked. Chan drew criticism last week after he warned the West Kowloon arts hub at a Legislative Council meeting not to confuse art with politics.