https://www.scmp.com/rss/3571/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh Sir Alistair Spalding, artistic director and co-CEO of Sadler’s Wells in London, is not a man blighted by pessimism or narrow vision. When he was appointed in 2004, Sadler’s Wells – “stranded and unloved”, as one of the London newspapers put it – was considered a theatre that merely hosted visiting companies. Spalding decided it should become its own creative force. He invited in five associate artists, one of whom was Wayne McGregor, now Sir Wayne McGregor, a name familiar to Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3347787/sir-alistair-spalding-turning-london-wasteland-cultural-destination?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3347787/sir-alistair-spalding-turning-london-wasteland-cultural-destination?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:15:08 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh It is seven years since Indian author Amitav Ghosh last published a novel. For many readers, he is a fiction writer best known for The Glass Palace (2000) and his Ibis trilogy comprising Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015). These are set against historically accurate moments during the British Empire, but are works of imagination. Like his readers, he says he thinks of himself as “primarily a novelist”. In more recent years, however, he has focused on... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3343994/indian-author-amitav-ghosh-publishes-first-novel-7-years-why-so-long?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3343994/indian-author-amitav-ghosh-publishes-first-novel-7-years-why-so-long?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:15:07 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh Last month, the Chinese art collector and patron Yan Du opened a non-profit art space in a magnificent Grade I listed building in Bedford Square, the 18th-century heart of London’s Bloomsbury district. Calling it YDP – which stands for Yan Du Projects – she says that it and her other non-profit project, Asymmetry, which launched in 2020 in London to support a new generation of Chinese and Sinophone curators, are “guided by the same spirit: myself”. That spirit wants to ensure Asian artists claim... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3332414/how-two-new-asian-and-african-focused-cultural-institutions-are-decolonising-art-london?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3332414/how-two-new-asian-and-african-focused-cultural-institutions-are-decolonising-art-london?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Nov 2025 23:15:08 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh In 1992, a British newspaper sent me to New York to interview a man called Paul Mellon. He was 85 and was said to have been wealthier longer than any other living American; the family fortune flowed from the Mellon Bank, founded in 1870. He was also, according to a London gallery owner, “the last civilised collector”. In his Manhattan town house off Park Avenue, one of his seven residences, there was a Canaletto, a squad of Constables, a Stubbs, some Bonnards; the dining room alone had a... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3330044/moving-through-life-without-collecting-lessons-nomadic-childhood?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3330044/moving-through-life-without-collecting-lessons-nomadic-childhood?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:00:10 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh One dank, unlovely morning in January, Ross Urwin sloshed around a Brussels market looking for mid-20th century furniture. He was sourcing pieces for Lane Crawford, which was planning an in-store exhibition during this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong. Urwin, who is a consultant for the store, says, “It was so bloody cold, so depressing and rainy. But it’s what I do.” From 2003 until 2007, he’d been buying director for Liberty of London, and would regularly find himself at dawn clutching a flashlight... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3330211/treasure-hunting-ross-urwin-lifetime-collecting-design-icons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3330211/treasure-hunting-ross-urwin-lifetime-collecting-design-icons?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Oct 2025 22:00:19 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh The Hong Kong-born poet Sarah Howe has a lovely voice. People have commented on it so often that she wrote a line about it in her new collection, Foretokens. “From my teens, well-meaning adults would exclaim, ‘You have a lovely voice!’” she writes in her poem World Service. “Not picking up my flush of shame, they’d keep going. ‘When you grow up, you should be on the BBC!’” Those modulated tones were drummed into her when she moved from Hong Kong to England aged seven, the daughter of a British... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3328945/hong-kong-born-poet-stunned-silence-detractors-finds-voice-again-foretokens?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3328945/hong-kong-born-poet-stunned-silence-detractors-finds-voice-again-foretokens?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Oct 2025 23:15:08 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh On June 24, at the Biennale Danza in Venice, Italy, a new work was unveiled by acclaimed British choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor who, as it happens, is also the artistic director of the international contemporary dance festival. His piece is called On the Other Earth. No dancers were physically present. It takes place within a cylinder, four metres (13 feet) high with an eight-metre diameter, encircled by the world’s first 360-degree stereoscopic LED cinematic screen. The immersive installation... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3321448/hong-kong-ballet-and-top-british-choreographer-break-new-ground-venice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3321448/hong-kong-ballet-and-top-british-choreographer-break-new-ground-venice?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Aug 2025 04:15:07 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh The man considered Hong Kong’s emperor of architecture – the city’s own master builder, its home-sprung fountainhead – is talking about his new book. The original title he’d chosen was Learning from Hong Kong? “The question mark is important because that means I’m not being too conceited or self-centred,” says Rocco Yim Sen-kee. Framed within the screen of a video call from his office, he has the look of an earnest monk. “The idea that people could learn from Hong Kong in the art of architecture... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3317842/how-hong-kongs-master-builder-rocco-yim-left-his-mark-city?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3317842/how-hong-kongs-master-builder-rocco-yim-left-his-mark-city?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Jul 2025 22:15:10 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh In 1904, Hong Kong’s Supreme Court held a maiden sessions: no criminal cases were recorded for the whole month of November. Following an English tradition to mark the occasion, the chief justice, Sir Henry Berkeley, was presented with a pair of white gloves by the registrar “in token of the spotless innocence of the whole population”. Berkeley replied how remarkable the achievement was in a place like Hong Kong, with its vast, transient class of villains. He attributed the success to “dealing... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3311307/new-book-examines-evolution-justice-during-hong-kongs-death-penalty-era?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3311307/new-book-examines-evolution-justice-during-hong-kongs-death-penalty-era?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 May 2025 01:00:13 +0000 One of the more unlikely pairings in this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival is that of Ludwig van Beethoven and manga. The composer, born in 1770, and Japanese graphic novels, popular since the late 19th century, do not usually keep cultural company. But in this week’s Beethoven Wars: A Battle for Peace – described as the “first manga opera” – Japanese-style animation unfurls a tale of intergalactic strife to live orchestral music written by the German genius. It is no coincidence that when it... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3303575/beethoven-meets-space-battles-first-manga-opera-2025-hong-kong-arts-festival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3303575/beethoven-meets-space-battles-first-manga-opera-2025-hong-kong-arts-festival?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Mar 2025 04:44:27 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh One May day in 1884, a Japanese woman called Saki Kiya received a letter at her Hong Kong address. It was from her family, who said that her father was ill and asked her to return home to Japan. She did not have enough money for the voyage and soon, another letter arrived informing her that he had died. On a Sunday evening in June, she left her residence at 27 Graham Street. Some hours later, her body was found floating in the harbour with, as the China Mail put it, “a pretty heavy stone” tied... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299893/unveiling-stories-hong-kongs-early-japanese-residents-happy-valleys-cemetery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299893/unveiling-stories-hong-kongs-early-japanese-residents-happy-valleys-cemetery?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Feb 2025 05:15:07 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh In the summer of 2004, Peter Harris, president of Pedder Group – a division of Hong Kong’s Lane Crawford Joyce Group – visited Sri Lanka for the first time. He travelled for hours in darkness from Colombo down to Galle to stay at what was then called The Dutch House. It had been built by a retired Dutch admiral in the early 18th century and was run by Australian boutique-hotelier Geoffrey Dobbs. When Harris woke, he felt, as travellers often have in the Land of Serendip, that he’d landed in... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3298665/18th-century-dutch-house-sri-lanka-reborn?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3298665/18th-century-dutch-house-sri-lanka-reborn?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Feb 2025 05:12:52 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh Daphné Mandel used to love the mystery of Hong Kong’s abandoned places. In 2008, she’d arrived from France because of her husband’s work. In Paris, she’d co-founded a firm specialising in landscape architecture and urban planning. Mandel thought she could replicate her practice in Hong Kong but that turned out to be challenging. Instead, she started observing the city as an artist, painting its dense jostle, its coexistence with nature, its difference from European cities. After a while, she... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3287080/forgotten-border-village-shows-hong-kongs-history-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3287080/forgotten-border-village-shows-hong-kongs-history-change?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Nov 2024 22:15:08 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh “It’s years since I’ve done a face-to-face interview,” says Grace Wu Ka-yan. “We’ll just have a casual conversation.” If there’s the touch of a regal edict in the statement, it’s understandable: as the world’s leading expert and collector of Ming furniture, Wu is often referred to, at least in press releases, as the Queen of Huanghuali – that being the yellow flowering pear wood from which most of it is made. In this role, she is holding court, a little reluctantly, with two amiable... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3281334/meet-worlds-leading-ming-furniture-collector-whose-piece-british-royal-once-couldnt-afford?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3281334/meet-worlds-leading-ming-furniture-collector-whose-piece-british-royal-once-couldnt-afford?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Oct 2024 10:15:07 +0000 The first thing you notice about the American artist Mark Bradford – especially in Hong Kong – is his height. He is a couple of centimetres over two metres (six foot seven) tall and as slender as a wand. He is now 62 and an acclaimed artist, but for at least half his life, people have assumed he is a basketball player. That, and race, are identity issues that feed his art. In 2003, he made a video of himself called Practice in which he attempts to play basketball in a billowing Gone With The... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3280186/how-us-artist-mark-bradford-teamed-hong-kong-students-ahead-his-new-exhibition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3280186/how-us-artist-mark-bradford-teamed-hong-kong-students-ahead-his-new-exhibition?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Sep 2024 23:15:08 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh On a recent damp Saturday afternoon, Elaine Ng Yan-ling leaves her 21-month-old son sleeping (supervised) in a car and enters a building on Stanley Street, Hong Kong, where she has also brought life to an artwork. Ng used to wince when people called her an artist. She wanted to be recognised as a designer, whose professional beat included biomimicry, clever combinations of technology and fabric that imitate nature. These days she’s more fluid in the way she views her work so perhaps it’s... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3280141/can-you-really-distil-taste-whisky-art-installation-hong-kong-renaissance-woman-elaine-ng-thinks-so?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3280141/can-you-really-distil-taste-whisky-art-installation-hong-kong-renaissance-woman-elaine-ng-thinks-so?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Sep 2024 23:15:08 +0000 Christopher Cowell, who describes himself as “an architect and accidental academic”, is a fan of alliteration. He has now written his first book, which is called Form Follows Fever. The title is a winking reference to American architect Louis Sullivan, who famously declared, in an 1896 essay, that “form follows function”. In this case, the prime mover is health. Cowell’s subtitle is Malaria and the Construction of Hong Kong, 1841-1849; and although he states in his introduction that it is not... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3270166/how-disease-disrupted-hong-kongs-uncertain-start-british-colony-author-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3270166/how-disease-disrupted-hong-kongs-uncertain-start-british-colony-author-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Jul 2024 23:15:08 +0000 The first time David Bellis left Hong Kong was in June 1990. He had spent eight months in the city, a Welsh computer programmer who had stopped off on his way to Australia and dallied longer than he had intended. When he got to Sydney, he found he missed Hong Kong so much he signed up for a Cantonese night class at Macquarie University. By early 1992, he was back. He settled down, married a Hongkonger called Grace and had two daughters. In 2009, he founded a website called Gwulo. You may have... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3266016/hong-kong-historian-behind-gwulocom-his-years-charting-city-and-why-hes-leaving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3266016/hong-kong-historian-behind-gwulocom-his-years-charting-city-and-why-hes-leaving?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Jun 2024 04:45:10 +0000 On Valentine’s Day in 2024, Vanessa Chan, director of orchestral operations at the Hong Kong Philharmonic, had her final weekly check-up call with the European agent organising its forthcoming tour. A few days later, 120 musicians and management started a nine-city, three-week journey that had been gestating for several years. In October 2019, the HK Phil had been named Gramophone magazine’s orchestra of the year for its live recordings of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, conducted by Jaap van... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3259609/hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestras-european-tour-jaap-van-zweden-makes-lost-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3259609/hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestras-european-tour-jaap-van-zweden-makes-lost-time?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Apr 2024 07:15:13 +0000 In 2001, Katie de Tilly opened her art gallery at 10 Chancery Lane in SoHo, on Hong Kong Island. In 2002, she had her fourth child. In 2003, she and her investor husband, Georges, game for another challenge, bought a house on top of a hill in the New Territories. It was just after the Sars epidemic, when the public debate was whether property in Hong Kong was a wise investment. What some of their friends wondered, however, was how the highly sociable de Tillys were going to manage in such a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3256055/art-part-furniture-hong-kong-family-home-remote-hilltop-house-unmatched-views-and-rooms-inspire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3256055/art-part-furniture-hong-kong-family-home-remote-hilltop-house-unmatched-views-and-rooms-inspire?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Mar 2024 04:45:13 +0000 On January 26, two depictions of life in Hong Kong had their global premieres. One was Expats, a six-part Amazon television series starring Nicole Kidman, based on the 2016 novel The Expatriates, by Janice Y.K. Lee. The outside world has given it mixed reviews but as no one inside Hong Kong is (legally) able to watch it, no further analysis is possible here. The other was ETC, the latest film by the British-born American artist Sarah Morris, which is being screened on the facade of M+ every... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3252975/new-view-city-us-artist-sarah-morris-film-hong-kong-star-m-facade-offers-outsiders-depiction?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3252975/new-view-city-us-artist-sarah-morris-film-hong-kong-star-m-facade-offers-outsiders-depiction?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Feb 2024 03:15:12 +0000 If one of the functions of art is to make you view the world in a different way, then the success of Chang Ya-chin’s paintings is – like the noodles she features in her work – instant. Once you have seen her dumplings bravely climbing a ladder as they prepare to dive into a bowl of dark vinegar, or her lonely tea egg carting a suitcase across a bridge, or her unpeeled lychee lying back on a swing looking more wanton than any decent fruit has a right to appear, the universe of Hong Kong food... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3249703/dumplings-dive-lychee-lounges-tea-egg-totes-suitcase-theres-food-thought-oil-painter-chang-ya-chins?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3249703/dumplings-dive-lychee-lounges-tea-egg-totes-suitcase-theres-food-thought-oil-painter-chang-ya-chins?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Jan 2024 08:15:11 +0000 As most parents in the developed world know, the 2013 Disney film Frozen has a song called “Let It Go”. It’s sung by Elsa, Queen of Arendelle and elder sister of Princess Anna, who during stressful moments has an inconvenient tendency to turn anything she touches into ice. Elsa therefore abdicates royal responsibility and flees into the Arendellian mountains, where she simultaneously creates an ice palace and a show-stopping earworm. You’re probably humming it already. Let it go, let it go, turn... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3244185/truly-emotional-frozen-films-director-seeing-world-she-imagined-come-alive-hong-kong-disneyland?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3244185/truly-emotional-frozen-films-director-seeing-world-she-imagined-come-alive-hong-kong-disneyland?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Dec 2023 23:45:11 +0000 In March 2019, the German artist Neo Rauch opened his first solo show in Asia at David Zwirner’s Hong Kong gallery. In English, it was called “Propaganda”; the Chinese title was translated as “publicity”. From a distance, Rauch’s work always looks quaint. Then you move closer and observe the mutilations, the claws, the grotesque instruments, the approaching storms. The viewer is chilled and intrigued by a sense of impending disaster. Four years later – during which the world has seen many very... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3243466/german-artist-neo-rauch-punching-back-critics-he-holds-second-solo-exhibition-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3243466/german-artist-neo-rauch-punching-back-critics-he-holds-second-solo-exhibition-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:15:16 +0000 One September evening in 2019, Marisa Yiu Kar-san, co-founder and executive director of Design Trust, opened an exhibition at Haw Par Mansion in Tai Hang on Hong Kong Island. “Heritage is Innovation” was an initiative of Design Trust Futures Studio (DTFS), a flagship programme she’d established in 2017 to bring together experienced designers and newer talents. The 1936 building, about to be reborn as a music school, provided a perfect catalyst: history married to 21st century innovation. Yiu was... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3243365/shes-bringing-community-back-hong-kong-through-designing-micro-parks-meet-marisa-yiu?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3243365/shes-bringing-community-back-hong-kong-through-designing-micro-parks-meet-marisa-yiu?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Dec 2023 03:15:16 +0000 The year 2024 is the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth in a Jewish part of Vienna. The son of a shoemaker and a piano teacher, Schoenberg grew up to become a composer and, like his near-contemporary James Joyce, is what might be called a Marmite creative: people either worship him as the father of 20th-century composition or revile him as the man who developed atonal music. His very name can incite nervousness; in 1924, Alban Berg, one of his students who would also become a famous... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3242404/how-opera-about-harpo-marx-introducing-marmite-modernist-composer-arnold-schoenberg-hollywood?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3242404/how-opera-about-harpo-marx-introducing-marmite-modernist-composer-arnold-schoenberg-hollywood?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Nov 2023 09:15:08 +0000 On October 1, 1980, the Regent Hotel officially opened at the eastern end of the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, in Kowloon. Exactly a week later, the Hong Kong Space Museum opened next door; hotel guests could see the gleam of its planetarium dome, like a huge white egg, as they were driven up the adjacent slope and into what looked like an unremarkable office building. In both cases, it was only when you stepped inside that you could appreciate the stellar view. More than 40 years and several shifts... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3242125/regent-hotel-witness-hong-kong-history-its-stunning-harbour-views-its-time-intercontinental-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3242125/regent-hotel-witness-hong-kong-history-its-stunning-harbour-views-its-time-intercontinental-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Nov 2023 04:43:40 +0000 “I love this building, I’m sentimental about it,” says Mark Cho Ying-cheng one recent afternoon in Central’s Pedder Building on Hong Kong Island. He is sitting on the fifth floor, to where The Armoury, the menswear store he co-founded with Alan See in 2010, has relocated from the third floor. Behind him, over cloth bales of sumptuous quality, Pino Luciano from Neapolitan tailors Orazio Luciano, who is in town for a trunk show, confers discreetly with male customers. (Women are catered for but... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3241604/slow-and-low-key-bespoke-hong-kong-shopping-centre-pedder-arcade-adds-touch-london-sophistication?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3241604/slow-and-low-key-bespoke-hong-kong-shopping-centre-pedder-arcade-adds-touch-london-sophistication?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Nov 2023 23:15:07 +0000 In Konstantin Bessmertny and Gala Bessmertnaia’s Macau bedroom, there’s a small black-and-white photograph taken 35 years ago in Kazakhstan on their wedding day. It’s probably the simplest artefact in a vivid house: it shows two young people dwarfed by what looks like an ocean. “The desert,” explains Gala, who grew up there, when Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union. Konstantin’s childhood was spent in Siberia, in the border city of Blagoveshchensk, whose inhabitants had a ringside view... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3240883/my-heart-here-unlovely-empty-house-macau-turned-creative-couple-stunning-retreat-filled-art-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3240883/my-heart-here-unlovely-empty-house-macau-turned-creative-couple-stunning-retreat-filled-art-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Nov 2023 03:15:09 +0000 Amid the industrial space of Hong Kong’s Blindspot Gallery is a lovely joint exhibition by husband-and-wife artists Yeung Tong Lung and Sze Yuen. Both were born in mainland China – Yeung in Xiamen and Sze in Tianjin – and have been painting in Hong Kong for decades. In 1995, they had a joint show at the Hong Kong Arts Centre: “Solo·Exhibitions·Twice”. This year, their second joint show is called “Solo·Exhibition·Twice II: Of Seeing”. That the word exhibition is now singular would seem to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3234680/both-us-its-way-seeing-husband-and-wife-hold-second-joint-art-exhibition-hong-kong-28-years-after?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3234680/both-us-its-way-seeing-husband-and-wife-hold-second-joint-art-exhibition-hong-kong-28-years-after?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Sep 2023 09:15:08 +0000 In December 2022, the hairstylist Kim Robinson received a bald notification from property developer Hongkong Land advising that the lease on his Chater House salon in Hong Kong’s Central business district, where he has been based for two decades, would not be renewed in 2023. Robinson had known for two years that Chater House was to be redeveloped, but he was shocked to learn that he wasn’t part of the grand plan, and as of yesterday, August 26, he has vacated the premises. He says he only... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3232239/goodbye-hong-kong-kim-robinson-god-level-celebrity-hairstylist-ready-close-shop?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3232239/goodbye-hong-kong-kim-robinson-god-level-celebrity-hairstylist-ready-close-shop?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Aug 2023 23:45:08 +0000 My father came from fairly humble origins – his father was a train driver – and he won a scholarship to a local grammar school in Yorkshire (in northern England), left at 15 and qualified as an accountant. As a young man, he realised there were more opportunities in the British Empire, so he joined the Sudan government service in 1935. My mother was an Essex girl whose first husband was a qualified engineer. During the second world war, he was in Sudan but she was in Britain being a secretary,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3231502/his-mother-said-buy-property-he-bought-chinese-robes-now-his-hong-kong-flat-could-be-textile-museum?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3231502/his-mother-said-buy-property-he-bought-chinese-robes-now-his-hong-kong-flat-could-be-textile-museum?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Aug 2023 23:45:10 +0000 The approach to M+ museum from Elements mall is currently lined with a series of posters, which begin with the question: “Who is Madame Song”? Further posters provide answers: “Artist. Entrepreneur. Fashionista. Influencer.” Song Huai-kuei (1937-2006) might have been puzzled by some of those labels but, in its latest special exhibition “Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China”, M+ is keen to position her as a strong woman for our times. Her life, however, was undoubtedly shaped by two... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3230890/late-chinese-artist-influencer-and-pierre-cardin-collaborator-madame-song-celebrated-slightly?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3230890/late-chinese-artist-influencer-and-pierre-cardin-collaborator-madame-song-celebrated-slightly?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Aug 2023 05:15:14 +0000 In early 2020, Angel Otero, an artist from Puerto Rico with a studio in Brooklyn, New York, was looking for a space outside the city. He wasn’t escaping Covid, which had yet to shut down the globe, but a bolt-hole from the art world. He was 39, represented by the Lehmann Maupin gallery, not stratospherically successful yet definitely getting attention, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about himself. “Honestly, I think previous to the pandemic, there was this sort of Angel that questions... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226122/im-grandma-boy-puerto-rican-artist-angel-otero-family-skin-paintings-and-his-unusual-choice-studio?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226122/im-grandma-boy-puerto-rican-artist-angel-otero-family-skin-paintings-and-his-unusual-choice-studio?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Jul 2023 23:45:09 +0000 The day before this interview, Basil Pao Ho-yun had made a night of it at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong. As a result, when we meet at the crowded Cheung Chau ferry pier – the photographer instantly identifiable by his trademark panama hat, a signifier Michael Palin also found useful when they travelled the globe for his BBC television series – Pao is feeling, as he puts it, “delicate”. He suggests a nearby outdoor restaurant, where he’s a regular, to see how things go. Over four... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3225166/we-hated-little-s-hong-kong-photo-artist-basil-pao-filming-last-emperor-travelling-monty-pythons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3225166/we-hated-little-s-hong-kong-photo-artist-basil-pao-filming-last-emperor-travelling-monty-pythons?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jun 2023 10:15:17 +0000 This is the story of one passion project that gave birth to another. It begins with an ardent, cigar-chewing individual called Harry Odell, usually described as Hong Kong’s first impresario. In the late 1940s he set up a film distribution company and, for a while, owned the huge Empire Theatre in the city’s North Point neighbourhood, built in 1952. Odell’s dream was to bring world-class performing artists to the city. The Polish violinist Isaac Stern played at the Empire in 1953, as did the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3220328/he-brought-beatles-perform-love-letter-hong-kongs-first-impresario-harry-odell-and-city?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3220328/he-brought-beatles-perform-love-letter-hong-kongs-first-impresario-harry-odell-and-city?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 May 2023 23:45:14 +0000 Fionnuala McHugh Fionnuala McHugh The story of my childhood is lonely: an only child, who moved around and knew he was gay. I’ve later come to realise it has enabled me to do what I do in the world and it was a gift but, as a kid, you don’t understand that. I was born in 1976 and grew up in North Carolina, in the US. My dad was in textiles, a dying industry – it was all going to China – and the companies would either be sold or go out of business. So we moved. I went to nine schools. My mom’s a nurse with a master’s in prenatal... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3220293/5-he-asked-his-mum-what-gay-was-now-he-ceo-and-founder-out-leadership?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3220293/5-he-asked-his-mum-what-gay-was-now-he-ceo-and-founder-out-leadership?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 May 2023 23:15:16 +0000 There are two flats on the floor where William and Lavina Lim live in Mid-Levels on Hong Kong Island. The entrance to one is sleek, minimalist; surely it heralds an architect’s residence. The entrance to the other has a decades-old curlicued grille and one of those floral-carved doors that you don’t see so often in Hong Kong these days. The visitor hesitates. “Exactly! People come out of the lift and they wonder which is our apartment,” grins William Lim, architect, art collector and, now,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3218526/retro-renovation-parents-hong-kong-home-architect-and-his-interior-designer-wife-creates-unexpected?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3218526/retro-renovation-parents-hong-kong-home-architect-and-his-interior-designer-wife-creates-unexpected?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Apr 2023 04:45:14 +0000 My life without a smartphone isn’t a crusade. And it’s not an affectation. When I finally hitch myself to one, we’ll be inseparable. The thought of us being apart, even for an hour, will make me panic. It will be a lifelong relationship and that scares me. I’m not ready for full commitment yet. Oh, I’ve flirted. In the 1990s, early-adopter friends were encouraging. They were so sweetly excited about their mobiles. You know how it is when you’re in love: you want everyone to share the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/gadgets/article/3215571/still-without-smartphone-my-relationship-my-nokia-and-samsung-handsets-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/gadgets/article/3215571/still-without-smartphone-my-relationship-my-nokia-and-samsung-handsets-one?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Apr 2023 23:45:08 +0000 Early on the morning of May 5, 1923, John Benjamin Powell, publisher of Shanghai’s Weekly Review and also the Chicago Tribune’s man in China, boarded the Peking Express – the newest, fastest, safest, most luxurious train in the land. Among his fellow first-class passengers were an Italian lawyer who had made his fortune as legal representative of the Shanghai Opium Combine; a wealthy car dealer who had been born in Romania; a mysterious gentleman who refused to allow the porters to carry his... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3215390/china-train-hijacking-and-37-day-hostage-crisis-brought-down-government?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3215390/china-train-hijacking-and-37-day-hostage-crisis-brought-down-government?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Mar 2023 20:15:16 +0000 The first time Rashid Johnson, born in Chicago, in the United States, in 1977, went in search of his African roots was when he was 19. He was an art student at Columbia College Chicago, curious, but also anxious. “Something to do with my adolescence, I think – how I grew up, where I grew up – led me to having a little more anxiety than other people,” he says on a chilly January morning in his New York studio. He often describes its 15,000 square feet (1,400 square metres) as his sanctuary, his... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3213711/american-artist-rashid-johnson-his-creative-journey-ahead-first-asian-solo-show-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3213711/american-artist-rashid-johnson-his-creative-journey-ahead-first-asian-solo-show-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Mar 2023 22:15:10 +0000 When Klaus Heymann was growing up in wartime Germany, his teachers liked him. As an evacuee from Frankfurt into the Bavarian countryside, he was the token city-slicker in class. “I was always the smartest, the village kids always ran after me,” he says. What effect did that have? He has a think. “It made me competitive. I was always class speaker, I always had a big mouth.” The founder of the Naxos record label and now, at 86, chairman of the juggernaut Naxos Music Group, is still clearly an... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3212024/classical-music-label-founder-stealing-us-army-base-arguments-hong-kong-and-always-being-ahead-curve?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3212024/classical-music-label-founder-stealing-us-army-base-arguments-hong-kong-and-always-being-ahead-curve?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Mar 2023 23:15:07 +0000 Master Siu Ping-keung takes a small block of camphor wood and begins carving. His implements lie in a long surgical row before him. He hardly lifts his eyes as he exchanges one blade for another. He knows the worn feel of each one in his hand. This demonstration is taking place at Crafts on Peel, a charitable organisation that focuses on reviving traditional craftsmanship. Although its name comes from the organisation’s location on Peel Street, it feels strangely appropriate as Siu pares the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3210929/masters-traditional-crafts-hong-kong-team-younger-artisans-create-beautiful-pieces-exhibition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3210929/masters-traditional-crafts-hong-kong-team-younger-artisans-create-beautiful-pieces-exhibition?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Feb 2023 08:15:09 +0000 One day – he thinks it must have been in 1994 – Stanley Wong Ping-pui went to a designers’ lunch. At the time, he worked for J Walter Thompson, then Hong Kong’s biggest advertising agency, and his main account was with the MTR. He was seated next to Alan Chan Yau-kin, one of the most famous designers in the city. Throughout the meal, a stream of young fans paid homage to Chan. “And Alan – very generous, very gentlemanly – would say to all of them, ‘Let me introduce you to the famous MTR Stanley... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3203419/ad-man-turned-artist-stanley-wong-discusses-his-anothermountainman-avatar-aggressiveness-capital?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3203419/ad-man-turned-artist-stanley-wong-discusses-his-anothermountainman-avatar-aggressiveness-capital?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Dec 2022 09:15:10 +0000 In 1982, Clara Law Cheuk-yiu, whose directing experience had been until then confined to three years at Radio Television Hong Kong, became the first Chinese student at Britain’s National Film and Television School, as the future of her colony was being ping-ponged between British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping. Against this background, Law wrote, directed and starred in what was intended to be her graduation film, but grew into her first feature. Its English... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3202834/i-have-been-very-true-myself-filmmaker-clara-law-poetic-quest-truth-and-beauty-defines-her-career?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3202834/i-have-been-very-true-myself-filmmaker-clara-law-poetic-quest-truth-and-beauty-defines-her-career?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Dec 2022 23:45:09 +0000 Tan Dun – composer, conductor and, as of December 8, Hong Kong’s Ambassador for Cultural Promotion – is an enthusiastic soul. He loves the city. Not only is it a pearl, he declares, it is a “diamond”. It’s true that, growing up in Hunan province in central China during the Cultural Revolution, he was under the impression Hong Kong was a sinful place: “a very bad capitalist society with a lot of corruption, all those running dogs”. On his initial visit in 1986, he was surprised not to be robbed.... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3202474/oscar-winning-chinese-composer-tan-dun-why-hong-kong-home-his-new-role-citys-cultural-ambassador-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3202474/oscar-winning-chinese-composer-tan-dun-why-hong-kong-home-his-new-role-citys-cultural-ambassador-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 Dec 2022 03:15:08 +0000 Like most Hong Kong residents, the first time Andrew De Caro saw Sea Ranch he was on a ferry to Macau. When he caught a glimpse as he passed Lantau’s south side, he thought it looked fabulous. He assumed the flats must be expensive. That was 2006 and De Caro, originally from Boston, in the United States, had just arrived in the city. He didn’t know that The Sea Ranch, as it was officially named – although, like so much of the development, the “The” fell into disuse – was a failure. It had been... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3188357/very-chic-tree-house-pilots-remote-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3188357/very-chic-tree-house-pilots-remote-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Aug 2022 04:45:19 +0000 Next month, should your plans for travel out of Hong Kong remain on hold, you can still take a trip to Tai Kwun and enter the magical world of Swiss media artist Pipilotti Rist. Prepare to be enchanted. All the gallery spaces of JC Contemporary, plus other locations around the former Central police station and Victoria Prison complex, will be converted into Rist land: a ravishingly colourful, wholly unexpected, stimulating journey for the eyes and mind – no quarantine required. Rist likes to say... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3186905/its-not-portrait-me-pipilotti-rist-swiss-video-artist-behind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3186905/its-not-portrait-me-pipilotti-rist-swiss-video-artist-behind?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 Jul 2022 03:45:19 +0000 A few weeks ago, Alan Chan Yau-kin was asked by a millennial, too young to appreciate his reputation, how many logos he’d designed. He was – still is – scandalised. “Come on!” he cries in his Wan Chai office. “I’m a brand consultant! This book demonstrates who I am.” Chan, now 72, who has been imprinting his particular vision on Hong Kong, mainland China and Japan for half a century, indicates a hefty volume in front of him, recently published by Rizzoli and titled Collecting Inspiration for... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3186064/his-story-also-story-hong-kong-alan-chan-designer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3186064/his-story-also-story-hong-kong-alan-chan-designer?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Jul 2022 23:15:10 +0000 One of the quite beautiful things my parents did was that I don’t recall being told I was adopted, and nor does my younger sister. It was a natural part of family life before we were speaking beings. But obviously it makes you self-conscious about things, about identity, parenthood … you think, how does this fit with that? My father worked in advertising. My mum was a great reader, I learned my love of reading and the arts and theatre from her. I was highly musical and my parents were not... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3184462/why-ex-lonely-planet-publisher-switched-counselling-simon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3184462/why-ex-lonely-planet-publisher-switched-counselling-simon?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Jul 2022 05:15:16 +0000