The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsIn a changing city, a glitzy Hong Kong gallery grapples with censorship
Hong Kongers queued for the opening of the much-anticipated multimillion-dollar art museum M+, a project bedevilled by delays, spiralling costs, and now the spectre of censorship.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
People look at Flower in the Mirror by Kong Khong-chang on the opening day of the M+ art museum in Hong Kong on November 12, 2021. (AFP/Bertha Wang)
B
etween glass and soaring concrete walls, Hong Kongers queued for the opening of the much-anticipated multimillion-dollar art museum M+, a project bedevilled by delays, spiralling costs, and now the spectre of censorship.
The Kowloon gallery -- built directly above a major train tunnel that for weeks ferried thousands to the 2019 pro-democracy protests -- was supposed to open four years ago, and is the first in Asia dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century visual culture.
While the Swiss-designed venue aims to rival Western leaders in contemporary art curation, critics say it must also grapple with a shrinking space for freedom of expression and growing self-censorship.
And ahead of the opening on Friday attention has focused on the decision to not display a photo series by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in the museum.
"Politics shouldn't override art," said Yip, who gave only her surname, while waiting to enter the museum on a bright autumnal morning.
"The current situation is very disappointing," interrupted her husband, also in his sixties.
In the series in question, Ai is showing his middle finger to institutions around the world, including the White House, Germany's Reichstag -- and Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
More from The Weekender
Siapa Anda? Mengapa Anda?
What begins as a small grammatical curiosity becomes a larger question about language, culture and the way we understand ourselves in relation to others - and, ultimately, about what we risk losing in a world increasingly impatient with reflection, ambiguity and the humanities.
A passport to the kingdom of the sick
A breast cancer diagnosis, a journey to the kingdom of the sick and a determination to describe what lies there without metaphor, euphemism or the word “fight.”
The weight of time
Richard Mille’s newest ultralight timepiece pares down haute horlogerie to its mechanical necessities, proving that sophistication often comes from knowing what to leave out.
