HONG KONG — With its multibillion-dollar price tag and big-name
artists, M+, the museum rising on Victoria Harbor, was meant to embody Hong
Kong’s ambitions of becoming a global cultural hub. It was to be the city’s
first world-class art museum, proof that Hong Kong could do high culture just
as well as finance.
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It may instead become the symbol of how the Chinese Communist
Party is muzzling Hong Kong’s art world.
In recent days, the museum, which is scheduled to open later
this year, has come under fierce attack from the city’s pro-Beijing
politicians. State-owned newspapers have denounced the museum’s collection,
which houses important works of contemporary Chinese art, including some by the
dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Hong Kong’s chief executive has promised to be on “full
alert” after a lawmaker called some works an “insult to the country.”
The arts sector broadly has endured a blizzard of attacks. A
government funding body said that it has the power to end grants to artists who
promoted “overthrowing” the authorities. A front-page editorial in a
pro-Beijing newspaper accused six art groups of “anti-government” activities.
Under threat is the artistic spirit of Hong Kong, whose
freewheeling, irreverent attitudes have distinguished it from the metropolises
of mainland China. Such creative forces have infused cultural vibrancy into a
city long defined by capitalism.
They have also irritated Beijing, which is quickly redefining
the freedoms that made Hong Kong unique. Since enacting a security law last
June to quash anti-government protests, the authorities have arrested
opposition politicians and moved to overhaul elections. They have also pulled
books from library shelves and reshaped school curricula.
“Now they are looking at the arts community,” said May Fung, a
filmmaker and the founder of Arts and Culture Outreach, a nonprofit. “It’s only
natural.”
Censorship fears have shadowed Hong Kong’s art world since the
former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997. A flurry of artwork
wrestled with whether Hong Kong’s identity could survive Communist rule.
One artist projected a Chinese flag onto the ground for viewers
to walk on. Another used Tibetan script to express fears that Hong Kong would
become similarly controlled.
Concerns about independence have dogged M+ from its conception
more than a decade ago. The museum acquired a number of high-profile works,
including an image of Ai raising his middle finger in Beijing’s Tiananmen
Square, and photographs by Liu Heung Shing of the 1989 pro-democracy
demonstrations there. Immediately, officials warned the museum to steer clear
of politics.
But optimism also coursed through Hong Kong’s art world over the
past decade. The government had increased financial support. Art Basel, the
international arts fair, hosts an annual show in Hong Kong.
Away from high-end auction houses and museums, grassroots,
avant-garde art blossomed too. Independent galleries and workshops
proliferated. Protest art thrived. In 2014, demonstrators turned tents used to
occupy the central business district into canvases. In 2019, they hauled a
4-meter statue of a woman in a gas mask to marches.
Ai said he supported the museum’s 2012 acquisition of his works
from Uli Sigg, a renowned collector, noting Hong Kong’s ambition to become a
world-class art city and the M+ team’s reputation.
“I was very positive at the time,” said Ai, who left China in
2015. “I felt that if my work could be displayed where there were many Chinese
people, I’d be very happy.”
“I thought all these aspects could ensure that works could be
exhibited normally,” he added. “I never thought that things would happen so
suddenly.”
That sudden change was the security law. Protest posters
disappeared overnight. Booksellers, filmmakers and curators waited in fearful
anticipation.
Then the pro-Beijing camp pounced this month with a full-out
barrage. On March 15, the Hong Kong Film Critics Society canceled sold-out
screenings of a documentary about the 2019 protests, after a pro-Beijing
newspaper urged banning it. Two days later, another paper accused six arts
organizations of violating the security law and called on the government to
revoke their funding.
That same day, an establishment lawmaker accused parts of the M+
collection of spreading “hatred” against China. She later singled out Ai’s
Tiananmen photo.
“Why will art pieces be displayed that are suspected to have
breached the national security law and are an insult to the country?” the
lawmaker, Eunice Yung, said during a question-and-answer session with Carrie
Lam, the chief executive.
The criticisms have extended beyond politics to a sort of moral
policing.
“The government now should form a committee to go through all
these art pieces,” Yung said in an interview, to ensure that they adhered to
the museum’s “ethical standards.”
In a statement, M+ said it would comply with the law while “maintaining
the highest level of professional integrity.” It added that the museum could
not exhibit all of its collections during its opening, and “has no plan” to
show Ai’s Tiananmen photograph then.
For artists, their long-lingering fears have hardened into a
more tangible threat.
Even before the security law, the filmmaker Evans Chan knew some
considered his work too provocative. A Hong Kong venue in 2016 canceled a
screening of a documentary he made about the 2014 protests, citing a desire to
remain “nonpartisan.” Last year, he finished a sequel, only to cut a scene for
Hong Kong audiences that featured China’s national anthem; a new law forbade
disrespecting the song.
Still, Chan said, the security law was a “watershed moment.” He
had planned to make a third film about Hong Kong’s fight for democracy. But he
is unsure if he could find people to participate or places to show it — not
just in Hong Kong but overseas, in venues with ties to China.
“We are coming to a point to ask, what kind of space is left by
global capitalism?” he said. “Where does China fit in? Where does artistic
expression from and about Hong Kong fit in?”
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