The Hong Kong Museum of Art
We did a quick tour at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMOA) this day.
Getting In
We got a ticket for the timeslot of 12:30 – 2:30pm. We were mistaken as we thought that we could stay for as long as we wanted upon admission within the timeslot. As it turned out, everybody had to leave at 2:30pm. We got our coffee at the Ink first and did not spend enough time at the exhibitions. Therefore plan ahead by checking the available timeslots for visits each day.
The Exhibitions
We took a quick tour at the Ordinary to Extraordinary: Stories of the Museum on first floor. The exhibition shows some of the representative artwork in the four core collections in the Museum: Chinese Antiquities, Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, China Trade Art, and Modern and Hong Kong Art. This is a mixed theme and as such the experience and my review of it was also mixed. I found it difficult to gather a coherent learning when I went through artwork of different nature and time periods within a short period of time.
There were some highlights, however. The set of 12 porcelain cups showing seasonal floral themes were just beautiful. They were the products of the famous pottery-making town, Jingde. Apparently, it is extremely rare to be able to collect all twelve cups representing each month of the year. This set was the hard work of a passionate collector.
Another piece that caught my eyes was the Large Teapot with Ribbed Decoration and Overhead Handle. It was a Yixing Pottery, the preeminent potter Yixing of Zisha (purple) tea ware. Dr. Lo, a keen collector of purple pottery, knew that the Yixing production was near-extinguished in 1979. He visited the one remaining potter there and advised them to sign the potter’s name as an inscription on their products. This teapot was a product of Yixing’s revived tea ware industry.
There was a very interesting art installation within this exhibition. At first glance, A Book from the Sky seems to be just a large collection of archaic Chinese texts, arranged artistically. There was a catch though. The “creativity” in this installation is in the four thousand “non-words” that the creator made over a four-year period with wooden print blocks. These words then printed in the traditional way. They then went into bound volumes and calligraphic scrolls that resembled Chinese classical texts.
When the viewer comes closer to the artwork, it would take a second or two to realize that these words make absolute no sense, despite their appearance. The message then was much more provocative. Modern readers of Chinese might stay away from these traditional bounded volumes anyway because even in real Chinese they are difficult to understand. In that sense, seeing this artwork elicits the exact same feeling when we opens up an ancient scroll. Even with real Chinese words, these scrolls are unreadable anyway.
At this point we really had to hurry because the museum announced the closing time. We quickly went up to 5th floor to see the work of local artists. The exhibition Classic Remix: The Hong Kong Viewpoint shows the uniform theme of Hong Kong art. I particularly enjoyed the series of sketches of different Hong Kong locations in the 1980s and 1990s. The captions were memoir-like, telling the story of the creator and his perspectives on these typical scenes of Hong Kong. It felt like reading an illustrated memoir.
Views Inside the Museum:
Views and Art Installations Outdoor
Finally, take a walk in the vicinity. You will see many interesting installations. At the Ink, we had coffee with views of the Hong Kong Skyline across the Victoria Harbour. That itself was quite an experience.
How to Get There
We went by private car and the closest parking lot is K11 Musea. By public transport, direct yourself to the Space Museum and the HKMOA is right behind it.
Sources:
The Hong Kong Museum of Art