by From a rocky perch a larger-than-life depiction of a female protester, clad in a hard hat and gas mask, looks out over a city in turmoil. Known as Hong Kong’s Lady Liberty, the statue was dragged to the top of Lion Rock during the 2019 pro-democracy protests. It was meant to be her final resting place. But now all that remains of that secret are photographs. Unknown assailants destroyed the statue the day after it was pulled up the peak, a landmark said to represent the resilient spirit of Hongkongers.
A photograph of a short installation of Our Lady of Liberty is one of many Hong Kong-related images to be displayed in The Forbidden Art, an exhibition that opens on Monday in Brussels. Staged outside the EU parliament building, it aims to “present a rigorous defense of artistic freedom as a fundamental human right”.
Many of the artists who were present no longer feel safe working in Hong Kong. “The government is trying to silence us all,” says Lumli, one half of Lumli Lumlong, an artist duo she formed with her husband, Lumlong. The couple left Hong Kong in 2021, fearing for their safety. “We worry that Hong Kong culture will disappear,” says Lumlong, “but on the other hand it could resurface around the world.”
The exhibition, organized by Hong Kong-born artist Loretta Lau and Jens Galschiøt, a Danish sculptor who made the infamous Pillar sculpture that was removed from the University of Hong Kong in 2021, comes as Hong Kong tries to cling to its status as global. arts hub, while also grappling with the exodus of artists and growing calls for international art institutions to boycott the Beijing-controlled territory.
Related: Outcry in memory of the victims of Tiananmen Square removed from Hong Kong University
‘I feel sorry for the artists who stay’
In September, former president of the Hong Kong chapter of the International Association of Art Critics, Eric Wear, published an open letter calling on galleries to boycott the Hong Kong art fair Art Basel 2024, which opens on March 28. “Censorship should be rare, with debate protections, and should never be used to support oppressive governments or erase collective memory,” Wear wrote. “Unfortunately, this is not the case in Hong Kong at the moment.”
Clear and implicit limits to artistic expression are becoming clearer. In 2020, after months of pro-democracy protests, Beijing introduced a national security law, which broadly criminalized secession, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Chinese authorities say it was necessary to restore stability; Critics say the vague wording creates dissonance. Recently, the authorities have often talked about the need to fight “soft resistance”, a vague term that seems to refer to the use of “media, culture and art” to defeat the authorities.
All this has resulted in opaque or conflicting decisions by art centers. In January, the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture canceled a lease agreement with performing arts group Fire Makes Us Human over complaints from the education bureau, which cited national security concerns. The following month, M+, the museum of visual culture, removed the name of the film “Beijing Bastards”, a feature about China’s troubled youth, from the credits and brochures of screening. Explaining the decision, a spokesperson for M+ said: “Regarding the mentioned film, the film’s title has been updated by film maker Zhang Yuan and M+’s curatorial staff.”
“I feel sorry for artists who stay in Hong Kong,” says Kacey Wong, an artist who left for Taiwan in 2021. “Their minds must be spinning so fast. They censor themselves.”
Wong predicts that more artists will leave after a new, indigenous national security law, known as Article 23, is implemented this year. The draft text proposes sentences of up to life in prison for some crimes, including rebellion and treason. A Chinese government spokesman said Article 23 was necessary for “permanent stability and security in Hong Kong” and that the legislation was “legitimate, lawful and shameless”.
Boom market
With many of Hong Kong’s most prolific artists in exile or silence, commercial institutions are at the heart of a debate about the future of the city’s creative industries.
The government says Hong Kong still has a “vibrant arts and culture community”, citing its share of the global art market as evidence. According to the Art Basel and UBS art market report, China and Hong Kong’s share of the market in 2023 will rise to 19%, making it the second largest after the US.
“Hong Kong still has huge advantages over other markets in the region,” says Wear. “Probably the biggest advantage is tax and generally an environment that makes the movement of goods very smooth.” The result, according to Wear, is that art institutions “accept restrictions in Hong Kong and probably accept more [are] party in those restrictions to export to other markets”.
A spokesperson for Art Basel said the fair had “never faced any censorship issues at our shows, and we have not been asked to do anything differently since the national security law was introduced.
“Hong Kong’s art scene has grown exponentially since we arrived in 2013 … and our show is a focal point for the city’s arts community.”
Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 has received HK$15m ($1.9m) in funding from the government’s arts and cultural events mega fund, which is administered by the culture, sports and tourism bureau. Government funding agreements now routinely include a national security clause.
An Art Basel spokesperson said: “Our company always complies with the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which we operate.”
The comments echoed by Henry Tang, head of the cultural hub West Kowloon Cultural District, when the M+ flagship gallery opened in 2021: “The opening of M+ does not mean that artistic expression is above the law. It’s not.”
Today, the museum announces its collection of Ai Weiwei’s Study of Perspective series, in which the artist holds his middle finger up to various landmarks. But while some photos in the series are advertised online, the listing for the Tiananmen Square issue, in which the dissident artist transforms Beijing’s central plaza, shows only a gray square bearing the M+ logo. A spokesman for the museum said: “M+ deals with its curatorial matters in a professional and independent manner. All of its contents comply with Hong Kong laws and regulations while maintaining the highest level of professional and artistic integrity.”
Defenders of Hong Kong’s art scene point out that art sells even in the more restrictive environment of mainland China. Political freedom may not be necessary to keep the city’s arts industry afloat, even if in a neutral form. But “people need to be able to think about their environment,” says Wear. “When you start putting that much in, you lose something. You lose some of the dynamism of society, you lose the ability to be self-critical as a society … all this undermines society’s capacity for evolution.”
