There are few museum openings as highly anticipated as M+ in Hong Kong. The construction started almost 10 years ago and it’s been designed by Herzog & de Meuron, who famously converted Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern. At 65,000 square-metre, this has become another jewel in the architectural highlights of Hong Kong. The most prominent feature is undoubtedly the stupendous LED system display facing Victoria Harbour which will be displaying M+ content.
You might be wondering what we can expect to see in their 17,000 square-metre of exhibition space, which spans over 33 exhibition galleries. There will be in excess of 1,500 pieces of artwork from M+ collections. They will have six thematic exhibitions that will focus on Hong Kong and Chinese pieces from the 1960s and 1970s respectively to the present day to work that might be familiar to a British audience in the form of Anthony Gormley: Asian Field. He famously created Angel of the North and in this installation, the famous British sculptor has created tens of thousands of clay figurines along with over 300 villagers from a Guangdong village in just five days back in 2003. A masterpiece that highlights the vastness and populous nature of the country.
And no modern-day museum is complete without commissioned pieces which they’ll be displaying in their public spaces such as on their roof garden, their grand staircase, etc. They are two museum shops, a café, and a particularly innovative sounding Korean restaurant in the form of Mosu. Much like Tate Modern, they run a membership scheme to help support their work and continue developing the museum in the coming decades.
The whole project is part of the expansive West Kowloon Cultural District Development that will include a Hong Kong Palace Museum which opens in 2022 with items from the Forbidden City Museum in Beijing that are rarely allowed to leave the country. And the whole area is a must-visit destination for all cultural aficionados, making Hong Kong stand out as a cultural hub as well as the financial centre which is it renowned for.
Online registrations for tickets opened recently leading to an immediate crashing of the booking system which is always a sure-fire sign you have a commercial hit on your hands. The admission fee for non-residents is $120 for adults and $60 for children aged between 7 and 17, seniors aged 60 or over, full-time students, and guests with access requirements
The museum opens officially on the 12th of November.
https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/
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