Culture and Leisure
Art, business and dilemma
To draw public's attention and interest in contemporary art, her company opened a bigger branch in an industrial building in Kwun Tong last year. Osage, an international gallery group, has its first gallery in the Soho area, which started in 2004.
With an area of about 15,000 square feet, the Kwun Tong venue can hold more sculptures, large-sized paintings and other art works, she said. Video art pieces can also be projected into a large white wall facing the entrance and inside a show room.
Lin said in the spacious environment, visitors could appreciate and understand the artists better. "Large spaces enable viewers to step back and look at the art works," added the director of Osage, which also has an art foundation to sponsor local artists' exhibitions and runs galleries in mainland China and Singapore.
To promote art and showcase the
galleries to the local public, about 50
galleries took part in this year's ArtWalk
in March. In that annual charity event,
people could visit all the participating
galleries by paying for a ticket. They could
see the art works while enjoying wine and
finger food in the galleries.
The organiser of ArtWalk, John Batten,
said he planned to hold a similar tour of
the galleries for secondary school students
for free.
Batten is serious about promoting art in Hong Kong and is frustrated at people taking "decorative" pieces as art works and failing to appreciate good art. "I can't display bad art. I just can't do so. What is the point to show bad art? I can't see why," he said.
He closed down his gallery last year
after a nine-year operation as it had been
losing money.
"I can't see Hong Kong is becoming a big art market," Batten said. Instead of running an art gallery to display works, he said he would organise exhibitions at different places.
Although Hong Kong's art gallery scene is less vibrant than that in other artistically sophisticated cities like New York and London, commercial galleries here can help develop art by promoting artists and providing them with channels to obtain stable incomes, art expert Kurt Chan Yuk-keung said.
Chan, an advisor of the art criticism
committee of the Hong Kong Arts
Development Council, said few local
residents collected art works. Even when
people have a wall that they can hang a
painting on, they may choose to stick a
poster or even place some teddy bears
there instead, he said.
"It is a matter of cultural background," Chan said. But local people will be more interested in art after art education is promoted in the city, he said.
