The corporatization of museums was first put on the table by the Hong Kong SAR government in 1999 with the aim of researching the possibility of having the 14 museums governed by the Home Affairs Bureau to run independently. It is hoped that corporatization can alleviate problems like low utilization rate and inflexible bureaucracy of museums. Over the ten-year discussion period, the government had set up the “Culture and Heritage Commission” (2000-2003) and the “Committee on Museums” (2004-2007) to follow up and research on the matter. Both reports supported the corporatization of museums and believed that it could catalyze their development. In February 2010, the Home Affairs Bureau announced in a press conference that they have rejected the proposal of corporatizing the museums.

I once wrote that there was nothing inherently “hybrid”, that hybridity is a changing image of things that are in the process of being eventually identified as “native”, since most things come from somewhere else before being seen as belonging to a time and place. But it remains that some things have been seen and felt as inherently “native” for such a long time that they seemed never to have been seen as hybrids. For instance, Chinese painting theory, the one conditioned by literati thinking – itself conditioned by the various forms of “neo-Confucianism” that emerged during the Song and Ming dynasties – was born and developed in China and belonged, for any art historian, squarely to a purely Chinese tradition (although one could always argue that essential parts of Song dynasty neo-Confucian philosophy was profoundly influenced by Buddhism, itself not a “native” Chinese philosophy). In fact, this understanding of hybridity as constantly transforming, never still and impossible to define ontologically, is probably something more clearly belonging to our times of seemingly much faster changes. These changes, very visible at least in the visual arts around the world, are profoundly rooted in the now all-pervasive idea of globalization.

Renowned sculptor Tong Chek-sing (1920-2010) learned from an old engraver in his hometown when he was young. He thus honed his skills to professional competence and was capable of handling different kinds of materials. Tong settled in Hong Kong after the war. Working for a newspaper in his early days, he demonstrated unparalleled skills in carving types. Tong began to dedicate himself to cutting collectibles in his thirties. Since working at “Yiyi Seal Society” he gradually took up seal carving assignments for its owner Ho Siu-foon. Thus Tong got acquainted with many seal-craving artists and had the opportunity to discuss seal cutting with Deng Erya. In this essay, the writer introduces the characteristic and achievements of Tong’s carving on different materials, such as jade, ivory, bamboo, wood, steel, and purple clay teapots.

Tsang Wing-kwong (1926–2005), calligrapher, seal-engraving artist and native of Huiyang, Guangdong. Tsang Wing-kwong belonged to the first-generation of Mainland intellectual immigrants settling in post-1949 Hong Kong. In the 1950s and 60s, he took up teaching in a secondary school and the Hong Kong Linghai Academy of Art until he gave up his tenure in late 1974 to launch China’s first post-war magazine devoted to the art of calligraphy and seal-engraving, the bi-monthly Shupu (書譜). Serving as its executive editor from its inception to 1983, Tsang has borne important witness to the establishment and development of the publication, having also contributed to a remarkable series of articles on the history and appreciation of calligraphy and seal-engraving under the noms de plume of Chu Tianxu, Xin Zhuang and Lu Tai. In 1960, he joined the Geng Zi Calligraphy and Painting Society and served as a coordinator from the 1990s until his death in 2005. For all his life he shunned the limelight and worked behind the scenes, always maintaining a low profile. In achieving the ideal of “moving in art”, he dedicated his life to the pursuit of art and always strove to attain spiritual elevation unencumbered by material or earthly concerns.
Essays published on the art of Tsang Wing-kwong have been few and far between during his time. It is therefore the purpose of this essay to shed new and fuller light on his artistic pursuits from three different perspectives: his life, his affinity with Shupu and his work of art.

With the so-called “artists villages” (more explanation on the “so-called” later) swirling around my head, I put my fingers to the keyboard and the characters “witch doctors” came out.

The witch doctors of the Mentawai Islands, west of Sumatra in Indonesia, were reported to be surprisingly effective in curing people who suffering from diarrhea. Their magical formula was to have the sufferers lie face down near the edge of a cliff and lick the ground from time to time. Past experience told the witch doctors that it was “mostly effective”, though they weren’t sure of the “why”. Later it was found that the soil on the cliffs contained kaolin, the white clay commonly used in some of modern diarrhea medicines. Once the reason is determined, a medicine can be made and trying luck with licking tongues will be history.

In order for things to be repeated, represented and duplicated, one has to strip them down to their origins in the way pure historical documentation will be translated into pragmatic purposes: find the real catalyst, get a firm grasp of it and its occurrence can be repeated with precision. But what if it involves the human factor? And what if one has to take into account the additional element of “cultural policies”?

On 3 April, 2011, Beijing-based contemporary artist Ai Weiwei was being intercepted at the Beijing Capital International Airport during the way to Taipei via Hong Kong, His news was blocked for 81 days. The “Be disappeared” of Ai Weiwei strongly echoes in all sectors of society in Hong Kong, local artists initiated activities with groups or individuals, to show their support of Ai Weiwei through different forms of Creativity.

To accommodate “six industries where Hong Kong has enjoyed clear advantages” (namely, educational services, medical services, testing and certification, environmental industry, innovation and technology, and cultural and creative industries) a package of measures to facilitate change of use, redevelopment and wholesale conversion of industrial buildings was announced by the Chief Executive in his 2009-10 Policy Address, which includes a three-year “Revitalising Industrial Buildings” scheme.

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre is the first project to reconstruct government factory estate to an art village in Hong Kong. The project was initiated by the Hong Kong Baptist University, accompanied by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Hong Kong Arts Centre as strategic partners, promoted by the Home Affairs Department, and sponsored by the Jockey Club Charities Trust, which donated HK$69.4million as supplementary grant for building renovation and partial start-up costs.

The West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) is a strategic investment by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to meet the long-term infrastructure needs of the arts and cultural sector. After numerous years of policy changes, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) introduced three preliminary conceptual models in 2010, selected “City Park” as the Development Plan in 2011 and commenced Stage 3 Public Engagement Exercise. At the end of 2010, Graham Sheffield, Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA resigned for health reasons, the Authority then commenced the global recruitment again, and later appointed Michael Lynch who was succeed in July 2011. Tang Ying-yen Henry, Chairman of Board of the WKCDA resigned in September 2011 and was succeeded by Lam Sui-lung Stephen.

Irene Chou (Zhou Luyun, 1924-2011), a renowned painter, started to learn ink painting at the age of twenty-six. She learnt from Chao Shaoan and Lui Shou-kwan and had built a firm foundation in traditional ink painting. Chou created her own style after numerous explorations and established herself as one of the pioneers in the history of modern ink painting. This essay is a thorough account of Chou’s art of different stages. In the 1950s, Chou had been a diligent follower of her teacher’s works. In the 1960s, Chou sketched the nature, learnt from Lui Shou-Kwan (who was advocating “New Ink Painting Movement” at that point of time), studied calligraphy and practiced qigong. By the early 1970s, Chou created her signature “Line Works.” Chou’s “Dark Paintings” series in the mid-70s came out after the decease of her teacher and husband. In the 1980s, influenced by the Neo-Confucian thinker Lu Jiuyuan (Southern Song Dynasty), Chou created her own visual language with signs and symbols. After her recovery from a stroke attack in 1991, she moved to Australia, and continued her quest for innovation for another two decades. Calling herself “an ordinary woman”, Chou’s paintings are internationally recognized and her life is indeed everything but ordinary.