Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual culture finally gets an opening date, though final cost of the project remains unknown

M+, arguably the most important museum ever to be built in Hong Kong and a litmus test for artistic and curatorial freedom under the National Security Law (NSL), has finally announced a grand opening date of November 12 after years of delay.

Details released on Wednesday include the prices for admission, which cost HK$120 for adults and HK$60 for concessions. Hong Kong residents can enter for free in the first 12 months.

The making of M+ Museum, a sombre and colossal structure in the shape of an upside-down letter T, has taken close to two decades to complete, with the government first proposing in 2003 that the new West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) would have a museum cluster dedicated to art, design and moving images. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the same Swiss architects behind London’s Tate Modern, it boasts 17,000 sq m (183,000 sq ft) of exhibition space and 6,413 pieces in its collection spanning modern and contemporary art, design, architecture, and moving images.

Around 1,500 works will be shown initially across 33 galleries and other display spaces such as a large roof garden, including works from the Sigg Collection of contemporary Chinese art; works by conceptual art pioneers Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik; and Antony Gormley’s Asian Field (2003), an installation of tens of thousands of clay figures made by Guangdong villagers.

It is unclear whether Ai will still be featured after a furore erupted in March when pro-Beijing critics demanded that the museum should remove images such as Ai’s Study of Perspective: Tian’anmen (1997) from its collection. The photograph, part of a series, shows him raising his middle finger in Tiananmen Square.