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From Ai Weiwei’s whitewashed pots to Antony Gormley’s miniature terracotta army, 10 highlights of M+ museum’s opening shows in Hong Kong
- 1,500 works, including a collection of ancient pots painted over by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, are on view in the first exhibitions at Hong Kong’s M+ museum
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For its opening exhibitions, Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual culture has chosen about 1,500 works from its collection of 6,413 pieces. These can be found in 33 galleries spread across 17,000 square metres (183,000 square feet) of display space.
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Here are a few highlights to watch out for (Don’t miss the restored Kiyotomo sushi bar on the second floor.)
Whitewash (1995-2000), by Ai Weiwei
Rows of white and earth-tone jars, 126 in total, are arranged neatly on the ground, like freshly unearthed artefacts of an archaeological dig. And they are old – the jars are dated to the Chinese Neolithic period, which began around 10,000BC. But the Chinese artist has painted over their distinctive dark broad symmetrical patterns, literally whitewashing history.
He has often used ancient artefacts in his work to question the value we place on tradition, such as by photographing himself dropping and smashing a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty urn, or by adding a Coca-Cola logo to an equally old jar as a comment on globalisation.
2/F, Sigg Galleries
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