Unique auction that queries value of art and underground acoustic experience on show
Post Capitalistic Auction and After the Rain among over 100 performances showcasing cultural traditions and innovations at Hong Kong’s Asia+ Festival
The real value of art – and the question of whether money is the only way to decide its worth – will come under the spotlight during an interactive theatre production where the audience bids for artworks at a real-but-alternative auction.
Chinese performance creator and director Jingyi Wang’s touring show, Post Capitalistic Auction, which sees bids made for eight artworks, forms part of Hong Kong’s Asia+ Festival, which is running until next month.
The three-month festival is being presented by the city’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau and organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. It has included over 100 performances and activities that showcase cultural traditions and innovations featuring leading performance artists from nearly 30 nations involved in the Belt and Road Initiative – a plan led by the Chinese government to improve trade and economic integration across Asia, Europe and Africa.
Wang’s first auction was staged in 2018 in the Norwegian city of Bergen, where she lives, and it has since been presented in Yokohama, Japan, and the Canadian city of Toronto.
The audience takes part in each performance as artworks sourced from the region hosting each show are auctioned. They use an online app to place their bids while the process is projected onto a screen in the theatre in real time.
What makes this auction unique is people are to offer bids using currencies such as “opportunity” and “understanding”: what they offer is up to the imagination of the bidders.
