REVIEWED: Mobile M+: Inflation!: a (con)temporary sculpture park

By Serene Fu

Featuring the works of seven world-renowned artists, Mobile M+: Inflation! (25 April – 9 June 2013) is essentially the first international contemporary art show curated by M+, the museum for visual culture due to open in Hong Kong in 2017. A nomadic event inscribed within the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) project, it is set within the grounds of a massive sculpture park currently under development along the West Kowloon Promenade, adjacent to what is the M+ site itself. The exhibition’s 6 gigantic inflatable sculptures together with a single performance piece are meant to ignite Hong Kong’s interest in contemporary art.

Exhibition view of Mobile M+: Inflation!, 2013. Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Mobile M+: Inflation! encompasses essential elements of the blockbuster show: whilst some works are provocative, hilarious and bouncing with energy, others are merely eye-catching simply due to their huge size. Equivalent to a two-storey building in height, these over-sized inflatables are capable of both drawing the eye’s attention and creating news sound bites. The large-scale forms and catchy nicknames - the pig, the poop and the cockroach - helped create a media buzz before and after the show’s opening. The WKCD Facebook page has recorded over 10,000 ‘Like’ on the pile of poop and even reported that visitor numbers amounted to 38,000 just four days into the exhibition. Thus, through an immersive art experience presented as a lavish feast of beauty, glamour and the grotesque, the show’s main objective appears to be to draw the Hong Kong public to contemporary art.

Cao Fei, House of Treasures, 2013
Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, electric fans
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Cao Fei, House of Treasures, 2013
Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, electric fans
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

In the form of a giant suckling pig, House of Treasures (2013) by Chinese artist Cao Fei (b. 1978) is installed facing Victoria Harbour and celebrates the Chinese appetite for love and food. The pig’s tummy and butt are open, creating passageways filled with pork-cube-like cushions for the audience to rest on, relax and mingle. The work encourages people to recall and treasure moments of family gatherings and reunions. House of Treasures particularly delights spectators as lamps within its red eyes switch on at night, making the piece blend harmoniously with the glittering buildings along the famous harbour.

Paul McCarthy, Complex Pile, 2013
Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, electric fans, rigging
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Complex Pile (2007), by LA-based artist Paul McCarthy (b.1945) which stands 51 ft high and 110 ft wide is less interactive but full of fun. The brown piece which vividly resembles a pile of poop, looks ridiculously absurd yet humorous when laid against the city’s metropolitan urban landscape. By creating an enormous inflatable pile of shit, McCarthy may be paying homage to Piero Manzoni (b. 1933 - 1963) who ground-breakingly used his own feces in the creation of artworks.

Tam Wai Ping, Falling into the Mundane World, 2013
Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, steel structure, electric fans
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

As whimsical and grotesque as the poop, Falling into the Mundane World (2013) by local Hong Kong artist Tam Wai Ping (b. 1967) features two gigantic black inflatables. One is a massive cockroach and the other, a pair of female legs – both pieces plunged into the ground.  Fear and nausea, represented by these works, are viewed as the two domineering emotions hidden beneath the prosperity of the city. Nonetheless, the sculptures can be restored to proper perspectives when viewed through the small fish bowl placed in front of them. 

Choi Jeong Hwa, Emptiness if Form, Form is Emptiness, 2013
Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, electric fans, motor
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

It is not just mere size and the fact that the works are inflatables that connects them, but also colour. Another black piece is the sculpture Emptiness is Form. Form is Emptiness (2013) by South Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa (b. 1961).  Choi has been notable for his recurrent use of lotus flowers to connote Buddhist teaching and spiritual healing. By turning the pink blossom into the improbable black, the artist playfully poses a solemn question to the loss of valuable spiritual belief due to rapid urban development.

Jeremy Deller, Sacrilege, 2012

Paint, Vinyl-coated nylon fabric, zinc-plated anodised steel, electric fans

Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Jiakun Achitects/Liu Jiakun, With the Wind, 2002/2009

Vinyl-coated balloons, agricultural sun-shade netting, used tires, bamboo chairs

Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Two other works that encourage audience participation are Sacrilege (2012) by British artist Jeremy Deller (b. 1966) and With the Wind (2002/2009), by Jiakun Architects /Liu Jiakun (b. 1956) from China. Sacrilege, the Turner Prize winner’s debut in Hong Kong, is a Stonehenge replica that challenges restrictions imposed on touching and accessing some of the world’s cultural heritage and monuments. Transformed into an inflatable bouncy castle in the shape of the sacred historical relic which has been closed to UK public access since 1977, the artwork allows for the Hong Kong audiences to play on.

Unlike Deller’s concept of an interactive lively playground to engage the public, the architectural space that Liu Jiakun has created is reminiscent of a tranquil Sichuan teahouse. Two rows of flying helium-filled red balloons secretly serve to hold up a huge black flying sun shade set above hundreds of bamboo chairs. For Liu, inexpensive and agricultural materials are employed to encapsulate a rural refuge for chilling out in an urban environment.

Tomas Saraceno, Poetic Cosmos of the Breath, 2007
Translucent foil, iridescent colour foil
Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Along with these six soft installations is a performance piece by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno (b. 1973) entitled Poetic Cosmos of the Breath (2007) which is scheduled to stage at sunrise periodically during the exhibition period. Saraceno’s experimental performance goes a step further to explore the role of nature. Here, not just audience participation, but also nature’s collaboration is key to the experience of the show, in which a paper-thin foil membrane will be inflated on the harbour front to produce a startling visual effect. Inspired by the work of Dominic Michaelis, an English architect and inventor who pioneered the technology for a solar-powered hot air balloon, the piece is a time-based experimental solar dome that takes flight only under sunlight. The cancellation of the first show unfortunately due to bad weather, probably anticipated by the curators of the show, did let down many enthusiastic participants. Conceived as an ephemeral event rather than as fixed structure, Poetic Cosmos of the Breath envisages not only the impermanence of public sculpture, but also new possibilities for connecting humanity to the natural world.  

Mobile M+: Inflation! reveals that the M+ team has tried their best to make art noticeable to the public and that art can be appreciated everywhere around us. Accompanied by a series of on-site events ranging from artist talks, workshops to guided tours, the exhibition has succeeded in generating enthusiasm in the general public about viewing and participating in art. It remains to be seen whether the Hong Kong public will be able to move away from taking the pig, the poop and the cockroach literally and instead perceive them as a form of intervention whereby art is manipulated to interrupt and challenge our usual perceptions.

MOBILE M+: INFLATION!  West Kowloon Cultural District Promenade, Kowloon, Hong Kong. 25 Apr - 9 Jun.