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The Arts Intel Report

K11 Musea's One-Year Anniversary

Oct 9 – Nov 8, 2020
Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

There’s no question that young Adrian Cheng is a visionary. The third generation leader of a $20.7-billion business empire, Harvard and Stanford educated, and a board member of august cultural institutions around the world, Cheng has created a multifaceted enterprise of his own. Or is it multidimensional? Cheng seems to be making 3-D chess moves when everyone else is playing checkers. In October and November his “muse by the sea”—K11 Musea—celebrates its one-year anniversary. Mixing world-class art with retail brands classic and contemporary, offering playgrounds and two huge sculptural slides designed by Monstrum, not to mention sustainable restaurants and a rooftop farm, the Musea is a cultural-retail destination meant to inspire all who enter. On view now is Elmgreen & Dragset’s nine-meter-tall sculpture Van Gogh’s Ear (2016). This turquoise mid-century swimming pool, positioned vertically, is shaped like an ear and—as art does—turns privileged complacency on its ear. In the new K11 Art & Cultural Centre, the exhibition “Keith Haring: Falling Up” surveys the erogenous urban energy, the kinetic humanity, of Haring’s art. Meanwhile, Javier Calleja’s anime urchins with Bambi eyes—here, his wooden Thinking Boy and Little Maurizio sculptures—receive a special showcase in Muse Edition. This exhibition includes the debut of Calleja’s mini-figurines—eight centimeters high, available for purchase, and inexplicably desirable. —L.J.

Keith Haring, “The Fertility Suite.” Courtesy of Phillips.