Curation-as-branding and the problem with cultural diplomacy: The case of Q Art Group

Abstract

Founded in 2018 by Hong Kong heiress Queenie Rosita Law of the Law family apparel brand Bossini fame, Q Art Group is a private art initiative between Hungary and China that, in the words of its Hungarian artistic director, promotes Central and Eastern European art ‘within the dynamics of the Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI). Hungary was the first European country to sign onto BRI cooperation, and it leads the 14 + 1 initiative promoting investment between China and Central and Eastern Europe. The country’s national-conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán uses Hungary’s position as a BRI gateway to bolster an ‘illiberal’ agenda within the European Union. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Q Art Group – comprising the Budapest private museum, Q Contemporary, the Hong Kong gallery Double Q and Q Studio, an art studio that works with luxury properties – is rebranding both Central and Eastern Europe and China in a mix of cultural diplomacy and art market strategy between Hong Kong and Budapest. The article considers the co-constituting images of the Greater China and Central and Eastern Europe that Q Art Group presents in Hungary and Hong Kong by positioning itself as a discourse maker in Central and Eastern European art. What is the ‘post-communist landscape’ – as Q Art Group calls Central and Eastern Europe – mobilized in this endeavour and how does it serve China’s cultural diplomacy and nation-branding? Mapping the social, economic, juridical and political conditions that Q Art Group negotiates, this article asserts there is no ‘good’ way of curating art for cultural diplomacy, but that the exchange of what is called ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ under cultural diplomacy is but an operation of mutual branding among privileged forms of state capital that use art to circulate the violent philosophical logic behind cultural difference.