Abstract
Established in 1962, the Hong Kong Museum of Art was the first public museum in the city. It closed in August 2015 for a four-year renovation and spatial expansion of the facility, and reopened its doors in November 2019. The renovation happened precisely in the interstices of two important historical ruptures in recent Hong Kong history: the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the ongoing Anti-China Extradition Movement that started in 2019. These movements are redefining the identity of the city and its people in contrast to the conventional Hong Kong cliché of transformation from fishing village to modern financial hub. Without addressing recent changes in cultural identity, the revamped museum rhetorically deploys obsolete curatorial narratives through exhibitions of Hong Kong art. This report critiques the representation of Hong Kongness in the revamped museum and argues that the latter is a soulless entity that overlooks the fact that both politics and art are now reconstructing local identities.
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