The art of urbanity

Self-portrait of Xu Beihong.

It's a controversial topic, as Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District continues to see star architects being commissioned to build government-funded galleries and museums. Meanwhile, China's museum software of curators and art critics lags behind its hardware of shiny new buildings.

Somewhat ironically moderated by West Kowloon's CEO Michael Lynch, the motion was argued by South China Morning Post financial columnist Jake van der Kamp and Mumbai-based features editor Vishwas Kulkarni. Tate Modern curator Jessica Morgan and Beijing's Ullens Center for Contemporary Art's director Philip Tinari debated against the motion. The audience got a chance to challenge each of the speakers and to vote before and after hearing their arguments.

Both van der Kamp and Kulkarni played the emotion card.

"Art is a toy for the very rich in very poor countries," Kulkarni says.

Van der Kamp says: "Museums are for beautiful people with wine glasses. Government-funded art is stuck in the 19th century. Artists today meet in Starbucks and show their work online."

Morgan and Tinari stressed that without government-funded education in the form of museums, culture and knowledge, art would be reduced to whatever is in fashion.

"Education is a fundamental way of reaching conflict resolution," Morgan says.

"Sharing information led to the origin of public museums. If museums are left to private investors, it allows the free market to decide what's worth collecting."

Swarovski commissioned a PMQ site-specific work by British sculptors Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard for Art Basel Hong Kong. Prologue juxtaposes raw industrial steel with the sophistication of amber-colored precision-cut crystals suspended within its circular cradle. The hundreds of crystals sparkle with different effects, depending on the amount of natural or artificial light available during the course of a day.