Move over, M+? N+ Museum Re-opens Under Chungking Mansions

Description

“Don’t ask questions. Don’t ask us what the artworks are all about. Not everything has to be all serious and deep,” advise the collective behind N+ Museum, a pop-up space established to willfully subvert the status quo of Hong Kong’s art landscape. While the name is an evident play on the city’s premiere international arts institution, M+ museum, N+’s location is also loaded with meaning – returning to The Garage, a sprawling events space in Heath HK, at the basement of the infamous “world inside a building” that is Chungking Mansions. 

Run “by artists, for artists,” the exhibitors promise to sidestep conventional gatekeepers and offer a platform for “renegades, nobodies, and not-yet-somebodies to make some noise.” Said noise includes one-off happenings – live experimental music, institutional critiques and “hyper-specific nerd gatherings.”

Promising a snapshot of “what’s new, what’s hot, and what’s driving the local scene forward,” the temporary exhibit’s third edition profiles 55 Hong Kong creatives showcasing a “no fluff” mix of traditional paintings, printmaking and ceramics, plus mixed-media, video art and experimental installations. “We don’t believe in institutional validation or market value,” states the curators’ mission statement. “We believe in creativity. We believe in the here and now — in the messy, urgent, stubborn aliveness of artists who are still breathing.”