Art in its place

A wise man once said art should not be in museums, but truck stops. That’s where it’s needed, can find its purpose; preach not the congregation, but the crowd. The Hirst show at Hong Kong’s Gagosian was closed for the New Year, so I instead found my art in the retail space.

Billed as the world’s first ‘art mall,’ K11 has stands for sculptures, frames for paintings, and a second-story exhibition space. It also has Jil Stuart, Levi’s, FILA, and Clarks. Birds fly wings open over the entrance, the long lost Lego cousins of the Eaton Centre. Under it, a Mona Lisa made of toast. And tucked behind the final step of the escalator, a row of glass clouds to toss the eye past, become the bird in sky.

In a Starbucks designed by Goods Of Desire, more art. The specialty shop is half traditional Chinese teahouse, half contemporary coffee joint. The walls of the teahouse are trophy cases, containing classic Chinese kitsch.

Unobstructed by pockets of change is the art sketched on the street. So the clown of time watches me walk by, as does the tubby man letting go his balloon of joy. And way out in the New Territories, on the edge of urban sprawl: two naked nobodies, stripped down to nothing, holding hands, and full of love.