M+ marks fifth anniversary with alliance with MoMA and Centre Pompidou
M+ director Suhanya Raffel says the Hong Kong museum, celebrating its fifth anniversary, has become an 'equivalent' to global art giants MoMA and Centre Pompidou after forming a cultural alliance on 30 October. The partnership includes joint exhibitions and long-term artwork loans to support financi
Though it is celebrating only its fifth anniversary, M+ has become an “equivalent” to two longstanding global cultural powerhouses – the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris, says director Suhanya Raffel. This comes after the three institutions announced the formation of a cultural alliance on 30 October.
“It elevates Hong Kong and M+ to the global stage,” she told The Standard of the partnership, which will see the museum engage in joint exhibitions and curatorial research and conservation with the two art-world giants. By lending artworks to one another on a long-term basis, the alliance will also support the museum’s financial sustainability, given that recent wars around the world have driven up the cost of transporting artworks, Raffel said.
The achievement is all the more significant for M+, a relative newcomer to the league of global museums, considering that MoMA is coming up to 100 years in 2029, while Centre Pompidou turns 50 next year. Looking back on the museum’s mere five years, the director reflected on how it has shaped the cultural ecology of the city. Today, “people cannot imagine Hong Kong without M+,” Raffel said. She noted that in addition to annual visitor numbers of between 2.5 million and 2.7 million – making it one of the world’s most visited museums – it has reached 70 per cent of local schools. Local visitors, which account for about 40 per cent of attendance, are returning up to four times a year.
“It’s about building a culture in the community that museums should be treated like home; a museum is a kind of home for local people.” While Raffel said M+ still has much to learn from MoMA and Centre Pompidou, she described it as “humbling” that the learning goes in “two directions.” “We can also be helping MoMA and Pompidou transform … by being more open to the stories from this part of the world,” she said, referring to Asia.
Asian voices will continue to take centre stage in next year’s programme lineup, Raffel said, as the museum furthers its mandate of being a “global institution with local roots.” Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover, the museum’s opening exhibition “Hong Kong: Here and Beyond” will return in a new edition. It will explore the city’s “creative energy” – manifested in cinema, images, architecture, graphic design, humour, and play – which makes Hong Kong a “unique city in the context of Greater China,” Raffel said. Another programme highlight is “City Lives,” which will unveil works never shown before from the M+ Sigg Collection, said to be the world’s largest collection of Chinese contemporary art.
Turning to the financial strain facing the West Kowloon Cultural Authority, whose deficit widened to HK$998 million in the year ended March, the M+ director said the authority’s plan to tender land for commercial and residential use is an encouraging way forward. “The developments will fund the cultural institutions [in WestK] because no cultural institution in the entire world makes profit; never has, never will,” Raffel said. “But our work makes sure that our cities become destinations.” “You go to Paris, New York, or Rome because of their culture; you don't go there to seek out the stock exchange,” she said, illustrating the cultural capital that institutions like M+ represent. “That's how we give back to the community.”
Nurturing the next generation of museum leaders is another way of doing so, through the M+ Academy, whose first cohort launched from 8 November to last Saturday. The training programmes cater to museum professionals at different stages of their careers, with Raffel saying the M+ Academy could position Hong Kong as Asia’s training hub for museum talent.