Shortlists

Shortlists offer thematic selections from AAA’s Collection, including overviews and annotations by invited contributors. The following Shortlist by humanities professor Eva Man Kit-wah focuses on “new museology” and the developing landscape of art museums in Hong Kong.

Introduction

These selected readings draw our attention to two subjects: "new museology" (and the related discussion on the idea of the new museums) and the Hong Kong Museum of Art per se.

The evolving nature and social functions of museums in the late-twentieth century, especially those in the United Kingdom and the Continent, have been noted. Starting in the 1970s, museums developed from primarily custodial institutions into institutes increasingly focused on visitor attraction. The changing character of museum work that is evident in the climate of increasing institutional reflexivity is identified as "new museology."

On the other hand, as metropolitan a city as it is, museums in Hong Kong have had a humble start. While modern museums in some international cultural metropolises have histories of over two hundred years, public museum service in Hong Kong has a relatively short history. The first museum in Hong Kong, usually referred to as the old City Hall museum, was founded in 1869, but was demolished in 1933. Its demolition led to an absence of public museum service in Hong Kong until the establishment of the City Museum and Art Gallery in 1962, which is antecedent to today’s Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Readings on the discussion of new museology are listed to provide a starting point for thinking about the developing landscape of art museums in Hong Kong, especially in the context of the changing museum ecology and the policy and public discourse surrounding museum marketisation and democratisation.

_{Note: This Shortlist was produced in conjunction with the programme Hong Kong Conversations, an ongoing talk series focusing on Hong Kong’s cultural ecology within a social and political framework that is part of AAA's Teaching Labs programme. The following Shortlist accompanied the panel "Diminishing Gaps? Public (Art) Museums in Hong Kong" held on 7 June 2014. The panel examined the case of the Hong Kong Museum of Art (founded in 1962 as the City Hall Museum and Art Gallery) as the primary public institution dedicated to the development of art in Hong Kong, and asked how the establishment of newer museums such as the Heritage Museum (founded in 2000), and, more recently M+, enrich and complicate the landscape for art museums in Hong Kong.}

Collections

Shortlist | Diminishing Gaps? Public (Art) Museums in Hong Kong

Introduction

Recommended Readings