The M+ museum in Hong Kong, the delayed flagship project of the new West Kowloon Cultural District, has been boosted by a donation of five works by south and southeast Asian artists from the local collector, Hallam Chow.
The works donated are by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Circus, 2007), L.N. Tallur (Colonial Sisters, 2008), Sopheap Pich (Head in Arms, 2010), Jompet Kuswidananto (Third Realm: Venice Series #3, 2011) and Eko Nugroho (Untitled, 2010).
Chow, who runs a law practice, says in a statement: “I hope to inspire other local and regional collectors to share important works by regional artists with M+. The contribution of Asian regional artists to the overall development of contemporary art in Asia is important and cannot be overlooked.”
M+, a vast new museum of 20th- and 21st-century culture that is twice the size of Tate Modern in London, is expected to open by 2019—two years later than planned.
Earlier this year, Suhanya Raffel, the director of collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, was appointed as executive director of M+.
Duncan Pescod, the chief executive of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, says that Raffel will direct the curatorial development of M+, leading on the acquisition of art, time-based media, design and architecture works for the burgeoning collection. In 2012, the Swiss collector Uli Sigg donated 1,463 contemporary Chinese works—and sold 47 pieces priced at HK$177m—to M+.