M+ Facade M+幕牆

Videos from the M+ Moving Image Collection, newly reformatted for the M+ Facade

As a response to Jeffrey Shaw’s interactive media artwork Legible City Hong Kong, M+ has selected On the Track (1979/2024) by Lambert Yam, and a two-part performance by artist Wang Peng, both titled Passing Through (New York, 1996; Beijing, 2006) from the M+ Collection to screen on the M+ Facade until 27 October 2024. In On the Track, Yam captures everyday activities along San Francisco’s tram route, quietly drawing attention to the diverse ethnic groups and cultures in the city. In Passing Through, Wang navigated the streets of two distinctive cultural landscapes, leaving behind him a trail of white string threaded through his jacket. Through this minimalist approach, the artist became the subject disrupting people’s daily lives and sparking awareness of their surroundings. These works have all been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

In conjunction with Yang Fudong's Sparrow on the Sea and its metaphysical depiction of an individual's self-exploration in the city, M+ has curated Midi Z's The Palace on the Sea and Song Tao's Proud from the M+ Collection—both of which explore the themes of individuality and loss—to screen on the M+ Facade until 18 July 2024. These works have been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

Drawn mostly from the M+ Collection, these five short films explore Hong Kong’s iconic urban landscape through the lens of local and international moving image artists. By tracing the city’s transformation over two decades, the programme highlights Hong Kong’s complexities, while mirroring the dynamism of the city itself.  These works have all been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

In conjunction with Tromarama's playful exploration of public monuments, M+ has curated two artworks from the M+ Collection that delve into themes of space, public space, and the city. Koki Tanaka's Everything is Everything breathes new life into everyday objects found on the streets of Taipei, while Kacey Wong's Drift City (2000–2019) explores the intricate interplay between architectural landmarks and the communal spaces they inhabit. These works have been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

With their similar pulsating energies, M+ has selected Ink City and Hearts from the M+ Collections, to screen alongside Tong Yang-Tze and Chris Cheung’s Ink | Pulse on the M+ Facade, until 24 September 2023. These works have been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

To complement the tender meditation on the poetics of hands in Pipilotti Rist's Hand Me Your Trust and the artist's play with perception, light, and space, M+ has selected Yesterday; Fly, Fly; and Merce by Merce by Paik Part One: Blue Studio: Five Segments from the M+ Collections to screen on the M+ Facade until 17 June 2023. These works have been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

To complement the explorations of human conflict, destruction, and women’s repression underpinning Nalini Malani's In Search of Vanished Blood, M+ has selected 2nd light , Flying the Wind, and In the Sky from the M+ Collections to screen on the M+ Facade until 12 March 2023. The works have been reformatted and modified for the best viewing experience on the M+ Facade.

To complement the play of light and energy in Ellen Pau’s The Shape of Light, M+ selected Morning After the Deluge and Free Radicals from the M+ Collections to screen on the M+ Facade during July 2022.

Videos commissioned by M+ for display on online platforms and inside the museum, newly reformatted for the M+ Facade

Thematic videos that combine clips and images of M+ Collection objects across all art forms, created especially for the M+ Facade

Hong Kong Days

Immerse yourself in the vibrancy and dynamism of Hong Kong through the M+ Collection. From the neon-lit streets and busy markets to the tranquil corners of local housing estates, the paintings, photographs, and architecture featured in this video offer a kaleidoscopic view into the rich visual culture and daily life of Hong Kong.

See the works featured in Hong Kong Days here.

Black and White II

Prior to the advent of colour in photography and film, artists leveraged the expressive potential of black and white to convey contrast, texture, mood, pattern, and structure. This video celebrates the timeless allure and power of monochromatic simplicity in visual culture through the M+ Collection.

See the works featured in Black and White II here.

Shanshui

Shanshui, a concept deeply rooted in Chinese philosophical thought and poetic imagination, transcends the traditional medium of ink painting to manifest across diverse contemporary art forms. This video encourages viewers to reflect on the intricate yet harmonious connections between landscape and humanity through the M+ Collection.

See the works featured in Shanshui here.

In Search of Dragons

Presented on the M+ Facade, In Search of Dragons celebrates the significance and iconic status of the dragon as a majestic and mythical creature, as well as a sacred symbol in Asian visual culture. The video features dragons as they appear in the M+ Collection, ranging from paintings and sculptures to ceramics, graphic design, architecture, and moving image.

See the works featured in In Search of Dragon here.

Human Body

Human Body explores the body as a powerful creative medium. Artists have employed the body as a symbolic vehicle to express different facets of identity, such as gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity. By claiming control over their own bodies, artists can challenge political and historical norms and elicit an empathetic and visceral response from their audiences.

See the works featured in Human Body here.

Individual and Society

Individual and Society explores the relationships between individuals and the broader world they inhabit. The works in this video reveal that individuality, society, and politics are inseparable, often fraught and riddled with tension and discomfort. From the mass media to governmental and economic systems, the school to our families, we are subject to invisible social forces that shape our values and behaviours.

See the works featured in Individual and Society here.

Sculpture

Sculpture explores this artistic form, looking at objects made with traditional materials such as bronze, wood, or clay to those which incorporate industrial or mass-produced items found in everyday life. The sheer diversity of what can be defined as sculpture continues to expand. As artists incorporate new technologies, materials, and techniques into their works, sculpture evolves from a fixed to an infinitely malleable artform.

See the works featured in Sculpture here.

Black and White

Black and White is often viewed as binary opposites, but like truth, it is often much more complicated and nuanced. Instead of using colours, artists desaturate an image or modify its tonal range to convey stark photographic truths to express emotions and the experience of time through ink on the granular surface of paper.

See the works featured in Black and White here.

Colour

Colour plays a significant role in shaping how we sensuously perceive the world with an ability to directly influence our emotional responses. As the images in the video cycle through the range of a rainbow’s spectrum, we analyse the ways basic tools of point, line, and motion are augmented by creative palette choices.

See the works featured in Colour here.

Nature

Nature and our place within it serve as the inspiration for this video. The scrolling animation suggests a journey across a patchwork landscape of different creative ideas. Along the way, changing cadences and stopping points help us understand the universal idea of the sublime, fragile beauty, and spiritual contemplation implied in individual works.

See the works featured in Nature here.

Creatures

Creatures reminds us of the diverse ways in which animals have served as inspiration and vehicles for expression in art and design. Works in Creatures range from contemporary depictions of horses in motion—a common motif in traditional Chinese art—to our habit of attributing human characteristics to animals. They also look into the future—at the creations of artificially intelligent lifeforms.

See the works featured in Creatures here.

Signs and Symbols

Signs and Symbols explores the visual cues that help inform our interpretations of visual art, graphic design, and moving image. They form a wider reading of visual culture that narrates our personal daily experiences—from the handwritten calligraphy of the King of Kowloon signposting an individual’s mark on urban territory, to glowing neons signifying a transition into the night.

See the works featured in Signs and Symbols here.

Painting

Painting represents the complex interplay between moving gestures and using tonal or colour variances to define character traits and communicate meanings. Challenging its traditional role as a static medium, representational and abstract works are shown intermingling with expanded notions of painting as an animated medium, showcasing the genre's vitality and ability at contesting preconceived notions.

See the works featured in Painting here.

Home City

Home City celebrates the liveliness of Hong Kong visual culture, including its colours, geometries, and textures. Interweaving art, design and architecture, and moving image, it captures the history and present of Hong Kong cultural expression from the streets to the home, and beyond.

See the works featured in Home City here.

Poetry of the Mind

Poetry of the Mind highlights the use of ink, a principle medium and aesthetic in Asian visual art, as a vehicle for contemplation. Combining intuitive lines, floating symmetries, calligraphic marks, and awe-inspiring landscapes, it meditates on the material, spiritual, physical, and intangible qualities of contemporary ink art.

See the works featured in Poetry of the Mind here.

Objects

Objects uses visual cues to playfully connect art, design and architecture, and moving image works from the M+ Collections. Inspiring us to explore our genuine thoughts and memories, it brings diverse objects into witty juxtaposition by igniting our imagination.

See the works featured in Objects here.

Mass Production

Mass Production navigates the history of manufacturing in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area—from plastics to textiles, and home appliances to digital technologies. With a machine-like rhythm, it captures images of ordinary daily life intertwined with global capital forces.

See the works featured in Mass Production here.

Urbanism

Urbanism explores the modern transformation and urbanisation of Asia as a source of inspiration for artists, architects, and filmmakers. Here, the city is not just a backdrop or setting for action, but a potent catalyst of history, memory, and belonging.

See the works featured in Urbanism here.

Technology

Technology uses screen-led motions like scrolling, swiping, scanning, and zooming to explore artistic visions of the future. From early developments in consumer electronics to more recent discoveries in Artificial Intelligence, it celebrates artists' capacities to imagine new possibilities for living.

See the works featured in Technology here.

Seeing Hong Kong

Seeing Hong Kong presents a series of visual diaries of diverse imagined urban landscapes created collectively by local secondary school students during their visits to M+. The combination of images creates an unusual visual order, inviting viewers to explore city life anew through the artistic perspectives of young people.

Seeing Hong Kong is a creative outcome from students of 13 schools who participated in the Seeing Hong Kong: The Hidden Network behind Design and Architecture. See the list of participating schools here.

We are grateful for the support of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Hong Kong, which makes it possible for our Secondary School Programmes to be free for all Hong Kong-based secondary schools.