One critical question for exhibiting past art is its contemporary relevance. Instead of asserting a work’s temporal transcendence, a more convincing way to prove its enduring life is to show that it can still captivate an audience and contribute to the creation and appreciation of art today. This is the approach taken by the exhibition Looking for Antonio Mak, an extraordinary show that brought an unprecedented vitality to the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Centered on the much-esteemed late sculptor, the exhibition prompted an engaging conversation between Mak, eight collaborating artists, and the audience.

Antonio Mak Hin-yeung (1951–1994) is a noteworthy figure in the history of Hong Kong art. Like many artists of his generation, he was trained in overseas institutions and returned to Hong Kong with the stylistic and ideological imprints of European modernism. Mak was born in the Philippines and moved to Hong Kong with his family when he was one-month old. Mentored by his father, who was a painter and graphic designer, he started making art at an early age. In his twenties he studied at London’s Goldsmith’s College and the Slade School of Art. Having set his eyes on sculpture, he continued his training at the Bronze Foundry of the Royal College of Art and subsequently moved to New York to study the latest techniques.

He is remembered for his professional passion and an oeuvre that addresses existential conditions. For example, Man Coming Out from Himself II (1992) is a resin cast of two joined bodies apparently in the process of becoming a person through a series of movements. Frequently, he combines such musings with culturally specific symbolisms. One example is Bible from Happy Valley (1991), a horse with a book on its back. Happy Valley is the name of the city’s racecourse, and a “bible” promises winning, but ironically the word “book” in Cantonese is a homophone for “losing.”

The combination of a modernist language and local characteristics positions Mak as an artist of his particular milieu. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong was approaching its return to China. Questions of identity, the transition from a colony to a Chinese state, and the city’s political future were at stake. Writers consider aspects of Mak’s work reflective of this historical moment (see, for example, David Clarke, “The Sculpture of Antonio Mak,” in The Art of Antonio Mak, Susan Fong, ed., Hong Kong: Hong Kong Arts Centre, 1995, unpaginated; Oscar Ho, “Illusion and Reflection: On the Art of Antonio Mak,” ibid.). Works such as Good Morning II (1993), representing a sleepwalker oblivious to danger as he stands on a tiger’s back, were seen as critiques of somnambulist escapism. Mak’s career was also illustrative of his generation’s circumstances. The intimate scale of most of his works, determined by his largely self-financed career, testifies to a time when artists were committed to making art even when sales and exhibitions were rare and support was virtually non-existent. “We made art because we had to, because we were pushed to do so by an inexplicable and irrational inner drive,” says veteran artist Oscar Ho, also from that generation (Oscar Ho, “Fragments of Antonio Mak,” in Looking for Antonio Mak, Valerie C. Doran and Louisa Chan, eds., Hong Kong: Leisure and Cultural Services Department, 2008, 14).

Mak passed away at a relatively young age in 1994. He left behind a sizable body of work, part of which was exhibited in a retrospective held the following year. Since then, his works have been overlooked in major displays of Hong Kong art, including the mega-exhibition Inside Out: New Chinese Art. The absence of Mak made independent curator Valerie C. Doran wonder, “Where is the art of Antonio Mak?” She first raised this question in a review of Inside Out and revived it when the Hong Kong Museum of Art launched a program called Hong Kong Art: Open Dialogue (Valerie C. Doran, “Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Asia Society Galleries, and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center,” Orientations 30, no. 8: 98–101). The museum, a key public institution in the city, has always been instrumental in the discourse around local art. Until recently, however, the museum has been less attentive to contemporary art. Aiming to promote a more pluralistic vision of Hong Kong art, Open Dialogue was a platform for guest curators. Select candidates in the art community were invited to submit exhibition proposals. When Doran received the invitation, she took the chance to resolve her question about Mak.

Reintroducing the artist to public view, Doran’s exhibition was about Mak’s work in the present tense: “What happens to the artist’s work when it goes out to our world? What happens to it? What happens to us?” (Interview with the curator, January 24, 2009, at the Hong Kong Museum of Art.) These questions were tackled in three parts: a core display of Mak’s work, a response exhibition, and a documentary installation detailing his legacy. Doran collaborated with a team of professionals and orchestrated an evocative experience. This was enunciated at the outset when viewers approached the exhibition gallery. Instead of seeing a classy banner typical of shows in public institutions, they found a blank screen and a spot of light on the floor. Behind the screen, a gobo projected the artist’s autograph, superimposing “MAK” with its Chinese equivalent. The arrangement subtly introduced the exhibition: it was about layers of meanings, emanating from Mak’s art, to be discovered by a contemplative audience.

In the core exhibition, 120 sculptures, drawings, and paintings by Mak, gathered from private and institutional collectors, were showcased in a way that answered not only “where is the art of Antonio Mak?” but also the deeper questions of what happened to it when it got out to our world and what happened to us. Textual information was kept to a minimum, encouraging viewers to see and interpret the works for themselves; but the manner of display shed light on some essential attributes. For example, eight works featuring the body were lined up at intervals. Viewers could physically penetrate the installation, look at the works from all sides, and leave footprints in the sand on the floor. At the end of the row was a moon-screen onto which a spotlight silhouetted the sleepwalker of Good Morning II. As viewers passed through, their shadows merged with the somnambulist. In other words, viewers did not just look at the works, they experienced them. On the message board outside the gallery, an anonymous visitor wrote: “When I discover you, I discover myself.”

The prompting of a self-knowing dialogue continued in the second part of the show. Eight contemporary artists from diverse fields and working in different styles were invited to participate. Prior to the exhibition, the group met to look at Mak’s art. Each of them then created a work in response. As much as they were responding to Mak, these works revealed their makers. Some took specific elements from Mak as their points of departure, only to incorporate them into their unique vision. For example, calligrapher Fung Ming Chip furthered his experiments on text as he turned Mak’s notes into a graffiti installation; sculptor Lee Man Sang’s assemblage was in line with his practice with found objects; musician Kung Chi Shing paired Mak’s existentialism with his own sonic experiments. Others focused on their own interests: Lo Yin Shan, who works with text and image, highlighted Mak’s poetic imagery in her mixed-media installation; and conceptual artist Kwan Sheung Chi transformed Mak’s use of mirroring, punning, and political subtext into a conceptually loaded installation. The most intriguing case was Mainland artist Wu Shanzhuan, whose contribution was a mixed-media piece created during a residency in Iceland in 1990–91. The work was hidden in a barn and only recently rediscovered. There was some correspondence within the context of the show, but the work itself was generally irresponsive to the late artist.

Among the commissioned works, the most resounding one was a multi-part installation by UK-born, Hong Kong-based Simon Birch, who eloquently spoke to Mak while expressing his own voice. Titled one hundred five zero, the work comprised a series of paintings and a video installation. The canvases, half blank and half painted in a gestural manner, contrast an absorbing latency with explosive energy. This contrast was magnified by the video installation, which covered the walls of a room. In four partially synchronized and partially disjointed channels, the video shows the movements of a tiger in freeze frames, slow motion, and normal speed. Initially the artist wanted to exhibit a live tiger but was rejected by the museum. The compromised version wasn’t necessarily worse (especially considering the hygienic and humanitarian concerns that can adversely affect the artistic impact of live animal displays). When mortality is compressed in flattened-out images, the larger-than-life tiger is mesmerizing. Close-ups of the tiger’s stripes in motion are reminiscent of the abstract fragments of Cubism and Futurism (whose traces are visible in Mak’s and Birch’s works), while the capturing of time is overshadowed by the grave notion of memento mori. Breathtaking in its own right, within the context of the exhibition the work breathed life into the reverberations—in terms of style, themes, and attitude—of the two artists’ encounter. It made one see so much more in both artists’ work.

The conversation initiated by Jaffa Lam was relatively light-hearted in comparison, but it also made a substantial point. Looking for Ah Mak in the Dream Studio was a two-part installation. The first part was a white dream chamber, tinted by ethereal, bluish light. Inside, a circular, halo-like bronze piece responds to Mak’s bodhisattva-inspired sculptures. This meditative space had a spirited double. In the foyer, the artist performed a live piece by staying in a “dream studio” throughout the exhibition period. Fully furnished with her own tools, furniture (including a bed), and make-believe keepsakes of Mak, the space was conceived as a shared studio with the late artist, whom Lam had never met and would like to see in her dreams. Mak had not shown up so far, but the studio was frequented by friends and members of the audience. During the visits, Lam shared her whimsical ideas about art. The work showed what has changed in the mode of practice and what would never change in good art. When compared to Mak, Lam demonstrated an obvious swing to conceptualism and a looser take on artistic form. The larger scale of her work exemplified the support today’s artists are able to muster. Notwithstanding these differences, the two artists share a devotion to art that is genuinely close to life.

That Mak’s art was not enshrined but alive was conspicuous in the final documentary component. Along with a display of Mak’s personal objects, a glistening torso occupied the center of the room. With a caption suggesting that the piece has become shiny after years of polishing, it evidenced the ongoing vitality of Mak’s art. This was echoed by a photographic installation featuring collectors taking pictures of Mak’s art in situ. The snapshots, showing his works in domestic settings, exhibition spaces, locked store rooms, etc., were simply pasted on placards and adhered to the wall. The down-to-earth approach reinforced the show’s unpretentiousness. It also pointed toward what was most moving about the exhibition—its sincerity. A detail was emblematic: the beautifully streaked floor, so similar to that of an artist’s studio, was actually the raw floor of the museum. By taking away the carpet, the show looked for the fundamental.

When asked what she found in Looking for Antonio Mak, Doran replied, “People always say that the public [in Hong Kong] does not respond to contemporary art. But in this show I have found a very sensitive audience” (interview with the curator, January 24, 2009, at the Hong Kong Museum of Art). The positive response to the exhibition should not be taken for granted. The Hong Kong Museum of Art in general, and Doran in particular, must be credited for the thought-provoking curation. They have not only proven that past art could converse with the present, but also that curators and museums, as mediating agents connecting art to the public, can creatively stretch the imagination. In the inaugural publication for Open Dialogue, former curator Eve Tam makes a point about the need to renew museum practice to promote pluralistic appreciation (Eve Tam, “Between Past and Future,” “Hong Kong Art: Open Dialogue” Exhibition Series 2008–09: A Launching Publication, Hong Kong: Leisure and Cultural Services Department, 2008, 109). In this sense, the show was an inspiration.