There is a bubbling controversy over whether Ai Weiwei’s art is art and whether it deserves to be exhibited at M+, “the new museum of visual culture in Hong Kong, as part of the West Kowloon Cultural District, focusing on 20th and 21st century art, design and architecture and moving image.” Legislator Eunice Yung Hoi-yan says it spreads ill will and hatred for China, and that it might violate the National Security Law. Her critics say that those in charge of M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council are professionals; that she is a lawyer by profession and does not know art. Putting restrictions on freedom of expression would be antithetical to art and goes against the spirit of freedom of artistic expression that Hong Kong values.
I agree that we should value freedom of expression and should try to avoid setting up too many restrictions to artistic expression. However, like most things, artforms can be misused. As a public policy analyst, my primary concern is the public interest. As an art enthusiast, I am all for freedom of artistic expression and truthful expression in whatever media and whatever form the artist sees fit. However, the bottom line is that it should not be used to promote hatred and to sharpen social and political divisions.
In the postscript on my translation of the Daodejing I cited Joseph Conrad, who wrote in his Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus, that the role of the artist is no different from that of the thinker or the scientist. “Like the latter,” I wrote, “he is after the Truth, but whereas the scientist seeks the truth about the physical world, the artist seeks the Truth about the human mind”. Conrad spoke of “the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity — the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.”
Thus, artists wittingly or unwittingly are bearers of the human destiny. Ideally and hopefully they reinforce rather than erode human solidarity. Unfortunately, not all “artists” share these sublimated views. Many of those who are known as artists share common human weaknesses. They use the art medium to express their anger, their hatred, their pessimism, their desperation, their frustrations, their personal biases, their personal delusions. To the enlightened, all this still reflects aspects of humanity as it is and can be tolerated. But the fact is that we live not in an ideal world, so that some artistic expressions do arouse hatred. The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January 2015 is a case in point. According to Wikipedia, French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, “irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, is strongly secularist, anti-religious and left-wing, publishing articles that mock Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and various other groups”. The cartoonists certainly are artists and they are also professionals. But the world being what it is, should we sacrifice lives and peace in favor of freedom of expression, or should we treasure lives, and limit the unbridled expression of mockery and hate?
A red line does exist: A broad brush attack of a group of people, an ethnic group, a religion, or a government is unwarranted and should not be tolerated. If there is a specific policy that one is unhappy with, spell it out, explain why one is unhappy with it, and how things can be done better. That is constructive criticism
Ai Weiwei has many personal grudges against the Chinese government, and he uses his art to express his displeasure toward the mainland government. But his art, far from building solidarity among the Chinese or among humankind, erodes that solidarity and sharpens antagonism. Does it serve the public interest to display his art in M+? Why does the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government fund M+ and the Arts Development Council in the first place? Doesn’t it want Hong Kong people to develop their aesthetic aspirations and a sharper sensitivity to human suffering around the world? If the exhibits in M+ and projects funded by the Arts Development Council arouse hatred for the central government and undermine the public interest we may as well do without them.
In my view, those who criticize Yung and other commentators who object to the exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s artworks on the basis of “interfering with the judgment of art professionals” fail to realize that artists can make or break a society’s fabric. While I am in full support of freedom of expression, by artists and by commentators alike, a red line does exist: A broad brush attack of a group of people, an ethnic group, a religion, or a government is unwarranted and should not be tolerated. If there is a specific policy that one is unhappy with, spell it out, explain why one is unhappy with it, and how things can be done better. That is constructive criticism. If some acts from some people are harmful to the community, again spell it out, explain why those acts are bad, and discuss how to deal with those acts and their perpetrators. Broad brush “criticisms” are never constructive criticisms. The artworks of artists are not always the kind of art that humanity should treasure. They could just be a medium for expression of personal grudges. Why should such things be given a platform for display as art?
The author is a senior research fellow at Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Institute.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.