This article presents an interpretation of conceptual artist Qiu Zhen’s photographic work Me and My Bride: Satan’s Wedding No. 5 (2008) within the theoretical framework of Homi K. Bhabha’s Third Space. Because of its hybrid status and the work’s subtle likeness to certain visual elements related with the story of Frankenstein the interpretation is closely connected to that narrative. More specifically, the article uses this particular literary-photographical and cross-cultural panorama to explore artistic creativity, individuality and freedom of expression as articulated in this conceptual and postmodern work that was produced in the wake of preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games. The article further explores how something foreign like Frankenstein may engage with ‘Chineseness’ and how ‘Chineseness’ may be emphasized through the usage of something foreign. Thus this article approaches the concept of ‘Chineseness’ as a wearer of a foreign coat, negotiating the hybrid as a highly performative but softly speaking political product on the Chinese art scene.

Föreläsningen handlar om hur fotografiet nådde Kina och hur mediet sedan starten influerats av västerländsk, inhemsk kinesisk kultur och japanska trender. Med utgångspunkt i porträtt och salongsfoto på 1840-talet följer föreläsnigen utvecklingen fram till dagens internationellt uppmärksammade iscensatta fotografi och diskuterar hur det kan tolkas och förstås.

In the last decade the Hong Kong government has shown an interest in promoting large scale cultural development projects including Art Basel Hong Kong, the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) as well as M+ The Museum of Arts and Visual Culture, all presenting Hong Kong as a cultural hub. The development of those projects can be seen as a way for the city to diversify its economy through creative industries (CI) and urban entrepreneurship (Raco and Gilliam, 2012), making the place more appealing for international workers and global tourism. However, ongoing grassroots political movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement suggest that the Beijing government is keen to intervene with Hong Kong’s affairs. As a result, its cultural identity is being challenged. In this paper we argue that the study of the yet conceptual M+ museum contribute with accruing capital of cultural identity when compared to likewise huge museum projects in mainland China. We will further argue that the Hong Kong museum will represent an original that other museums in the world may wish to copy.

I år har den femte upplagan av Örebros konstbiennal OpenART gått av stapeln. Den är sedan 2013 den största konstbiennalen i Skandinavien och brukar visa verk av ett sjuttiotal konstnärer från olika delar av världen i stadsrummet och på museer. I år bidrog inte mindre än 13 kinesiska konstnärer och var därmed efter Sverige den mest representerade nationen. De två kinesiska utställningarna "Möten" och "Utan hämningar" fanns att beskåda 14juni–6 september och visade konstverk av Ai Weiwei, Chen Zhiguang, Cheng Dapeng, Chi Peng, Fu Zhongwang, Hu Weiyi, Li Binyuan, Liao Yijun, Song Dong, Wang Rui, Xu Bing, Yang Mushi och Yin Xiuzhen. Svensk-kinesiska föreningen var på plats och höll en visning i början av augusti. Här recenseras OpenARTs stora satsning på kinesisk samtidskonst.

M+museet för visuell kultur i Hongkong öppnar portarna för kinesisk samtidskonst och visuell kultur i ett unikt museiprojekt i Asien. 2018 står byggnaden på 60 000 kvm på plats med Herzog & de Meuron som arkitekt. M+ är dock mycket mer än byggnaden. Lars Nittve berättar under ett samtal i Umeå 2014 om hur det är att skapa ett nytt slags museum enligt demokratisk modell som inte tidigare funnits i Hongkong.

M+ is the Museum of Art and Visual Culture in Hong Kong that is currently under construction. The new Hong Kong museum will open its doors to the world in 2019. The idea of placing a museum like M+ in the larger cultural infrastructure project of West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) came from a group of people that the Hong Kong Government put together in 2006. This group, known as the Museum Advisory Group, was to think through what kind of museum Hong Kong needed besides the already existing museums it already had. The initiative for this new museum thus initially came from the Hong Kong government. The funding comes from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the decision to move ahead came in 2008–but it took until 2010 until Lars Nittve, at the time director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, was contacted and asked to become its visionary leader. M+ is a distinct Hong Kong project, looked upon with scepticism from Beijing. This paper puts the project of M+ in the contexts of the rising international interest in contemporary Chinese art after the turn of the millenium, the rising prices on this art on the international market, the rising economic status of contemporary Chinese art on the mainland, adding the ambitious museum building boom on the mainland since around the Shanghai Expo in 2010. What are the main differences between the art museum projects on the mainland and the building of M+ in Hong Kong? How is it to work with this museum project in the Hong Kong SAR environment? What does the existence of a museum like M+ mean to China and the World?