Museum Cinema / In the Mood for Art, 2023
The finest films on art and culture will be screened, after a short lecture by the Museum’s curators.
Admission to the Museum’s exhibitions is included in the film ticket, during the Museum’s opening hours.
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In the Mood for Art, 2023 | Dir. Michael Schindhelm | Switzerland, 2023 | German, English, Hebrew subtitles | 53 minutes
The film will be preceded by a conversation between the Mayor of Tel Aviv–Yafo, Mr. Ron Huldai, and the Director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Ms. Tania Coen-Uzzielli.
Under new laws restricting freedom of expression—following lockdowns, the failure of protests, violent demonstrations, and after many local artists had left for other countries—the impressive new museum of Chinese art opened in Hong Kong. A massive structure that includes even a subway station, with unique spaces that blend indoors and outdoors, the building seems to call to the people around it to come in—and they do: in its first year alone, over two million visitors came through its doors.
Beyond its architectural grandeur, the museum has sparked a sense of optimism about the future of art in Hong Kong—and it is this spirit, just as much as the building itself, that the film explores.
The camera roams through the remarkable structure, following the architects and the museum’s primary art donor—all of whom are Swiss—as they engage with local artists. The film compellingly portrays the tentative efforts to rebuild Hong Kong’s art scene, balancing Chinese and Western identities, while also delving into the role of architecture in shaping public space, and into Chinese art—both its ancient traditions and its emerging forms in contemporary Hong Kong.