Art World
Wet Paint in the Wild: Artist Sarah Morris Delights in Hong Kong’s Many 7-Elevens and Stumbles Upon a Hidden Chanel Boutique
The artist takes us to Hong Kong for a week.
Annie Armstrong
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Welcome to Wet Paint in the Wild, the freewheeling—and free!—spinoff of Artnet News Pro’s beloved Wet Paint gossip column, where we give art-world insiders a disposable camera to chronicle their lives on the circuit. To read the latest Wet Paint column, click here (members only).
Man, I wish I could have made it to Art Basel Hong Kong this year. According to Simon de Pury, the city is like New York on steroids right now, and I’m dying to try the minced fish soup at Flower Drum. But the artist Sarah Morris was luckier, so I sent her with a disposable camera to photograph her journey overseas. Let’s see what the week looked like from her perspective…
The shipping is legendary. This is the Yau Ma Tei Public Cargo Working Area in Kowloon. You might see something as basic as bamboo becoming part of the infrastructure in Hong Kong.
We spent the morning at the Red A Plastics Factory in Kowloon, and then I stopped the team to do an impromptu shoot outside a barbershop.
We gained access to the Chanel store in Central on Chater Road. The shoes are a portal.
Every Sunday all the domestic workers in Hong Kong have a day off from their duties and take over large swaths of Central, including the public atrium of the HSBC Headquarters. This use of public space is radical and simultaneously joyous.
Another view of the domestic workers around the HSBC building, including its iconic lion. Henry Steiner, the designer of the currency of Hong Kong, will be featured.
Back in Kowloon. 7 Elevens are everywhere in the city.
The intersection of Shanghai Street in Yau Ma Tei. Hong Kong has some of the most beautiful cityscapes due to the density.
We hiked up Tsuen Wan Chinese Permanent Cemetery—a mountain-like cemetery that was unlike any other I have ever been to. Both the living and the dead in Hong Kong live in the sky.
