Pictures of the Day: Le French May

Cecile Bart's Mobile above the fountain in LANDMARK

We're well into Le French May in Hong Kong, a period where the city becomes more cultured thanks to France's temporary influx of art, music movies and dance. It's become so popular that the month of May has actually stretched over at the end of April to the beginning of June.

Dali's giraffe-like elephant carrying an angel

Today I checked out the public art display at the Landmark Atrium and above the fountain are multi-coloured transparent canvases hung at various angles by Burgundian artist Cecile Bart. Called Mobile, the installation is meant to challenge the conventional straight-on view of art.

Another popular one is a growling silver bear called Wild Thing. But on further inspection, it's actually made of coat hangers. Artist David Mach likes to use everyday objects to create his sculptures.

Also in the atrium is Rene Magritte's Les Menottes de Cuivre. The figure looks familiar, as it's the torso of the Venus de Milo, but he recreates her head with an elongated neck, but not her arms. Instead he paints her torso in a skin colour and makes the cloth around her hips a denim blue.

Famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's Kei Chan is a fun piece, a tall girl who is head to toe in polka dots looking a bit in awe of something, while Marc Quinn's white orchid sculpture called Archeology of Desire is quite provocative with its sexual undertones.

David Mach's sculpture Wild Thing is made of coat hangers

Meanwhile surrealist Salvador Dali has a piece here, by the entrance to the Landmark Mandarin Oriental. Entitled Triumphant Elephant, it's a curious-looking creature, With spindly skeleton legs carrying an angel trumpeting a horn on top.

Nearby is another of Dali's pieces called Woman Aflame. She does seem kind of in flames, but she also appears to be propped up at the back as if she's a robot or her body is in some kind of brace. Then again Dali did have a weird imagination...

Polka dot fun with Yayoi Kusama's Kei Chan

Mobile + In the Public Eye

Until May 26

LANDMARK, LANDMARK ALEXANDRA, LANDMARK PRINCE'S, LANDMARK CHATER and The Landmark Mandarin Oriental