Roses bring Overwhelming Response

Tamar Park is covered in white roses -- 25,000 of them -- until February 22

Yesterday was the start of Light Rose Garden, a public art installation at Tamar Park. It features 25,000 white roses (not real) that are lit up with LED lights and will be showing there every night from 6pm until February 22.

The white roses are lit with LED lights

Thinking today many couples would be busy indulging in their Valentine's Day dinner, I thought I'd take a look after my workout at the gym in Central.

However I was so wrong -- everyone else had the same idea as me and there was a massive crowd converging on the escalator at United Centre to get up to the overpass to Tamar Park.

There were so many people that the escalator going up was shut down, forcing people to walk up. But that was not the end of it -- we had to bypass Tamar Park and walk all the way to Citic Tower, down three flights of stairs to get to the ground floor, walk across the street to the Legislative Council and then encounter another backlog of people before entering the park.

It's pretty neat to see them if you squeeze past the crowds

While it was neat to see so many people "occupy" the area since the Umbrella Movement, the detour to get back to Tamar Park was insane, but I could see why. There must have been tens of thousands of people there and the maze we had to go through was an attempt at crowd control.

When I finally managed to get close to the edge where the roses were, people whipped out their smartphones above my head to get pictures.

Seeing so many people there of all ages, it made me wonder why they were so drawn to something like this, and not say, the other public art show going on now, Antony Gormley's Event Horizon, where his 31 life size bronze statues are placed on the roofs of public buildings in the city, save for one on Queen's Road Central at D'Aguilar Street.

There were tens of thousands of people there tonight

While Gormley's statues encourage viewers to examine the relationship between man and buildings, man and cities, as well as looking at new perspective, what is Light Rose Garden about?

Are Hong Kong people unable or unwilling to be reflective and understand how art enhances our lives? Or are they only interested in straight-forward ideas that are easy to grasp?

I really wondered about this while I was at Tamar Park, the hordes of people jostling around trying to take photographs.

While I thought the installation was pretty, the crowds were overwhelming, making it difficult to appreciate the beauty and expansiveness of it.

The view of nearby Central was a neat sight to behold

Or am I looking way too deeply into this Light Rose Garden, and it's like the massive Rubber Duck @ Harbour City by Florentijn Hofman, where we should just enjoy it for what it is?

Hong Kong Not Quite Cultural Sophisticated

One of 31 statues by Antony Gormley placed around the Central area

Hong Kong is becoming a more cultural city in the last few years, with ArtHK that has evolved into Art Basel. That on top of the art auctions we have twice a year from Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonham's as well as several other Chinese auctioneers and one would think the city was fast becoming the cultural leader in Asia.

Not quite.

British sculptor Antony Gormley's Naked Man sculptures have been erected around the city and they've caused a lot of confusion since they were unveiled last week.

The statues evoke a sense of watching and being watched

The life-size sculptures made of fibreglass are placed on the top of buildings, such as City Hall lower block, Hip Shing Hong Centre, New World Tower II, St George's Building and Queensway Government Offices.

However, in the first few days, those who actually noticed the sculptures thought they were real people standing on the edge of these buildings and called police, concerned they were potential suicide jumpers.

There were 29 such reports in two weeks.

Of the 31 sculptures, 27 were placed on rooftops mostly in the central business district, while four others made of cast iron were placed at ground level.

One statue on Queen's Road Central was an "obstruction"

But those ones on the ground also received complaints. One standing at Queen's Road Central by Theatre Lane was determined to be an "obstruction", and was fenced off by the Highways Department staff on Tuesday.

Three railings were made into a triangle around the sculpture, but after a picture of this was posted online, there were criticisms of how the government handled the situation, but the authorities held their ground.

"Our contractor temporarily fenced off the concerned area for inspection. The inspection confirmed that the concerned footpath was in proper condition and the area was immediately reopened," said a spokesperson from the Highways Department.

Why did the Highways Department do this? Why didn't they explain to the complainant that it's a work of art for Hong Kong residents to enjoy?

For someone to call it an "obstruction" is ridiculous -- in fact Gormley wants people to be more aware of their surroundings, as it is a project that explores the concept of watching and being watched.

27 of the 31 statues are placed on rooftops in Central

We can only imagine someone may have bumped into the statue while staring at their smartphone, and instead of being pleasantly surprised by the public art, was annoyed and called the Highways Department in a bid to remove the offending "obstruction"...

What does this say about how culturally sophisticated we are?