Kaws' Hong Kong Holiday

A new guy is in town and he's floating in Victoria Harbour now

We have a new visitor in town. He's a giant 37-metre long inflatable sculpture called Kaws that's literally floating in Victoria Harbour from now until March 31.

Kaws is the nom de plume for artist Brian Donnelly, a New York-based artist and designer who started off doing graffiti in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has admitted in interviews that Kaws doesn't have a particular meaning.

This piece, called Kaws:Holiday, is sponsored by the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Asia Miles. It is reminiscent of the bright yellow rubber duck by Florentijn Hofman back in 2013, but will this grey-coloured character called Companion upstage the cute duck?

It's strange that Kaws was chosen to do this art installation, when just a few weeks earlier a giant floral statue of Companion was erected in The Landmark's atrium as part of a collaboration with artistic director Kim Jones on French fashion label Dior's summer 2019 collection.

The inflated sculpture is 37 metres long

Kaws seems too commercialized now in terms of artistic merit. Last summer the artist collaborated with Uniqlo for the Kaws x Sesame Street collection, and he has also put his design on reimagined Jordan 4s and Yeezys footwear collection.

But hey does it matter? Our taxpayer dollars are being used to pay in part for Kaws to bring this giant thing over and cheer us up.

He also has an exhibition at PMQ until April 14. It's a Kaws invasion of Hong Kong!

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?

Picture of the Day: Toby in Hong Kong

Meet Toby, your BFF in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's shopping malls continue to be in a race to find the next coolest thing to promote (within budget), which is why we won't be seeing the likes of that giant yellow rubber duck anytime soon.

Times Square in Causeway Bay currently has "Happy Toby to You" by Gary Baseman, who is coincidentally celebrating 10 years of Toby, a seemingly feline cartoon with a fez hat.

Party time with Toby and his pals celebrating 10 years

The American artist says: "Toby is your shadow. Your mirror. Your best friend in the whole wide world. He can smell your fear. He is addicted to your insecurity. He knows how to push your buttons. He is no Teacher's Pet. He loves you. He truly loves you".

The artist, illustrator, animator, toy designer, TV/film producer and performance artist likes to explore what he calls "pervasive art", where the goal is to blur the lines between fine art and commercial art.

In the Times Square Living Room Museum until June 11, check out what Toby and his friends are up to in the city -- it's a wacky sight.

Continuing to Fight Their Ground

The crowd singing and lighting up their phones tonight in Admiralty

Actions speak louder than words.

Yesterday Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said he was open to dialogue with the students, but also clearing the streets. And he (or rather the Hong Kong Police) did that early this morning in Mongkok.

They swooped in at around 5am and again systematically cleared tents and barricades to get the streets ready for the morning rush hour. However, protesters refused to leave and occupied part of one street.

"Hui Sir" with his famous line "I will now recap in English"

More people came by later and tonight there are clashes with police who are using pepper spray and batons to push back protesters away from Nathan and Argyle roads that they reoccupied, by constantly dropping and picking up coins on the roads.

This clearly shows Leung is not bargaining in good faith -- he has scheduled to meet with the students on Tuesday, perhaps his deadline to clear the roads by then so that the students will have no bargaining chips left.

And this is why Joshua Wong Chi-fung is calling on protesters in Admiralty to go to Mongkok to maintain their ground. It really is a battle for territory now.

Breaking news -- the protesters outnumbered the police and have retreated for now...

A straight-forward message in baby tiles...

I didn't go to Mongkok but stayed in Admiralty, where there were probably 2,000 people including Central who were there to show support.

Students were in tents lit with desk lamps where they did their homework, though how do you concentrate when people are giving speeches? There was even a sign that read "We are not a tourist site", as a hint not to take pictures of them.

We still saw a lot of artistic creativity pouring out, from urban sketching to fantastic caricatures of Leung, and even a painting of Chief Superintendent of Police Public Relations Branch Hui Chun-tak.

Broken umbrellas create a canopy

He has been the face of the Hong Kong Police since day one, giving daily afternoon briefings to the media. And locals have made Hui, or "Hui Sir" or "Mr Hui" a celebrity online, creating spoof videos of him or rap songs using his usual line, "I will now recap in English".

Occupying the roads has been an amazing experience. We literally sat on the flyover and had our dinner, chatting. Many others were gathered like us too, having conversations and not always checking their phones every other minute. More people are seen reading too, which is not what you'd see much in the city.

Over a year ago everyone was gaga over a large, inflated yellow duck. Now they are fighting for democracy.

Here's a heartwarming video to remind us all what we're fighting for:

Picture of the Day: Fake Pandas

How do these pandas in Shanghai...

Last year it was the Rubber Duck that captivated Hong Kong last summer and then China had to do one (or many) better by creating its own versions. The one in Beijing for instance had to be bigger than the one in Hong Kong...

And then this year it's the pandas. There were 1,600 pandas that invaded the city last month, a project presented by WWF to bring to attention there are only 1,600 pandas left in the wild.

... compare to these ones that visited Hong Kong recently?

Now that the cute black and white creatures have left (presumably on the Cathay Pacific flight that they arrived on), Shanghai has decided to copy Hong Kong again.

One thousand toy pandas with various facial expressions were placed the steps of the Shanghai World Financial Centre for a promotional event.

While they attracted onlookers with cameras, these pandas are hardly as cute as those created by French artist Paulo Grangeon.

Just another sad commentary of how the mainland strives to be cool, and yet it can only think of copying what's already been done before...

Picture of the Day: Toad-ily Similar...

Do you see the resemblance with the glasses superimposed on the toad?

How amusing, but censors are madly trying to delete pictures of an inflatable toad in cyberspace because it bears a resemblance to former leader Jiang Zemin.

After Hong Kong's giant inflatable yellow duck last year, other mainland cities have been competing amongst themselves to have other cute animals.

The 22-metre-high toad sat on a giant lily pad in a park in Beijing, but then it was mocked by social media users who said it bore an uncanny resemblance to the former Communist Party chief.

Toads (really frogs) are seen as a symbol of good fortune, but in this case, making fun of Jiang was too much.

Last year censors worked overtime to delete all references to the lovable inflatable yellow duck after images of it appeared in a re-worked image of "Tank Man", where a protester blocks a line of yellow ducks instead of tanks.

But the toad really does look like Jiang!

Picture of the Day: A Scary Christmas

Harbour City shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui hit the jackpot this year when it brought the giant rubber duck to Hong Kong.

It easily won over fans compared to the inflated Stonehenge and excrement over at M+ in West Kowloon that is set to become the city's cultural hub.

Rubber duck paraphernalia is still sold in stores and a larger version of it went around Beijing.

However, Harbour City may have missed the boat this year in its Christmas decorations.

It banked on Disney characters set in globes, including Nemo, Alice in Wonderland, Pixie from Peter Pan and Stitch.

Perhaps the most popular one of the displays is Mike and Sulley from Monsters University to be the big winner, but it really was the minions in Despicable Me 2 that won the animation battle this year.

The hot item for Christmas at Toys "R" Us is the minion toy where you can poke their stomach and they jiggle their arms and make funny sounds. Can you imagine a child having more than one of them and constantly pushing their tummies? They would be entertained for hours...

Nevertheless, the minions were so popular in Despicable Me 2 that they may have their own movie, perhaps Harbour City will book them for next Christmas?