Our 60-second friendship begins now (2016), a work by Sampson Wong and Jason Lam, has been removed from the side of Hong Kong’s ICC tower, The Art Newspaper reports. It was part of Human Vibrations, an exhibition organised by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), but after the artists revealed its political message, the city’s officials removed the work from public display. The work included a countdown in seconds to 1 July 2047, when the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ agreement, under which Hong Kong is governed, is set to expire.
Wong and Lam have since disputed a claim issued by the show’s curator Caroline Ha Thuc, and Ellen Pau, chairman of HKADC’s film and media art group, who have said the artists made changes to the work after the title and content had been agreed on.
26 May 2016.