The national security police have never approached the M+ museum as to whether artworks in its collections violate the national security law, says the chair of the statutory body that runs the West Kowloon Cultural District, where the museum is located.

Henry Tang, chairperson of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, said on Monday that he was not a legal expert and did not know how to judge whether an artwork has violated the national security law passed by Beijing last year. But he stressed that the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong has never approached M+.

“If they [national security police] believed that some [of the artworks] would be deemed illegal, I believe that they would reach out to us and study with us on how we should deal with these illegal artworks. And we would fully cooperate with them,” Tang told the media on Monday after touring the newly completed M+ building with lawmakers.

M+ announced last week that the museum of visual culture never intended to exhibit a controversial photograph by dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, “Study of Perspective: Tian’anmen,” at its long-awaited opening exhibitions later this year. The photograph shows Ai raising a middle finger towards Beijing’s landmark Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square.

Tang’s statement came after pro-Beijing politicians and media outlets criticized M+ and speculated that Ai’s work in the museum’s collection might violate the national security law. They claimed Ai’s work spreads hatred against China.

Tang stressed that M+ will comply with Hong Kong’s laws, including the national security law, which bans activities related to secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign influences to endanger national security. Ai’s work was never part of the plans for the opening exhibition, he added.

But Tang did not address whether the work will ever be exhibited at M+. “I will not say whether this work will be shown, or when it will be shown. I will leave this to our professional team,” Tang said.

He declined to comment further on which other works will or will not be shown. “M+ is not a flea market,” he said.

Works in M+ collections can be viewed online, although those deemed indecent by local censors are restricted to adult viewers, Tang added.

Hong Kong must maintain its role as a cultural hub between East and West, and while respecting the law and professionalism, the city must safeguard its pluralistic voices and artistic freedoms, Tang said.

The museum has faced criticism for spending HK$177 million (US$22.78 million) to acquire a collection of  contemporary Chinese artworks from the Swiss collector Uli Sigg. Tang said this was not a waste of public money, and those who are familiar with the art market know the prices for contemporary artworks have risen dramatically over the past nine years.

In comments that he sent to the West Kowloon Cultural District last week, Sigg noted that mainland and Hong Kong critics of his collection of Chinese contemporary art see art through a “different lens”.

“In that [traditional] mode of thinking, art is your good friend – but contemporary art is not,” he said in the statement, which was obtained by the media site Hong Kong Citizen News.

“Contemporary art may be critical of reality, may even put a finger in the wound ... if you don’t work on this openness, you will not appreciate contemporary art,” Sigg noted.

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