Anyway, the other day I noticed an ad on a bus for what was being billed as “the world’s first art mall!”  Didn’t sound like a terrible idea.  But this is Hong Kong, right?  It turns out it’s an “art mall” in name only – the new K11 shopping mall on Hanoi Road has some paintings on display but not for sale and otherwise has the usual collection of stores you find in every other Hong Kong mall.  K11 is a joint project between the Urban Renewal Authority (URA – sounds like a urinary tract infection, no?) and New World.

When asked why K11 called itself an art mall, why it had no art galleries and how it differentiated itself from other shopping malls such as Times Square or Langham Place, which have been commissioning local artists, neither K11′s marketing department nor public relations agency returned calls.

Why would they?  It’s only the SCMP.  And it’s just the usual marketing scam because they think that people here are dupes – and some of them are.

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