In the art collection world, it is common for a young artist’s certain artwork series to be bought out by collectors. But if the act of buying out occurs in a museum institution, and the length of the work of the buyout includes not only the past but also the future, it is indeed a new thing in the art world.
On August 21, 2018, M+, the museum of visual culture in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, announced that they have acquired the full archive of digital art duo "YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES"’s work. The project acquired by the museum is "YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES: THE COMPLETE WORKS (YHCHANG.COM/AP2)", the acquired works contains the text-based animations of " YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES" published in the past through their official website, including hundreds of drafts, lectures, and related galleries installations, in total more than 500’s past and future works. But now we have a question, will this "buyout" action will monopolize the spontaneity of artist future creation? According to M+’s explanation, in general, the digital artists will have more than one edition of their work. M+ only acquired one of the three to five copies of the existing works, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES still able to sell the rest of editions. The collection of " YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES "’s future new work will carry on with this practice. Each of the acquired work will have two artist proofs, one belongs to the artist and the other one delivered to M + on a six-month cycle.
" YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES " was launched in 1999 by South Korean artist Young-Hae Chang and American artist Marc Voge. Over the past two decades, the group has used the internet as a platform to publish their artistic creation and become the pioneer of internet art experiment. Animated with bold text and synchronized music, the content of the work mainly explores the phenomenon of media, technology, politics, economy and mutual relationship in the globalization chain effect. The portfolio is translated into 26 languages and has been exhibited at several international museums and institutions such as the Tate Modern in London, the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Aim to be one of the world's largest museums of Modern and contemporary visual cultural, M+, which will open in 2019, is eager to take root in Asia and conceive the birthplace of future innovations. Its collection strategy has been controversial in the past, and its collections have been criticized by some of the artists as "rubbish" and the freedom of curation was also questioned. According to the museum's announcement, the curator team has observed “YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES” for a long time. As the feature of the M+’s collection, M+ does not set the lower limit of the number of future works of “YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES”. The museum believes that this will help “YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES” to enhance its international image by providing a bigger platform to present their works, but declined to disclose the purchase price of the work.
For the artist, the expectation returned of his own creation, in addition to the reputation and benefit, is probably rewarded by the academic community and acquired by academic institutions such as museums. The acquisition of "YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES "’s complete work is reasonable accepted because of their work’s duplicable feature. The artist still retains the copyright owner of the works. At the same time, M+ also plays a positive role in the development of contemporary visual art by giving the artist a high degree of recognition, witnessed the growth and transformation of the artist's various stages of creation, and accompanied the artists to grow further.
Figure 1: M+ Façade 3D Visual © West Kowloon Cultural District Authority 2018
Figure 2: Exhibition space of “In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collection” © West Kowloon Cultural District Authority 2018
