Pictures at an Exhibition

The young girls in the photographs are not my children. Taken separately and some time apart, I doubt the two even know one other, despite their near identical stance, their similar single-minded focus on the artwork on the wall before them, and the uncanny coincidence that both of them hold a small, open notebook in one hand and a poised pencil in the other. No, these children are not my children.

My children are the teenagers trailing behind me, jostling and baiting each other while simultaneously tittering and making fun of what they see. They’re acting as bored siblings might do when confined together to the back seat of a car, trapped on an interminable road trip to attend some tedious activity that some well-meaning adult has decided for them without consultation; a visit to a distant relative or an outing to gawk at some wonder of nature, for example. You could say my offsprings’ present situation is akin to that, so their behaviour shouldn’t come as a surprise. They’ve been dragged by their mother once again, against their will, to Art Basel, the delightfully eclectic art exhibition that visits Hong Kong once a year, every year.

I am unschooled in all fine arts. As a child, music was what I listened to on the radio during breakfast. Art was that one weekly period in school where I used stubby brushes clumped with poster paints to half-heartedly recreate tropical sunsets and coconut trees. Dance was what well-off girls (not me) practised at privately-run ballet studios every weekend, their hair twisted into tight buns and gossamer pink skirts wrapped around their waists. Literature was reading aloud Around the World in Eighty Days during English class and giggling when someone had to say “Sheba’s Breast” or “Passepartout” (none of us, including the teacher, knew how to pronounce the French valet’s name so we all took turns mangling it in our own unique way).

Growing up in a small town in Malaysia in the pre-computer, pre-Internet era, with loving but endlessly practical parents, I was exposed to knowledge for the primary purpose of excelling in nationwide school examinations. The subjects I studied - the core being Additional Maths, Physics, Accounting, Chemistry and Biology (in descending order of ghastliness) - were those that would lead to a university degree that would then, in turn, help me secure a prestigious but above all, financially stable, job in one of the Holy Trinity of professions - law, medicine or accountancy. I was never pushed to explore the twinges of yearning that surfaced unbidden: when I was enveloped by swirling orchestral music at the end of a movie at the cinema, or when I leafed through a glorious reference book (not-for-borrowing) of Impressionist artists at the local library. I was schooled for examinations of the mind, but not for examinations of the soul. My appreciation for fine arts only flowered after I moved to London, England in my late twenties (yes, as a lawyer). Only then did I have the opportunity, and disposable income, to go to plays and exhibitions, explore museums and art galleries, and listen to music played in concert halls and smokey jazz bars. When I was blessed with children some years on, I could hardly wait for them to partake in these mind-altering, sensory buffets.

Which is why I continue to drag my long-faced and moaning progeny to Art Basel every year. When I show them the photographs of the girls transfixed by the artwork that my children are instead mercilessly mocking, my eldest rather cruelly suggests that I mean I would prefer to have the girls as my own children in lieu of her and her brother. I’m saddened by this, because no child should be made to feel as if they’re unwanted or unloved, especially by their own parent. Of course not, I say. I don’t want you to be anyone else than who you are or for any other child to replace you. I stop short of telling her that I simply wish for her and her brother to feel whatever it is these girls are feeling when they look at a piece of art, the immortalized sliver of another human being’s soul. I want her and her brother to experience the stirring, the inexplicable swell of emotion, the awakening of curiosity, the opening of their hearts.

By the time my brain has processed the message I want to convey, the moment has passed, and my teenagers have rushed ahead of me. They are drawn like bees to nectar, pulled towards an enormous interactive art installation in the distance, all neon colours and glittering lights. I guess that too is art, I mutter ruefully to myself as I watch my children disappear into the crowd. I continue my leisurely saunter but stop short in front of a collection of oil paintings that tell a story, seemingly out of order. The disembodied hands are startlingly lifelike and luminous. They hold white pieces of paper and dried leaves. I stand mesmerized, gazing at the pictures at the exhibition, and surrender myself to the wonder.