Hong Kong’s M+ museum opens amid censorship controversy

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s swanky new M+ museum is Asia’s largest gallery with a billion-dollar collection set to open on Friday. It boasts 183,000 square feet of space, 33 galleries and over 6,400 works in its collection that range from modern art to architecture. It’s built to rival London’s Modern Tate and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But the museum has come under fire for censorship after it removed a piece by Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei following criticism that it was spreading hatred against China and could violate the city’s sweeping national security law. The work titled “Study of Perspective: Tian’anmen (1997)” depicts Ai raising a middle finger at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the site of the bloody 1989 crackdown on protesters.