From January 26 to March 17, 2024, the internationally-renowned artist Sarah Morris presented her latest film ETC on the M+ Facade. Each night, the feature-length film transformed the museum’s monumental architecture, designed by German architects Herzog & de Meuron, into one of the world’s largest public film screenings. Morris’s latest film ETC, which was filmed in the spring of 2023 in Hong Kong, “documents the psychology, architecture, economies and culture of Hong Kong, layering daily life with complex histories,” as the M+ press release describes.

On May 9, 2024, members of the American Friends of M+ visited Morris’s studio in New York. During the conversation, Morris discussed the planning of the film, which began in 2018, and filming which took place in 2023 after the pandemic isolation. ETC portrays iconic landmarks throughout Hong Kong, like the Lippo Center and the HSBC building, alongside quotidian scenes, like the city’s metro system, electronics market and fruit market. Many of Morris’s previous films focused on global cities including Los Angeles, Beijing, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and Abu Dhabi.

The film was co-commissioned by M+ and Tai Kwun Contemporary. Tai Kwun, a contemporary art center in Hong Kong, also hosted a solo exhibition in the spring of this year featuring an installation of the film and a new wall painting, Lippo [Paul Rudolph]. The wall painting presents striking, colorful, geometric forms that respond to the architect Paul Rudolph’s twin glass towers, featured in ETC. Lippo [Paul Rudolph] presents a dynamic visual interpretation of this Hong Kong landmark.

In our studio visit, Morris shared her latest paintings on canvas which, like her wall painting at Tai Kwun, are inspired by the Lippo Centre’s architecture. She described these paintings in relation to ETC. The film features many light sources, often difficult to capture with a camera, including natural light, LED billboards, red lamps, and neon signs. One scene in the film features a local neon artisan making a sign by hand.

ETC also spotlights the work of graphic designer Henry Steiner, the subject of a solo exhibition at M+ on view through November 10. In the studio visit, Morris spoke about Steiner’s inspiring contributions to the visual language of Hong Kong. The film’s title references the electronic teller card, one of the earliest digital banking systems, which Steiner designed for HSBC. Morris focuses her lens on the electronic and digital life of Hong Kong and highlights Steiner’s work throughout her artistic portrait – ETC.

May 2024