When I arrive at Kai-Yin Lo’s apartment in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels, the lady herself is not yet in attendance. A prominent jewellery designer, cultural historian, curator and compulsive collector, Lo is at the Sotheby’s spring auction, one of a series of events in the city’s busy art calendar. She calls me to say she is on her way.
The door is opened by her Filipina maid, a fixture of middle-class Hong Kong living. The maid and her husband have lived with Lo, who has never married, for 28 years. I use the bathroom while I’m waiting and am struck by the density – not to mention the location – of what Americans would call her “power wall”. There are countless photographs pinned in higgledy-piggledy fashion of Lo with Henry Kissinger, Lo with the late Margaret Thatcher, Lo with Richard Nixon, Lo with Piers Brosnan and many other luminaries.
I’ve been to the apartment before, but am taken aback once more by just how much is crammed into this space. Her home is choc-a-bloc with a mind-boggling assortment of mostly Chinese art, artefacts, collectables and objects that she has picked up over the years, financed for the most part by her jewellery sales.