M+ museum showcases 20th century Cantonese art
M+, Hong Kong's museum of contemporary visual culture , is 'Canton Modern: Art and Visual Culture, 1900s-1970s', a sweeping exploration of Guangdong province's artistic evolution and its enduring influence on
Asian modernism . Debuting on June 28 and running until October 5, the show assembles more than 200 works from institutional and private collections, many of which have never before been displayed publicly, to trace the interplay between Cantonese creativity and the sociopolitical currents of the 20th century.
Known throughout much of Chinese history as part of the Lingnan region, Guangdong witnessed a shift from the restrained aesthetics of classical ink painting as artists confronted the rapid societal changes of the time. Pioneers such as
Gao Jianfu , whose 1932 masterpiece Flying in the Rain reimagined traditional bird-and-flower motifs through dynamic movement and emotional intensity, epitomised this shift.
Flying in the Rain (1932) by Gao Jianfu. Photo: courtesy Art Museum, CUHK
Art mirrored the region's position as both a cradle of revolutionary thought – Sun Yat-sen's 1911 uprising originated in Guangdong – and a laboratory for artistic experimentation. As printmakers, photographers and cartoonists, these creators used mass media to document social upheaval, from the Japanese occupation to post-war reconstruction, creating a visual vocabulary that balanced regional pride with a national consciousness.
Cantonese artists mastered the art of going viral long before social media. The 1940 'Exhibition of Guangdong Cultural Heritage' showcased woodblock prints and political cartoons that circulated through clandestine networks, amplifying leftist ideologies during the second Sino-Japanese war. Liao Bingxiong's satirical sketches, for example, skewered wartime corruption while Yau Leung's street photography captured Hong Kong's post-1949 identity crisis – caught between British colonialism and Communist influence from north of the border. As M+ curator Tina Pang Yee-wan notes, the works of these creators 'takes us back in time as witnesses to the formation of our image-driven world'.
Mother and Child in the Rain (1932) by Fang Rending. Photo: courtesy MK Lau Collection
The exhibition's second act examines how artists negotiated shifting gender norms amid revolution and reconstruction. Wong Siu-ling's 1941 oil painting Sewing for You subverted traditional guixiu (gentlewoman) tropes by portraying a woman as an agent of wartime resilience. After the formation of the Chinese Communist state in 1949, socialist realism co-opted this imagery, transforming women into symbols of state vitality.
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