Latest news with #CantonModern
South China Morning Post
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How 20th-century Hong Kong and Guangdong art stood out from the rest of China
For China, the early- to mid-20th century was a time marked by political and social upheaval. It began with the Xinhai Revolution, which saw the end of the imperial system, before the Second Sino-Japanese War rocked the nation. The Chinese Communist Revolution and Cultural Revolution signified massive political and social shifts. In 1949, after the Communist Party took power, a border was put up between mainland China and Hong Kong. Against this complex backdrop, Cantonese artists adopted new ways of expression that culminated in a modern artistic identity. This identity is now being examined in 'Canton Modern: Art and Visual Culture, 1900s-1970s' at Hong Kong's M+ museum. An artwork by Yip Yan-chuen depicting Hennessy Road in Hong Kong. A series of landscape sketches at the 'Canton Modern' exhibition chronicle Yip's life as a wartime refugee. Photo: M+ The exhibition, which runs until October 5, brings together 200 works from the museum's own collection, as well as from other institutions and private collections.
South China Morning Post
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
M+ museum showcases 20th century Cantonese art
The latest marquee exhibition to open at 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.
