There’s no doubt that Pablo Picasso is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Apart from working with paintings, sculptures, printmaking, ceramics, and more, the Spanish artist also co-founded Cubism and went on to inspire other art styles. Ever since the news dropped last year that our city would play host to a large-scale Picasso exhibition, Hong Kong has gone pretty crazy for the neoclassical and surrealist artist, with a number of shows and exhibitions all honouring Picasso’s work and legacy. If you’re a fan, here are the Picasso-related events in Hong Kong that you should visit!
Picasso & The Animal Kingdom
Phillips’ Asia headquarters is hosting a selling exhibition that focuses on Picasso’s deep and lifelong engagement with the animal kingdom. With works that range across paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and more, this show highlights how Picasso captures the essence of animals as subjects, symbols, and metaphors. Some highlights include an earthenware vase featuring both a duck and a woman and Jeune Garçon nu à cheval, a rare example of Picasso’s Rose period. ‘Picasso & The Animal Kingdom’ is running until March 30, followed by April 1 to 15.
Lee Mingwei: Guernica in Sand
American-Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei has recreated Picasso’s iconic anti-war masterpiece Guernica using sand at the M+ Studio. Since sand is a transitory material – first stone, then sand grains, and now a part of art – Lee highlights the nature of chaos and the power of transformation. Created after being shaken up by the bombing of the Spanish town Guernica during the civil war, Picasso’s monochrome painting is a moving piece depicting suffering through a screaming horse, distraught women, a dead child, a dismembered soldier, and fire. Lee’s rendition has been blown up to a huge scale, with a small section left unfinished. Towards the end of the exhibition, on June 28, the artist will complete his work and invite visitors to finish the creative process by walking on the sand to destroy the piece.
Picasso for Asia: A Conversation
Visit this special exhibition at M+ to see more than 60 masterpieces by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso spanning from the late 1890s to the early 1970s. Co-curated with the Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), which holds the largest repository of Picasso’s work in the world, this is the first time that pieces from the MnPP are being shown together with works from an Asian museum collection. By placing Picasso’s work in dialogue with Asian contemporary art – approximately 80 works by more than 20 Asian and Asian-diasporic artists – the master’s enduring influence on art to this day is highlighted. This exhibition is a great look at how Picasso became the quintessential modern 20th-century artist.
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