Since the dawn of its written history in the nineteenth century, Hong Kong has been and is still considered by many people to be a ‘cultural desert’. This epithet was indeed no longer valid after the Second World War with the arrival of a good number of cultural workers and art practitioners from mainland China and the rise of their counterparts in Hong Kong. Due to the collective efforts of these two groups of people, Hong Kong witnessed the rapid development of art and culture in the postwar years. During the second half of the 20th century, the local art scene went through different phases of development alongside the emergence of varied art trends. This talk will use pictures of art exhibitions taken by the late artist Ha Bik Chuen as a starting point, with a view to introducing the stylistic and thematic concerns of certain artists and art groups whose works made significant marks in the development of art in Hong Kong between the 1950s and 1990s.
About the speaker
Lai Mei Lin, Eliza received a B.A. and an M.Phil. from the University of Hong Kong and is currently pursuing a Doctorate at the University of Sydney. Her research is focused on Hong Kong art, particularly with regard to its interaction with mainland Chinese and Western art during the second half of the twentieth century.
Co-presented by Hong Kong Museum of Art and Asia Art Archive