New Exhibit Investigates Interaction Between Pablo Picasso and Modern Asian Art
Title: Picasso’s Worldwide Impact: “Picasso For Asia” Unveils at M+ in Hong Kong
Among the myriad significant figures of 20th-century art, Pablo Picasso likely casts the most extensive influence. A trailblazer of Cubism, a reformer of abstraction, and one of art history’s most prolific creators, Picasso continues to inspire cultural thoughts long after his passing in 1973. However, while scholarly studies and exhibitions of his work have predominantly focused on Western narratives, an audacious new initiative is shifting the dialogue—this time from an Asian perspective.
Currently exhibited at M+ in Hong Kong, “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso For Asia—A Conversation” represents a pioneering exhibition that situates Picasso’s influence well beyond Europe and North America. This pioneering showcase joins over 60 iconic pieces by Picasso with nearly 130 artworks from more than 50 Asian and Asian-diasporic creators. The outcome is an extensive yet thorough cross-cultural discourse that traces nearly a century of artistic interchange, evolution, and critique.
A Pan-Asian Discourse with Picasso
The idea underpinning “Picasso For Asia” is as intellectually compelling as its physical magnitude. By contrasting selections from Picasso’s vast oeuvre with works from artists throughout Asia—from groundbreaking figures like Isamu Noguchi to contemporary names like Simon Fujiwara—the exhibition encourages spectators to contemplate how concepts transform as they traverse geography, culture, and time.
Divided into four thematic segments—“The Genius,” “The Form,” “The Myth,” and “The Culture”—the exhibition invites attendees to unpack Picasso’s complex legacy. For instance, “The Genius” examines early manifestations of Picasso’s creative talent and tracks his rise to prominence. Yet it also introduces nuance by demonstrating how contemporary artists both recognize and challenge Picasso’s acclaimed “singular genius”—a label historically susceptible to Eurocentric and patriarchal paradigms.
An Insightful Look at Influence and Creativity
Among the intriguing pairings in the exhibition is Picasso’s early Cubist artwork Dead Birds shown in proximity to Luis Chan’s 1959 painting Cubist Sea Shore. The visual language in both reflects a commitment to fragmented perspectives and spatial abstraction, yet each communicates deeply about its cultural environment. While Picasso reversed classical perspectives to disrupt old conventions, Chan adapted the vocabulary of cubism to articulate his own uniquely blended experience as a Hong Kong artist navigating cultural diversity.
Other responses are more critical in nature. In Simon Fujiwara’s Massacre of the Innocents (2024), a reinterpretation of Picasso’s politically charged Massacre in Korea, Fujiwara engages with themes of identity, colonial trauma, and global violence from a contemporary standpoint. Concurrently, Gu Dexin’s Untitled painting from the 1980s—a surreal depiction of shapeless creatures—evokes Picasso’s disassembled human figures and reinterprets them through a Chinese cultural and aesthetic lens.
M+ Artistic Director and Chief Curator Doryun Chong states that this curatorial vision extends beyond mere admiration. “We offer a rich and critical dialogue with significant resonance, as we explore issues deeply relevant not just to Asia and the West, but to the globe,” he mentioned in a statement.
Reassessing Archetypes
In connecting diverse artistic expressions, “Picasso For Asia” goes beyond simply displaying stylistic influence—it also encourages viewers to re-evaluate established art-historical archetypes. The section titled “The Apprentice,” for instance, examines Picasso’s own borrowings from non-Western art, particularly his well-known fascination with African sculptures. This part raises questions around appropriation, artistic hierarchies, and the responsibility of creative genius—advancing towards a more inclusive dialogue in global art history.
Conversely, “The Myth” highlights how the narrative of Picasso has been reconceptualized by Asian artists as a symbol of both inspiration and defiance. In works like Isamu Noguchi’s Strange Bird and Feng Guodong’s Body (1978), Picasso’s grotesque architectural forms resonate—not in imitation, but as reinventions of his methods directed towards new existential or socio-political inquiries.
Beyond Tradition: Humor, Grotesqueness, and the Enchanted
One of the most overlooked aspects of Picasso, and a significant thematic focus in the exhibition, is his embrace of the grotesque and humorous. This playful irreverence gains fresh significance in the creations of Asian artists. Whether through Gu Dexin’s fantastical beasts or Luis Chan’s joyful abstractions, these artists connect with a side of Picasso that is often eclipsed by his politics and celebrity: his unending quest for creative freedom.
Through the display of works like Portrait of Dora Maar (1937) alongside explorations into the surreal and abstract, M+ illustrates how Picasso’s heritage is not static, but continually evolving—shaped just as much by the spectator and the responding artist as by the initial piece.
A Defining Exhibition with