Cuban-born Wifredo Lam’s art, seen in solo show in Hong Kong for first time, reflects his varied influences
- Cuban-born Wifredo Lam’s works are well known outside Asia, but the first solo exhibition of the half-Chinese artist’s work in Hong Kong has only just opened
- Lam’s multicultural existence – he lived and worked in Spain and France – informed his style, which mixes surrealism and cubism with Afro-Cuban imagery
It is perhaps surprising that Hong Kong has never had a Wifredo Lam exhibition until now, given the Cuban-born artist’s much celebrated legacy as a painter who upended Eurocentric ideas of modernism and his part Cantonese heritage.
With “Homecoming”, a major survey of Lam’s life and work, which opened at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center on March 23, his family are hoping that his reputation will finally come home to Asia.
“My father is a famous artist outside Asia but not a lot of people know of him within the region,” says Stephane Lam, the youngest son of the late artist and also the co-curator of the exhibition.
By highlighting the artist’s Chinese lineage through his Guangdong-born father, the show’s curators hope that Lam’s practice can help broaden people’s understanding of Chinese diaspora art history.
Born to a Chinese father and a mother of Spanish and African descent in Sagua La Grande, Cuba, in 1902, Lam’s multicultural heritage deeply influenced his artistic vision; he developed a unique style that blended elements of surrealism and cubism with Afro-Cuban imagery.
