The groundbreaking exhibition brings together more than sixty works by Spanish master Pablo Picasso and over eighty works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections—this is the first time masterpieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris are shown in dialogue with a museum collection in Asia
It marks the first major exhibition of Picasso in Hong Kong in more than a decade, examining Picasso’s enduring influence in and connections with Asia for the first time
Tickets are available for online purchase starting on Thursday, 23 January 2025. M+ Patrons and Members enjoy priority purchasing from Friday, 17 January to Wednesday, 22 January 2025
In parallel with the exhibition, the 240-page exhibition monograph Picasso/Asia: A Conversation with more than 200 colour illustrations will be published by Thames & Hudson in collaboration with M+
M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK) in Hong Kong, proudly presents The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation. The Special Exhibition is a rich intercultural and intergenerational dialogue between more than sixty masterpieces by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) from the Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), which holds the largest collection of works by Picasso in the world, and over eighty works by thirty Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections and select loans from a museum, a foundation, and private collections. Co-organised by M+ and MnPP, this exhibition is a significant milestone in which masterpieces from MnPP are being shown alongside works from a museum collection in Asia for the first time. It is also the first major showcase of Picasso’s works in Hong Kong in over a decade, offering an unprecedented and unique perspective on the artist’s wide-reaching influence and what it means to be an artist in our time. The exhibition will be on view in the M+ West Gallery from 15 March to 13 July 2025.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation is co-presented by M+ and French May Arts Festival as the opening programme of the French May Arts Festival 2025. It is generously supported by the Title Sponsor, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust; the Major Sponsors, HSBC, Cathay, C C Land, and Chubb Life; and financially supported by the Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund under the Culture, Sports, and Tourism Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
Co-curated by Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, M+, and François Dareau, Research Fellow, MnPP, supported by Hester Chan, Curator, Collections, M+, the exhibition poses an interpretative framework for examining the works of the twentieth-century European master in relation to contemporary Asian and Asian-diasporic artists active today and in the recent past.
Major works by Picasso on view at the exhibition include some of the best-known icons in the MnPP collection such as Portrait of a Man (1902–1903), The Acrobat (1930), Figures by the Sea (1931), Large Still Life with Pedestal Table (1931), Portrait of Dora Maar (1937), Massacre in Korea (1951), and the sculptural series The Bathers (1956). Picasso’s art is presented alongside works by artists in the M+ Collections as a dialogue, such as Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904–1988), Luis Chan (Hong Kong, 1905–1995), Gu Dexin (Chinese, born 1962), Nalini Malani (Indian, born 1946), Tanaami Keiichi (Japanese, 1936–2024), and Haegue Yang (Korean, born 1971), as well as new artist commissions by Simon Fujiwara (British, born 1982) and Sin Wai Kin (Canadian, born 1991).
This Special Exhibition introduces four artist archetypes that encapsulate why Picasso is considered the quintessential twentieth-century artist and how the legacy of his art and life continues to influence contemporary artists as well as the public to this day. The four archetypes also serve as the sections of the exhibition and as powerful paradigms to which the contemporary Asian artists in the exhibition respond in their diverse, individualistic practices.