Why did Guangdong artists establish some of the most radical news pictorials in China in the early 20th century? How did they adapt the elegant poetics of Chinese painting to represent the realities of modern warfare or to satirise society? How do their innovations continue to shape the way we see?

This public symposium will shed new light on Guangdong's distinctive contributions to Chinese artistic modernism and its place within the current discourses of regional and multiple modernities. Leading experts from universities and museums in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen will consider such topics as the varieties of realism in 20th-century Guangdong painting; the social circulation of images, especially pictorials, woodblock prints, and cartoons; and the propagation of the Lingnan School in Hong Kong and the Cantonese diaspora. The symposium will be conducted in Cantonese and Mandarin, with simultaneous interpretation available in English.

Full program and registration form