Hong Kong Art: Cultural Decolonization Before and After 1997

David Clarke, Honorary Professor of Art History at the University of Hong Kong and founder and academic director of the "Hong Kong Art Archive," authored Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization in the new millennium—the first modern history of Hong Kong art researched from a "Hong Kong perspective" and integrated with historical events in Hong Kong.

As the countdown to the handover of sovereignty ticked away, Hong Kong artists "prematurely" envisioned a post-handover Hong Kong, while also contemplating how past traces would disappear. Corporations and institutions projected an optimistic future of modernity and progress through architecture and public sculptures. Graphic and fashion designers sought light and distinctly local imagery, striving to capture the emotional rhythm of the era. David Clarke, through poetic narrative, meticulous analysis, and photographic documentation, preserved the historical concerns, spiritual decolonization, and expressions of local identity emerging from Hong Kong art and other visual cultural products between 1984 and 2000.

* Includes 47 images and 18 QR code guides, illustrating the landscape of Hong Kong art around 1997