Wifredo Lam: Homecoming

Asia Society Hong Kong Center proudly presents Wifredo Lam: Homecoming, a retrospective of one of the most renowned Cuban modern artists. The exhibition will be held from March 23, 2024 – June 2, 2024. An all-inclusive exhibition including prints, personal memorabilia, and paintings, Homecoming covers a range of Wifredo Lam’s key artistic periods: from his time in Havana and Spain in the 1920s to 1938, Paris from 1938 to 1940, Marseille in the early 1940s, and Cuba, France, and Italy in the 1950s and 60s.

Born in Cuba in 1902, Wifredo Lam represents the synergy and conflict born out of the merging of multiple cultural traditions. Wifredo Lam inherited the great Chinese literary tradition from his father, Lam Yam, who was of Cantonese roots. From his mother, Ana Serafina Castilla, he received African poetic sensibility and a curiosity for the European pictorial tradition. His godmother, Mantonica Wilson, introduced him to the mysteries of the Afro-Cuban religion developed in the West Indies by African slaves uprooted from their homeland. Homecoming marks Wifredo Lam’s first major solo retrospective in Hong Kong and also the pivotal return of Lam to Asia – tracing his Chinese father’s lineage and studying the significance of the Chinese diaspora.