How an avant-garde post-war art exhibition of artists who worked in Paris after World War II changed a charity founder’s life
- ‘The Art of Hope: New School of Paris’ exhibition at Hong Kong art gallery Villepin showcased work by abstract artists such as Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung
- It ‘opened my heart to looking at darkness’, says Amanda Sun, founder and director of Hong Kong charity Arts for Good Foundation
“The Art of Hope: New School of Paris” exhibition (2020-21) at Hong Kong art gallery Villepin showcased work by abstract artists of several nationalities who worked in the French capital after World War II.
Amanda Sun, founder and director of Hong Kong charity Arts for Good Foundation, which strives to promote social inclusion by exposing children from underprivileged backgrounds to art making and appreciation, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.
Checking out galleries is a big part of my work. Villepin had this good collection of avant garde post-war art from Paris; it brought a different experience to Hong Kong.
It’s always interesting how you encounter a work that inspired you. It’s about life timing. The timing of this show was very interesting. I went through a dramatic personal and professional life change from 2019 to 2020.
I had just set up Arts for Good – I started planning it in 2019. Setting up a start-up in Hong Kong at that time was very challenging. I was always being asked, “What’s the good of art?” I knew it wasn’t going to take a therapeutic approach – that’s not my expertise.
I was asked this at a difficult time for Hong Kong and for my life. I was in a really dark stage; the split of society had also led to a splitting of my family. This exhibition opened my heart to looking at darkness.
Pierre Soulages’ and Hans Hartung’s two paintings in the exhibition stunned me and inspired me when I started Arts for Good. In the Soulages work, I could see different types of dark. I had a sense of excitement.
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Most of the artists in the exhibition had gone to Paris because of the second world war. It resonated a lot with me, looking at darkness. But Soulages didn’t just work with dark; it comes with light.
When I see the light in that particular painting, it’s subtle; it comes from little gaps between the black spaces, kind of illuminating it from the inside. It’s really empowering, reinterpreting darkness from the perspective of light. One of the key powers of art is the power of hope.
Hartung’s work was very light. You could feel a sense of hope. I could feel the lightness in my own life, having just got on board with my new journey. With Hartung’s work, I felt like I was flying.
Being able to connect the younger generation with artists from a different time period is inspiring to me
I felt I’d found my journey of going in the right direction, towards myself. The exhibition was called “The Art of Hope”, and I saw hope, illumination and lightness in that work.
I took six students to the show – it was one of the first pilots I did with them. They were from diverse backgrounds. One of them, who’s at City University now but was having a difficult time then with family and academic challenges, was also looking at Hartung’s work.
She said she could imagine the fork scraping on the canvas and the tension and emotion behind it. That connection between her and a work from the 1950s is meaningful; it’s like a time tunnel.
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Being able to connect the younger generation with artists from a different time period is inspiring to me.
