Canton Express


Canton Express was an exhibition curated by Hou Hanru in 2003. The exhibition was part of Z.O.U. — Zone of Urgency at the 50th Venice Biennale and was exhibited in the Arsenale in Venice. The exhibition contained works from four artist groups and was the first time artists from the Pearl River Delta region of China participated in a major international event. It was a reflection on the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the region throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
According to participating artist Zheng Guogu, who was also responsible for the logistics, works had to be smuggled out of China as trade shipments and the artists had to travel via Hong Kong, Thailand and France to get to Venice. This was due to the SARS outbreak which meant strict quarantine laws and travel restrictions were in place in Hong Kong and Mainland China at the time.

Participating artist groups

After the initial exhibition all works were purchased by Chinese collector Guan Yi who covered the cost of shipping the works back to China. In 2014 Yi donated the collection to M+, Hong Kong's museum of visual culture. Between 23.06.2017 and 10.09.2017 elements of the original Canton Express exhibition were re-staged at the M+ Pavilion, a temporary building at the West Kowloon Cultural District area in Hong Kong. The curator was Pi Li with conservation work undertaken by M+’s internal conservation team.