By Guo Cai
The Sun Museum, which has been committed to promoting the development of culture and art in China and Hong Kong, will soon enter its ninth year. It will move from Kowloon to a new location on Hong Kong Island. This marks a new stage of development and brings good news and new hope to young artists in Hong Kong.
The Sun Museum will be closed to the public after the two exhibitions currently on display that end on March 16, and will move from Kwun Tong to No. 1 Sai Yuen Lane, West Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong Island in Q4 of 2024.
The new exhibition will be located on the entire floor on the ground and first floor of the Artisan House, with a total area of 6,000 square feet. The first floor is the exhibition hall, covering an area of 3,600 square feet and is divided into right and left wings. The 15-foot-high floor can accommodate larger works, and the display method can be more varied and flexible. The ground floor is used for comprehensive purposes such as offices, libraries, cafes, and gift shops.
According to Dr. Suen Yin Wah Chloe, founder of the Sun Museum and chair of Simon Suen Foundation, the Sun Museum has been based in Kowloon East for almost nine years. They have witnessed the development of this community and have a deep affection for this area. However, they have always hoped to find a place with more convenient transportation and closer to the audience. The new location in Sai Ying Pun is near to a MTR station, and it offers an opportunity to promote Chinese culture and art to another community with a long history. The new museum is a comprehensive art venue. In addition to the exhibition hall, it also provides different facilities to help promote cultural and artistic exchanges.
Entering its ninth year, the Sun Museum is preparing to launch two major exhibition plans in a hope to contribute to the development of the Hong Kong art community. The first exhibition after the move is “Selected Paintings from Sai Yuen Lane” (西源里選畫). The museum will publicly solicits recent works from Hong Kong artists and selects outstanding works for display, marking the latest styles and achievements of Hong Kong painters and artists. At the same time, the “Hong Kong Emerging Artist” Exhibition (港藝新星展覽) is jointly planned with the Jao Tsung-I Academy (details can be found here). It aims at providing a free exhibition platform and subsidies for young Hong Kong artists aged 18 to 40, and an opportunity for the public to appreciate their artistic direction and achievements, in a hope to help them grow into elites in the art world.
Mr. Yeung Chun Tong, director of the Sun Museum, said that they hope to bring into play the characteristics of a non-governmental museum to match and contribute to the development of the Hong Kong art world by collaborating with more groups to increase exhibition points. At the same time, the museum will increase diversified activities to meet the needs of various aspects of the art community.
For art enthusiasts who have set foot in the Sun Museum, they may still remember the exhibition “Hong Kong Aspiring Oil Painters in Phenomenal Times” held between 2 December 2016 and 7 January 2017. Amidst the wave of new media art, six new-generation Hong Kong artists had chosen to return to the traditional art of oil painting. They communicate their experience of life through various genres. The artists come from different backgrounds: some received formal training in art academies, some only started to paint for a few years. An even more amazing arrangement is that the museum then held another exhibition from 19 January 2017 to 11 March 2017, the “Hong Kong Renowned Oil Painters in the Diverse World.” The exhibition features 40 oil paintings by 10 artists who are the forerunners of oil painting in Hong Kong, all aged above 70. These two consecutive exhibitions illustrate that the Sun Museum intends to bring the art of the new and old generations together to complement each other.
In 2023, a new exhibition, “Eco-friendly Lifestyle: Winning Artworks of Surein Foundation Competition” was held from 14 January to 6 April. It shows that the museum is committed to opening up the art world for young people and responds to the development of the new era with different exhibition titles.
Related blog posts from BDG
A Modern Vision of Ancient Aesthetics: Wong May Lee’s Celadons from Longquan Kilns
