The top art exhibitions and displays to check out in Hong Kong

Don't miss the grand debut of illuminate! Run Beyond at the brand-new Wan Chai Harbourfront Event Space (WCHES)! Showcasing the renowned 'Run Beyond' art light installation by Italian artist Angelo Bonello, WCHES will light up Hong Kong's skyline with a series of large-scale light silhouettes running, jumping, and leaping through the air in dreamlike surrealism. Visitors of all ages are welcome to visit the 65-metre-long artwork completely for free from March 29 to April 28, 3pm to 10.30pm.

Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos has unveiled her first-ever immersive installations in Hong Kong as part of Swire Properties’ Arts Month celebrations. The artist is known for working with textiles and this new commissioned work is no exception. Enchanted Forest occupies a large room that has been left in the dark while large-scale installations shaped like liquid droplets hang from above. Showcasing sewing, knitting, and crochet work on leftover fabric from the House of Dior, these elongated orbs illuminated by LED lights resemble textile stalactites and took a team of 60 over six months to create. In a lobby nearby, Valkyrie Seondeok hangs from the ceiling – while the overall shapes of the forest installation is present here, this sculpture is on an even larger scale, and is named after the women warriors of Norse mythology and the first reigning queen of Silla (before Korea was founded).

This striking exhibition explores how significantly humans have impacted animals, and also touches on animals as an integral part of East Asian cultures and ideologies. Video works, installations, and performance pieces by local and international artists tell how animals can be mythical creatures, forms of capital, and objects of aesthetic interest. Can we ever exist in a world where humans become a collective with other species instead of exploiting and profiting from them? The exhibition attempts to answer this question, so go see for yourself.

We’re delighted to see Sophia Hotung, one of our Future Shapers interviewees, exhibit her latest works in a solo show. Having been bedridden as a result of her autoimmune diseases, Hotung slowly began to re-explore the city’s roads, sidewalks, traffic junctions, and walkways, and was struck with inspiration one day when the song 42nd Street from the eponymous musical came up on shuffle. “It made me imagine the people around me launching into intricate tap dances or sweeping waltzes,” she says.

Hotung’s 10 original artworks combine her love for musicals with her love for this city, transforming passers-by into the cast of musical theatre ensembles set against the backdrop of locations all over Hong Kong, such as the Happy Valley Racecourse, Cheung Chau, and the steps on Duddell Street. If you’re anything like us and have always wanted to randomly break out into a huge song and dance number in real life, no doubt you’ll enjoy this exhibition at Wyndham Social as well. 

Read our interview with Sophia Hotung here.

Japanese artist Ay-O, better known as the ‘rainbow artist’, is having his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong at M+. The show will encompass a wide range of his artistic career, presenting almost 60 pieces spanning from the 1950s to the 2000s, alongside a selection of works from his Fluxus collaborators. Hong Hong Hong also marks the inauguration of the museum’s new Pao-Watari exhibition series, which focuses on significant yet under-examined moments and figures in the history of Asian art and visual culture.

This touring exhibition is a response to a 1972 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art titled ‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape’. 100 Italian designers all under the age of 35 were challenged to explore the possibilities of design that fit the current global moment with the values of systemic, rational, and regenerative in mind. A wide array of projects have therefore been designed, from apps and furniture pieces to clothing, prints, and more – this could well be what our future looks like.

Making art accessible to a broader audience, the Affordable Art Fair (AAF) returns to Hong Kong from May 16 to 19. Although AAF takes place on a smaller scale compared to Art Basel or Art Central, the event is highly popular among art lovers in town as the artworks on show usually range from $1,000 to $100,000, making it ideal for those on a budget or newbies to start their art collection without breaking the bank.

Originally introduced in 2019, The Peninsula’s art programme will return this year to coincide with Hong Kong Art Week. Local artist Kingsley Ng’s monumental sculpture Esmeralda will float over the hotel’s façade, “undulating between the physics of gravity and the buoyancy of air”. A newly commissioned piece of work by Lachlan Turczan named Harmonic Resonance will also be on display – this is a mirrored pool of water that shows patterns created by choreographed infrasonic tones.

Other pieces shown during this time will include a large-scale sculpture by Elise Morin made with thousands of pulverised CDs, and a multisensory video installation that promotes meditation and contemplation by Saya Woolfalk. These artworks will be available to view for free from now until May at The Peninsula Hong Kong, before they travel to other Peninsula properties globally.

It took artists K-Narf and Shoko three years to create an archive of portraits of Japanese workers back in 2016, and the duo are now expanding their project overseas, including Hong Kong. The exhibition will be split into two parts: the first consists of a presentation of this photographic project, while the artists collect portraits of Hong Kong workers. After a two-month gap, they will then return to WKM Gallery to present all the pictures that were taken in the city as well. This is a good chance to understand the tape-o-graph photographic method that was invented by one of the artists more than 15 years ago, as well as a look into the workers whose day-to-day lives we barely acknowledge but are contributing to history in the making.

The highly-anticipated teamLab: Continuous is officially here! As part of the city's Art@Harbour 2024 initiative during Hong Kong Arts Month, the international art collective teamLab has set up hundreds of glowing ovoids stretching from Tamar Park all the way to the Central and Western District Promenade. The large-scale installations will be in Hong Kong until June 2, but in order to access the exhibition lawn area, all visitors must first register for a timeslot online. The availability of sessions will be updated every Monday at 12 noon for the bookings of the following week. Additionally, at 1pm every day, a limited number of slots for the same day will be released. All bookings are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Check out our nifty guide for more info about teamLab: Continuous.

Here's a quick glimpse of the teamLab installation before you go!

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This popular exhibition opened last December, and is currently on its second rotation of paintings, with a total of 20 new works on display until June 2 that were not shown during the initial rotation. Highlighting the works of court painters, literati artists, and other professionals throughout the Ming Dynasty, the exhibition shows the multifaceted lives and spiritual world of the people of that era. Of the 97 pieces of artistic works, 16 are grade-one national treasures, which is why these fragile paintings are being exhibited in rotating batches. This second batch shows Tang Yin’s The Trees in the Wind and Qiu Ying’s The Orchid Pavilion – these artists make up half of the Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty. The second rotation will run until June 2, and the third will start on June 5.

Discover the fusion of art and community at the TypePop Show hosted by Gate33 Gallery (3/F) at Airside. As part of Hong Kong's Art Month, this exhibition showcases the creative works of 10 contemporary artists, including Katol Lo, Jonathan Mak, Chi-wing Lee, Adonian Chan, and more. Expressing art through words, they weave together stories of Hong Kong's sentiment, culture, and history, focusing on the neighbourhoods of Kowloon City, San Po Kong, To Kwa Wan, and Wong Tai Sin. Don't miss the chance to immerse yourself in large-scale installations and interactive works that capture the essence of these historic pockets of Hong Kong until June 12. 

To open the French May Art Festival, M+ museum will be presenting its first special exhibition on photography in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). See more than 250 significant photos from BnF’s world-renowned collection alongside over 30 works from M+’s own collection. If you like the melancholic and dramatic quality of black-and-white photography, you’ll definitely enjoy this exhibition. Standard tickets are on sale for $140 while discounts are available for M+ members and guests of M+ patrons.

Celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) with their exciting Spring Programme 2024, Factory of Tomorrow. From now to July 14, immerse yourself in a fascinating group exhibition that showcases CHAT's contemporary art collection and newly commissioned works. With artworks by 19 Asian artists, the exhibition explores the role of textiles in Hong Kong's past while delving into the present and future. Through textile works, sculptures, immersive installations, and videos, artists examine themes such as technology, diversity, climate change, and our collective future. Additionally, be sure to experience new elements like the Misfitted: Unspoken Stories of Tailoring display, the interactive Illumin-Loom, as well as the reopening of the CHAT Lounge.

Step into the weird, wacky, and wonderful world of acclaimed British artist Gary Card at his first large-scale solo exhibition in Hong Kong titled People Mountain People Sea. Gary's diverse talents span painting, sculpture, illustration, graphic design, and set design, having worked with some of the biggest artists and designers from around the world. For this exhibition, Gary was inspired by the vibrant fusion of East and West cultures in Hong Kong. Using various objects and elements he's observed during his visits to the city, Gary has crafted a series of bold and unique artworks to transform the historic Oi! Warehouses into a multimedia art space, where animation and sound merge to create an immersive visual and sensory experience. Visit Oi! Street Art Space between now and July 28 to his works and be sure to snap pics of the giant outdoor sculpture on the Oi! Lawn.

This major special exhibition at the Hong Kong Palace Museum highlights the former glory of the Yuan Ming Yuan imperial garden, which was also known as the ‘Garden of All Gardens’. With artefacts such as paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, architectural models, drawings, and prints – many of which are on display in Hong Kong for the very first time – this event provides a great look into the life and artistry of the Qing court. 

The garden-palace was first constructed by the Emperor Kangxi and later fully developed by his fourth son, Emperor Yongzheng, with a total of five emperors continually adding to the Yuan Ming Yuan over the course of more than a century. It was the most favoured imperial residence outside of the Forbidden City and boasted spectacular landscaping, scenery, and architecture. The Yuan Ming Yuan was sadly looted and destroyed during the Second Opium War, but this exhibition aims to transport visitors back to the height of its glory through five thematic sections on its overall layout, the seasonal festivities that were celebrated, its landscaping design, imperial family life within the grounds, and its eventual destruction.

The displays will also be complemented by documentary screenings of The Lei Family, who were the Qing dynasty royal architects over several generations and had worked on the Yuan Ming Yuan. Standard tickets cost $150 and will also grant access to other thematic exhibitions in the Hong Kong Palace Museum, while a special combo ticket costing $220 will allow visitors to also view the Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition on the same day.

Using archival materials as a starting point, this exhibition brings together new works from six groups of local artists and collectives, focusing on one specific day in Hong Kong’s past. Another Day in Hong Kong was inspired by Oscar Ho’s One Day in Hong Kong exhibition back in 1990, which collected photographs taken by Hong Kong citizens on a single day. This new show expands upon its predecessor by exploring new dimensions to capture the diverse people and events that occur within 24 hours.

This year marks a century since the birth of Dr Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, the literary giant who wrote numerous hit martial arts novels that earned a place among classic Chinese literature. Starting from March 15, there will be a range of events and exhibitions that pay tribute to Jin Yong’s work and legacy, as well as to create unique cultural intellectual property that tells Hong Kong stories.

‘The World of Wuxia’ at Edinburgh Place will present 10 sculptures of Jin Yong’s most iconic characters, created by sculptor Ren Zhe. Apart from figures of Xiaolongnü, Yang Guo, Abbess Miejue, the Golden Wheel Monk, and more, there will also be a Mongolian yurt inspired by The Eagle-shooting Heroes, where visitors can recreate famous scenes with audio guides and AR technology. A larger exhibition of Ren Zhe’s sculptures will also be on show at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Sha Tin from March 16 to October 7, along with seminars, talks, immersive experiences, and a manuscript display.

As the birthplace of Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, Hong Kong has always been known as a city of diverse peoples and cultures. The organisers of his centennial events have therefore collaborated with international institutions and foreign consulates in Hong Kong to create interactive artistic experiences that promote Jin Yong’s novels as a way to appreciate Chinese culture and tell Hong Kong stories. While most Hongkongers will already have vivid shared memories of Jin Yong and his famous works, younger generations can now also be  introduced to these literary classics.

Created by American architectural group Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Joyful Trees (Arbores Laetae), is an art project at Oil! featuring 16 Chinese Junipers, three of which are placed on turning planters at a 10-degree tilt. As the trees rotate, the movement channels a rhythmic rustle and evokes discourse about human’s role in nature from Anthropocene’s perspective. Planting a movable landscape, the installation also reinterprets nature as ever-changing and never static, creating an unusual artistic perspective.

The three-dimensional installation can be viewed from eye level on the ground; by the adjacent pedestrian ramp; on the footbridge across the site; from the gallery window in the Oi! Glassie building; or even from the skyscrapers above. 

M+ Museum’s new thematic exhibition aims to explore the connection between landscape and humanity in our post-industrial and increasingly virtual world. Literally translating to ‘mountain and water’, shanshui is a Chinese cultural concept that has inspired Asian ink paintings across millennia. Almost 130 works split into nine thematic sections will reimagine landscape through art, moving images, sound, design, architecture, and other large-scale mediums from a range of international artists, architects, and creators.