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

M+ will host the first full-scale retrospective of renowned Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, his life, his philosophy, and his works, presented through various mediums. Better known as I. M. Pei, he is the mastermind designer behind some of the world’s most recognisable works of modernist architecture, including the glass-and-steel Louvre Pyramid, the Miho Museum in Shigaraki, and Hong Kong’s own Bank of China Tower. Sorted into six themes that place Pei’s architecture within sociocultural contexts, the exhibition will consist of over 300 items on display, most of which have never been exhibited before. Several international photographers have also been commissioned to photograph Pei’s buildings, and architectural models of some of his most significant projects have also been made. 

The exhibition will open on June 29 with a free public talk featuring Pei’s son, Sandi Li Chung Pei, as well as Pei’s close collaborators Calvin Tsao and Aslıhan Demirtaş – they will discuss the relevance and impact of Pei’s life and work across various cities. Tickets for this special exhibition are priced at $160, with concessions available. Ticket holders can also access all general admission exhibitions at M+ on the same day.

See the development of ceramics from the Ming dynasty with over 100 artefacts loaned to Hong Kong from the Palace Museum in Beijing, including 21 grade-one national treasures. This period in history was the golden age of Chinese ceramics. As the imperial kilns in Jiangxi produced pieces exclusively used by the royal court, Ming rulers directly influenced porcelain styles through imperial patronage, and these pieces are a legacy that tells of the imperial court, technological advancements, and cultural exchanges that occurred within China.

Japanese artist Seiju Toda, one of the country’s leading art directors, is holding his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. A lot of Japanese aesthetics and ideas of beauty hinge on minimalism, and in a similar vein, Toda’s body of work focuses on ‘subtraction’ and keeping things simple to allow room for viewers’ imagination. A hint of a fish swimming along a wooden edge, carefully concealed figures in alcoves, light hints of colours – even the very name of the exhibition which, apart from referencing an era in Japan’s middle age, literally means ‘peace’, evokes a sense of calm and quiet. This gallery is open by appointment from Monday to Friday, and available for drop-in visits on Saturdays.

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. 

Opening just ahead of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, the Hong Kong Palace Museum launches this special exhibition which explores the origins and development of Chinese civilisation through artefacts that span over 4,000 through history. The result of two decades of comprehensive national-level research and large-scale archaeological surveys, this exhibition showcases just under 110 treasures spanning the Neolithic period to the Xia dynasty loaned to Hong Kong from 14 major cultural institutions – including 16 grade-one national treasures. Almost all these loans are displayed in our city for the first time.

Among the jades, stone sculptures, ceramics, bone and bronze objects, and more, keep an eye out for a cloud-shaped jade plaque, a stone sculpture from the Shimao archaeological site, and a jade dragon from the Hongshan culture which is believed to be one of the earliest objects to bear the motif of a dragon in China.

Tickets to this exhibition are priced at $100 for adults, with concession prices available. There is also the Full Access Ticket which costs $180 and grants access to ‘The Adorned Body’ exhibition as well as other thematic exhibitions within HKPM on the same day.

After a year of preparation, Sun Museum finally opened the doors to its new Sai Ying Pun venue in October with its launch exhibition. Featuring 132 works by 92 Hong Kong artists, this show features the diversity and cultural traditions of our city’s arts scene through various mediums such as ink, charcoal, and mineral pigments to oils, watercolour, and marker pen drawings. This is a great chance to soak in the creativity behind local artistic minds and discover fantastic talents for yourself.

This exhibition features more than 40 haute couture pieces from the fashion artist Guo Pei, including Rihanna’s show-stopping yellow gown that she wore to the 2015 Met Gala. It marks the first major exhibition dedicated to this celebrated Chinese couture artist in East Asia. With a practice that has spanned almost four decades, Guo is among China’s first generation of contemporary fashion designers, with work reflecting Asian and global trends over the past century. You’ll often see traditional Chinese embroidery in her pieces, and this exhibition shows works inspired by fantasy dreamscapes, Eastern folklore, architecture, and space-time. The designer herself will hold a talk on September 21, and M+ will also host two screenings of Yellow Is Forbidden, which documents Guo’s journey in a predominantly Western field as she prepares a show for Paris Haute Couture Week.

Visit this special exhibition at M+ to see more than 60 masterpieces by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso spanning from the late 1890s to the early 1970s. Co-curated with the Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), which holds the largest repository of Picasso’s work in the world, this is the first time that pieces from the MnPP are being shown together with works from an Asian museum collection. By placing Picasso’s work in dialogue with Asian contemporary art – approximately 80 works by more than 20 Asian and Asian-diasporic artists – the master’s enduring influence on art to this day is highlighted. This exhibition will only be in town next spring, so check out for details and ticketing information.

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.

This contemporary art fair for photography has announced that they will be launching the Hong Kong edition during Art Week in 2025. Gathering between 50 to 75 global exhibitors, visitors will be able to peek through the viewfinders of celebrated photographers to young cutting-edge talents. Split into three sectors, the fair comprises of Main, which showcases modern and contemporary photo-based art; Focus, dedicated to solo and dual art presentations; and Digital, which spotlights artists working with photography and new technologies.

This latest exhibition in the M+ Open Gallery examines the process of making things as a creative expression, and how this has a lasting impact on individuals, communities, and our ecosystems. Drawing from the works of the M+ Collections, visitors are invited into the inspirations and techniques behind the processing of conceptualising, research, design, and fabrication that go into the objects and architecture we see around us. Split into four sections, it covers the broad themes of ceramics with its layered history; innovative uses of materials like neon, resin, and bamboo, including a restored Hong Kong neon sign; how computing, machine learning, and AI have impacted the making process; and the effects of consumerism and mass production on contemporary society. Tickets for ‘Making It Matters’ cost $120, and allow same-day entry to the other paid exhibitions in M+.