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

De Sarthe is hosting their first group exhibition of the year, featuring a selection of artists represented by the gallery. They’ve deliberately fashioned this into a showcase of works that remain unsold from previous shows in a statement on today’s speculative art market that is too often defined by market manipulation, emphasising the importance of maintaining a healthy art ecosystem. View artworks like Chan Ka-kiu’s light box window ‘After’, consisting of found and AI-generated images haphazardly put together in a blatantly fictitious landscape; or Xinyan Zhang’s ‘Out of the Time No. 5’, colourful and playful at first, before being revealed to be a retelling of chilling true crimes.

London-based Canadian artist Michele Fletcher is exhibiting her works in Asia for the first time. Her new abstract paintings imagine a life where plants have overtaken humankind. Drawing on art history and works of literature as inspiration, Fletcher paints in loose lines that wind around each other in networks that hint at stems, foliage, and petals. See her sinuous art pieces at White Cube until March 15.

Yam Shalev has a solo exhibition at Woaw Gallery that depicts everyday ephemeral moments that are universal to viewers. Freezing time on his canvases, Shalev’s intense, condensed paintings catch a kitchen bathed in golden hour light; the moments just before one drifts off to sleep; and more minute instances in life that are easily overlooked. If you’re a bit of a daydreamer, or enjoy sinking into quiet moments with only your thoughts, then this exhibition is for you.

Literati Artspace will return to Art Central for the fourth time, this year showcasing stunning jewellery art by Dickson Yewn, who is known for his Asian aesthetic, intricate square rings, and mastery of wood. Approximately 45 pieces will be shown, including new works in his Floral Lattice collection. Drawing inspiration from erotic art from the Qing and Ming dynasties, Yewn depicts everyday courtyard scenes – from frogs sitting by a summer pond to mating insects – as he deconstructs traditional Chinese life through the lens of cheeky eroticism. This is a fantastic display of contemporary jewellery craftsmanship with a classical spirit.

The Hong Kong Maritime Museum is presenting a collection of photographs taken in Hong Kong between the 1940s and 70s. These works by celebrated photographers Hedda Morrison, Brian Blake, and Edward Stokes capture Hong Kong’s harbour, port, shipping industry, maritime life, and boat people. In the 30 years after emerging from a long war, Hong Kong changed and grew into a vibrant city, and these photos show the spirit, grit, and energy of our people.

It’s particularly interesting to see slices of history like the dry dock at Taikoo Dockyard, which was able to take the world’s largest ships back then, the cityline of Victoria Harbour in the 70s, as well as glimpses of life like two boys paddling around on a makeshift raft. Entry to the Voyage Through Time exhibition is free, but access to the rest of the museum will cost $30.

Contemporary art centre Para Site is hosting a group exhibition inspired loosely by Wong Kar-wai’s 1997 film Happy Together, examining duality and the split between opposing pairs. The film’s protagonists try to repair their relationship by moving to Buenos Aires – the opposite side of the world and presented as the very antithesis of Hong Kong. 

Over 20 artists from Hong Kong, neighbouring countries, and Latin America have gathered with works that allude to Hong Kong’s clichéd descriptor as being ‘between east and west’ or ‘between tradition and modernity’. Between these two contrasting corners of the world, encounters both real and imagined are examined with a wide range of artistic practices.

This exhibition turns the spotlight on historical, social, and cultural connections between the Greater China area and the rest of the world – as well as how things might come together to form the queer happy-togetherness that Ho Po-wing and Lau Yiu-fai aim for in the film.

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.

Update, December 18:

The popular Twilight of the Warriors exhibition is wrapping up its first phase at Hong Kong International Airport and has now relocated to Kowloon City, the very neighbourhood in which the hit film is set. Until April 13, visit Airside in Kai Tak to see an expanded exhibition with all-new set-ups and photo spots that were not available at the airport pop-up.

Apart from the existing barbershop, tea stall, and other locations from the movie, five new sets have been added, including a comic stall, tailor shop, a tit da bone-setting clinic, a shoemaker’s shop, and a dental clinic. All the designs and props, down to the price tags on items, were modelled on historical pieces from Hong Kong in the 80s to fully immerse visitors in the bygone era of the Kowloon Walled City. The dim alleys and indoor locations have been integrated with sound effects and actors’ dialogues, so if you enjoyed Twilight of the Warriors, then this exhibition will be a real treat.

Spot Easter eggs hidden throughout the exhibition such as miniature models of the movie characters, and don’t miss the dining and retail stalls, where you can buy iconic dishes from Hong Kong food stalls served in nostalgic takeaway containers.

Mixed media artist and celebrated designer of the luxury brand Chrome Hearts Joe Foti will be in Hong Kong for his first solo exhibition in town with over 180 of his works. From alien-themed pieces and odd bits and bobs that somehow fit when collaged together, to risqué birdhouses and penis paper weights, there is so much to tickle and amuse in this exhibition. Though described by the gallery as “one part fever dream, two parts nostalgia, and a whole load of ‘what the f*ck is that?’”, there’s no denying that Foti’s work is whimsical, absurd, and all the more appealing because of it.

The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) is currently holding a joint exhibition with the Palace of Versailles with approximately 150 magnificent pieces to peruse. This is the first time that treasures from the Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles – both World Heritage Sites – will be featured in one exhibition in Hong Kong.

With themes spanning culture, arts, science, technology, and beyond in the royal courts of France and China, visitors can expect to admire portraits, porcelain pieces, glassware, enamelware, textiles, books, scientific instruments, and more. Look out for first-grade national treasures from the Palace Museum in Beijing, such as a chrysanthemum teapot gifted to the Qianlong Emperor that was recently discovered to be made in France, and a quiver and bow case with French-made brocade. Highlights flown over from the Palace of Versailles include a perfume fountain – the only Chinese porcelain piece that Louis XV was known to have owned – and a portrait plaque of Qianlong that Louis XVI had displayed in his study.

Tickets for this special exhibition are priced at $150, with concessions available. Holders of HKPM’s Full Access Ticket can also access The Origins of Chinese Civilisation exhibition at a combined price of $180.

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. 

Split into four sections that show how Picasso fits into four artist stereotypes – such as the genius in his self-mythologising works, and the outsider with how he consistently chose to upend artistic styles and traditions – this exhibition explores how Picasso became the quintessential modern 20th-century artist. 

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+.

This public art commission by Alicja Kwade is the Polish artist’s first site-specific installation in Hong Kong, and is available for viewing at Tai Kwun until 2026. Historically and socially contextualised objects make references to Tai Kwun history while exploring the passage of time and the present.

Six glass structures stand in conjunction with eight bronze cast Monobloc chairs that are each positioned dynamically with a boulder. Drawing on the history of Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard as a place of waiting and confinement, Kwade’s art reflects on the burdens that we carry, and the idea of waiting as a form of punishment in contemporary times, with glass structures representing invisible barriers in our lives.

This exhibition is interesting in that instead of highlighting art, it is a look at the martial culture of the Qing court through weaponry, military equipment, scientific instruments, and more. Nearly 190 military artefacts are on loan from The Palace Museum in Beijing, including helmets, archery sets, swords and sabres, and equestrian gear, along with paintings, textiles, and books. ‘The Art of Armaments’ highlights the Manchu rulers’ emphasis on martial traditions, continually improving their weapon-making techniques, and their dedication to hunting and drills – these set the foundation for military rituals in China as well as the development of their fleets and coastal defence. 

Look out for treasures such as a Qianlong-era replica of a helmet used by Nurhaci, the Jurchen khan emperor of the Later Jin dynasty, or the sabre gifted to Prince Gong by the Daoguang Emperor. Since there are so many artefacts, the exhibition will be presented in four rotations, each lasting about three months. Visitors can access this exhibition with a general admission ticket (priced from $70 to $90), or any special exhibition ticket (ranging from $150 to $180).

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.