Missing Hong Kong Art Month already? 6 exhibitions and installations you shouldn’t miss this spring, from TeamLab’s viral harbourside installation to an exhibition celebrating Chinese novelist Jin Yong

Apr 6 , 2024

Among the art worth catching in Hong Kong this spring, TeamLab: Continuous, at Tamar Park in Admiralty, features some 200 light-emitting ovoids that stand up to five metres tall, both on land and water. Photo: Handout

Art Month may have crescendoed with Art Basel and Art Central at the end of March, but Hong Kong remains abuzz with quality exhibitions, installations and multidisciplinary shows.

M+ in West Kowloon is hosting a variety of ongoing exhibitions, while public installations such as TeamLab: Continuous and Angelo Bonello’s Illuminate! Run Beyond make use of the harbour as a backdrop for dramatic light-based artworks. For those who can’t get enough of Hong Kong’s vibrant art scene, here’s our pick of the city’s current must-visits.

1. “Shanshui: Echoes and Signals”, and more at M+

Mario Giacomelli's I Have No Hands to Caress My Face, part of “Noir & Blanc: A Story of Photography”, an M+ exhibition, through July 1, showcasing works from the museum as well as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Photo: Handout

In West Kowloon, be ready to catch some of the largest-scale works on display during Art Month at M+, with three shows across drastically different media. If you haven’t caught it, “Shanshui: Echoes and Signals” explores landscapes and humanity through traditional Chinese ink painting, sculpture and more. The exhibition features works by artists of different generations including Yang Jiechang, Xu Bing, Zao Wou-Ki, Wesley Tongson and Guo Hongwei, plus an LED installation by Tatsuo Miyajima, alongside video installations by Liu Chuang, Amar Kanwar and Nguyen Trinh Thi.

5 reasons to visit Tai Kwun this month – from artsy movies to retro neon

Through July 1, M+ is exploring the medium of photography via “Noir & Blanc: A Story of Photography”, a collaboration with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). This is a thematic presentation of photography over the course of a century – from 1915 to 2019 – featuring over 170 celebrated photographers from BNF’s archive, as well as 30 works from M+’s own collections. The exhibition is split into three sections, Aiming for Contrast, Light and Shadow and Colour Chart, which cover everyday moments of stark opposition, how photographers paint with light, and the tonal nuances of grey respectively.

For film buffs, the museum has, since March 8, been hosting Primitive, a video installation by Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who bridges visual art and cinema to focus on teenagers from Nabua in northeastern Thailand.

2. “Another Day in Hong Kong” at Asia Art Archive

Ocean Leung, That’s Why You Go Away (28 Anniversaries), performance video (2024), from “Another Day in Hong Kong” at Asia Art Archive. Photo: Kwan Sheung Chi.

Through August 31, the Asia Art Archive is presenting “Another Day in Hong Kong”, a photo exhibition drawing on archives, memories and imagination to capture Hong Kong on the very specific but ordinary day of October 19, 1996. The project is the sequel to a previous exercise and exhibition, “One Day in Hong Kong”, in which residents from all over the territory were asked to photograph the people and events of their daily life within a 24-hour period on September 7, 1990.

6 women artists you should know in 2024 – from Christine Wang to Wangechi Mutu

2. TeamLab’s harbourside globes

The large-scale public installation Continuous is a collaboration between Japanese art collective TeamLab and Hong Kong’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, on display through June 2. Photo: Handout

For those looking for a light show, or just an outdoor piece to enjoy along with the warming weather, Japanese digital art collective TeamLab has brought Continuous to Tamar Park. Through June 2, TeamLab is following its successful Future Park at MegaBox by scattering ovoid lights from the beginning of Tamar Park out into the harbour.

4. Angelo Bonello’s “lightworks” on Wan Chai harbourfront

In Hong Kong for the first time after touring other major world cities, Angelo Bonello’s Illuminate! Run Beyond will remain in Wan Chai through April 28. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

In Wan Chai, Italian artist Angelo Bonello’s light art show, Illuminate! Run Beyond, makes its Hong Kong debut. Through April 28, catch illuminated figures in motion against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour, the piece already having appeared in Amsterdam, London, Singapore, Toronto and Washington DC, among other major cities.

5. The 100th anniversary of Jin Yong

A sculpture of Linghu Chong, a character from the novels of Jin Yong, is part of a Hong Kong Heritage Museum exhibition, through October 7, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

The Hong Kong Heritage Museum is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of novelist Dr Louis Cha Leung-yung, better known by his pen name Jin Yong. For the memorial, sculptor Ren Zhe brings to life 22 of Jin Yong’s characters – the author having 15 novels to his name – including Guo Jing and Yang Guo from The Return of the Condor Heroes. These sculptures are showcased alongside a bust of Cha, donated by his family and also sculpted by Ren. Through October 7.

7 of the richest artists alive: net worths, ranked – but who’s a billionaire?

6. Wu Guanzhong at Hong Kong Museum of Art

Xiang Jiang River by Wu Guanzhong. Photo: @artistwuguanzhong/Instagram

Along the harbourfront, the Hong Kong Museum of Art is hosting a more abstract take on traditional Chinese ink painting with “Between Black & White”, an exhibition of collected works by Wu Guanzhong, who began his training with ink painting, before studying oil painting in France. The works sit liminally between monochrome and colour, as light and shadow in Chinese ink meet accents of textured oil-based hues.

Art

TeamLab has scattered giant light-emitting ovoids from Tamar Park into the harbour, while the Hong Kong Heritage Museum has a sculpture exhibition that brings to life characters from Jin Yong’s novels
M+ has a show combining ink paintings with installations, featuring works by Zao Wou-Ki, Xu Bing and Amar Kanwar – plus a photo exhibition in collaboration with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France