$4 Million Picasso painting leads sales at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026. https://ift.tt/V6kcSWv

Art Basel Hong Kong—the largest art fair in Asia—opened its 13th edition to VIPs at the Convention and Exhibition Centre on Wednesday, March 25. Galleries reported a steady wave of early transactions from the preview day across price points, geographies, and media, led by BASTIAN’s sale of Pablo Picasso’s Le peintre et son modèle (1964) for “approximately” €3.5 million ($4.05 million).

Exhibitors reported robust attendance from collectors, curators, and institutional leaders across Asia, Europe, and the United States. By midday, galleries noted activity spanning blue-chip, postwar, and contemporary sectors, alongside clear demand for artists from across Asia-Pacific and continued interest in cross-media practices, including textile, installation, and digital work.

“I’m thrilled with the opening day at the fair,” said Nick Simunovic, senior director in Asia at Gagosian. “We’ve reconnected with existing clients and started relationships with new ones. The response to our presentation in the booth and the show in the gallery has surpassed all expectations.”

Here, we round up some of the leading initial sales reported by galleries at Art Basel Hong Kong. Check back next week for a full sales report from the fair.

• David Zwirner led sales with a 2006 painting by Liu Ye for $3.8 million and a 2002 painting by Marlene Dumas for $3.5 million.
• Hauser & Wirth’s sales were led by Louise Bourgeois’s À Baudelaire (#1) (2008) for $2.95 million and George Condo’s Prismatic Head (2021) for $2.3 million.
• Waddington Custot reported placements of works by Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun for asking prices of $2.8 million and $1.3 million, respectively.
• White Cube’s sales were led by Tracey Emin’s Take me to Heaven (2024) for £1.2 million ($1.6 million) and Antony Gormley’s Plane (2025) for £500,000 ($668,000).
• Perrotin reported sales of an undisclosed number of works by Takashi Murakami in the $600,000 to $800,000 range.
• Thaddaeus Ropac placed Martha Jungwirth’s Ohne Titel (2021) for €460,000 ($532,438) with a Chinese institution.
• Sprüth Magers sold Anne Imhof’s Poppy Runner III (2025) for €220,000 ($254,644) to an Asian institution.
• Jessica Silverman sold Judy Chicago’s Vicky’s Center (2023) for $165,000.
• MASSIMODECARLO sold a painting by Yan Pei-Ming for a price in the range of €250,000–€350,000 ($289,368–$405,116) and a work by Danh Vō for a price in the range of €200,000–€300,000 ($231,494–$347,242).
• Sullivan + Strumpf placed an undisclosed number of works by Dawn Ng for $55,000 apiece and Gemma Smith for $22,000 apiece.

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Artist Jordan Wolfson tapped for Prada’s spring/summer 2026 campaign. https://ift.tt/EhZF7CA

Artist Jordan Wolfson is bringing his off-kilter world to Prada. The fashion house has tapped the American artist to direct its uncanny Spring/Summer 2026 campaign of images and video. The models for Wolfson’s “I, I, I, I AM… PRADA” series include British celebrities Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult, and Damson Idris. Other models include rapper John Glacier, American actor and actress Levon Hawke and Hunter Schafer, and Chinese model Liu Wen.

Prada’s campaign situates its brand-clad cast alongside larger-than-life digital birds and colorful, scale-covered figures. One image, for example, features Schafer, apparently fallen from an office chair and seated next to a giant, digital brown bird. The models speak in a stilted refrain of “I” and “I am,” which inspires the campaign’s official title.

“Wolfson’s intervention in the Spring/Summer 2026 Prada campaign opens ceaseless possibilities, multiplicities of identity and being, of what Prada can be, how it can be perceived, and re-perceived, through constantly questioned conventions of an advertising campaign,” Prada stated in its website announcement.

Wolfson is known for creating unsettling artworks using VR, photography, and video to probe the psychological limits of spectatorship. His practice often stages encounters with animatronic figures and immersive media that implicate the viewer. For instance, the artist presented an installation at Fondation Beyeler in 2025, in which two visitors put on VR headsets to see themselves from the other participant’s point of view.

One of the artist’s most famous video works, Riverboat song (2017–18), offers a precursor to the artist’s Prada campaign. The 16-channel video installation, which debuted at David Zwirner in New York, follows the unsettling actions of anthropomorphic animals, akin to the giant birds in Wolfson’s new work for Prada.

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The estate of American painter Martha Diamond will be represented by Thaddaeus Ropac. https://ift.tt/93v2OpY

Working primarily across painting, Diamond is best known for her sweeping abstractions of the New York City skyline. She was seduced by the skyscrapers, and used thick, frenetic brushstrokes to render the contours of the city’s architecture in vibrant colors and varying textures. A prominent member of the New York School and the downtown poetry scene alongside John Giorno and Peter Schjeldahl, she found inspiration in artists such as Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline.

Solo exhibitions have included The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, David Kordansky Gallery, and Magenta Plains in New York. The artist’s work has also been featured in group shows at Anton Kern Gallery, Karma, and the Whitney Museum’s 1984 “MetaManhattan” show, as well as its 1989 Biennial. Diamond’s work is a part of collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Guggenheim Museum, among others.

“What Frank Auerbach did for Camden Town, and Monet did for Paris, and De Chirico did for piazzas all over Italy, Diamond did for Manhattan,” wrote Jonathan Griffin in the New York Times in 2024. “None of these artists were bothered with assiduous documentation of the built environment so much as with conveying how it felt to them.”

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8 Artists to Follow if You Like Elsa Schiaparelli https://ift.tt/HygQo5R

Elsa Schiaparelli was deeply embedded in the world of art. Having founded her legendary fashion house in Paris in 1927, the Italian designer collaborated with the most iconic names of her time, including Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Alberto Giacometti. Her designs made magic of the body, drawing inspiration from the themes of Surrealism. Dramatic items of clothing reimagined exposed insides; one dress made with Dalí, for example, was shaped by skeletal boning. She also created hybrid looks that fused the physical aspects of human, animal, and plant; another Dalí dress was embellished with his famous lobster icon, while a Jean Cocteau collaboration featured a profusion of pink fabric roses.

Schiaparelli’s silhouettes both enhanced and reshaped the body, using intense corsetry and unconventionally curved boning to exaggerate hips and shoulders. Like the Surrealists who motivated her, a major flair for drama and humor ran through her work, offsetting its sometimes dark elements with playfulness and frivolity.

This month, a major exhibition dedicated to the art of Schiaparelli opens at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. “Fashion Becomes Art” delves into the work of a designer who was authentically embedded in the avant-garde creative world of the 1930s, creating wearable pieces that extended far beyond the practicalities or traditional trends of her contemporaries. The show also highlights Daniel Roseberry’s recent, immensely popular reimagining of the brand, with designs dripping in gold, body-cast plating, sweeping feathers, and a healthy dose of contemporary surrealism.

Here are eight contemporary artists that fans of Schiaparelli should know.

Paloma Proudfoot

B. 1992, London. Lives and works in London.

At first, it seems British artist Paloma Proudfoot’s wall-based ceramics should feel stomach-churningly gory; they feature exposed spinal columns, rib cages covered in scales, and feathers protruding from the end of fingers. But they are so delicately rendered that they have a beguiling beauty to them instead. Inspired by the historical treatment of women within the mental health system and wider culture, her flat, multi-piece works show bodies breaking, bending, and expanding, her creaturelike forms finding an empowering escapism.

Proudfoot is also informed by pattern cutting, creating flat shapes from ceramic, rather than fabric, which are then joined together. Her work chimes with many Schiaparelli designs, like the 1938 all-black, exposed corsetry “skeleton dress” created in collaboration with Dalí. This cut-out approach is also visible in her 1936 conical straw hat, which features a pair of nude leather gloves—complete with red nails—sitting at its crown like a pair of eerily disembodied hands.

Naudline Pierre

B. 1989, Leominster, Massachusetts. Lives and works in New York City.

A Kiss Three Times, 2018
Naudline Pierre
New Image Art

In rising artist Naudline Pierre’s transportive paintings, huddles of figures are draped in fiery swathes of feathers that could be read as wings or elaborate cloaks. At times, the feathers seem to grow from their bodies. The American artist is inspired by her own religious upbringing, her intensely dramatic paintings evoking both divine beings and exotic birds in the natural world.

In Bathers (2025), a group of angelic beings lounge and stretch around a glistening pool, their bodies wrapped in flamelike gold and red wings. Flamboyant use of feathers has been a mainstay of Schiaparelli since the early days, extending the bodies of those who wear the brand’s designs and creating wild, creature-like silhouettes. A 1950s Schiaparelli hat, for example, was entirely covered by green and red tinted fabric leaves, featuring a dramatic plumage of golden feathers mirroring the spectacular coifs of birds of paradise.

Julie Curtiss

B. 1982, Paris. Lives and works in New York City.

Venus, 2016
Julie Curtiss
White Cube

Julie Curtiss’s paintings dabble in Surrealism, featuring figures covered by ornate twists of hair, talon-like long fingernails, and fetishistic high heels. In the French artist’s 2021 painting Bathsheba, two figures sit in a salon, one having her feet bathed for a pedicure. The women’s bodies and faces are entirely covered in hair which swirls around their stomachs, knees, and breasts. The combination of elegance and bodily uncanniness evokes numerous pieces by Schiaparelli, including an archival gray skirt suit made in collaboration with Cocteau, which features a woman’s silhouette leaning back over the shoulder, her golden sequined hair tumbling down the arm.

Hannah Levy

B. 1991, New York City. Lives and works in New York City.

Untitled, 2019
Hannah Levy
Casey Kaplan

Untitled, 2019
Hannah Levy
Casey Kaplan

Human and animal hybridity runs through Hannah Levy’s membranous sculptures. The American artist’s works often comprise of two parts: a glistening metal base that calls to mind the shape of bird claws and high heels, and a silicone or glass structure that squeezes between or wraps around it like skin. Her wild works evoke the body, which is shown as both contained and free: These sculptures look as though they could come to life and attack the viewer at any moment. Elsa Schiaparelli often featured similarly weapon-esque embellishments on her clothes, for example, a pair of black 1930s gloves that had gold, talon-like nails extending from the fingers, likely inspired by a Man Ray photo of hands with gloves painted on them by Pablo Picasso.

Felipe Baeza

B. 1987, Guanajuato, Mexico. Lives and works in New York City.

Ahuehuete en el Dia, 2017
Felipe Baeza
Food Bank For New York City Benefit Auction

Untitled (Los Otros), 2024
Felipe Baeza
Public Art Fund Benefit Auction

While many of Elsa Schiaparelli’s pieces were decidedly fierce, she also embraced the soft beauty of the natural world. In her 1954 autobiography, she wrote about planting seeds in her mouth as a child, in the hope they would grow into a garden and cover her face. Mexican mixed-media artist Felipe Baeza’s intricate paintings and collages feature plants growing from the body. In his artworks, the artist, who was featured in the The Artsy Vanguard 2022, evokes mythical beasts and unruly beings that are entangled with nature.

In the2018 ink, collage, and glitter work, Ahuehuete, a vast tree sprouts from a human figure’s mouth; in the painting Por caminos ignorados, por hendiduras secretas, por las misteriosas vetas de troncos recién cortados (2020), the central figure’s skin is entirely overrun by foliage. A 1937 Schiaparelli evening coat designed in collaboration with Cocteau feeds into this aesthetic, its shoulders covered in giant pink fabric roses as though growing from the body.

Becky Tucker

B. 1993, Scarborough, England. Lives and works in Glasgow.

In her sculptural practice, Becky Tucker creates bodies formed from armor-like plates, sometimes embellished with animal features inspired by mythology. The British artist’s sculptures feature divisions where pieces of ceramic seem to have been stitched together, drawing upon corsetry and high fashion as well as traditional sheathing. In Crypt (2024), for example, a human figure cut off at the knees and elbows is formed entirely from three sections of ceramic, sewn with thick suede at the waist and neck. Spikes, claws, and sharp teeth abound in her works, blurring the lines between the body and the human-made structures created to clothe and protect it.

Schiaparelli often embraced the aesthetic of armor, with form-fitting garments embellished with talismans similar to Tucker’s plates. In Schiaparelli’s 1938 Zodiac evening jacket, structured navy silk is covered in celestial symbols, promising spiritual protection for the wearer. Her cape collaboration with fashion illustrator Christian Bérard from the same year is emblazoned with metallic sequins that show the god Apollo surging forth with a group of horses and his bow raised as though charging into battle.

Nevine Mahmoud

B. 1988, London. Lives and works in Los Angeles.

Elsa Schiaparelli had a nuanced understanding of how the erotic could be expressed through material and inanimate objects. A 1938 choker included in the V&A collection, for example, is made up of a gold ribbon, embellished with deep purple velvet bows and a series of cast pinecones hanging from delicate chains. The piece is inherently feminine and sensual yet also ambiguous, the pinecones appearing as both beautiful objects and potential grenades.

Nevine Mahmoud creates a similarly unsettling sense of eroticism in her sculptures, working with refined materials such as marble to reimagine objects like peaches (Peach Ball, 2017) and disembodied deer ears (Decollate, 2024). The British artist’s work, which has been shown at tastemaking galleries like Nina Johnson and Various Small Fires, is refined and richly suggestive, both celebrating and sending up the clichés of female sexuality. She finds an unusual sense of power by portraying items associated with vulnerability or submissiveness, imbuing them with their own erotic magnetism while not entirely rejecting their gendered connotations.

Andra Ursuta

B. 1979, Salonta, Romania. Lives and works in New York City.

Modeled after her own body and created with wax through 3D printing processes, Andra Ursuta’s sculptures combine human and alien forms. At the Venice Biennale in 2022, for instance, the Romanian sculptor presented a series of pieces that showed the body pinched and squeezed, both tightly contained by and bursting out from tightly corseted forms.

Her work is evocative of Schiaparelli’s unconventional presentation of the human silhouette, featuring highly exaggerated angular hip pads, sharply tailored waists, and jutting shoulders. These pieces create powerful impressions of the body but also a sense of awkwardness, contrasting the soft, fleshy human form with the formidable artwork that houses it.

Browse more works by artists like Elsa Schiaparelli in Artsy’s collection.

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Rockefeller Center Unveils Sculpture by German Iranian Artist Bettina Pousttchi. https://ift.tt/DO1hCko

The Rockefeller Center in New York installed a sculpture by German Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi on March 18th. Vertical Highways V03 (2025), situated at the Channel Gardens between Fifth Avenue and The Rink, will be on view through April 17th.

Vertical Highways V03 features a collection of bent and battered red guardrails. The mangled materials, which evoke a collision site or a scrap yard scene, tangle together and stand upright in the central pavilion. Pousttchi often uses industrial materials—such as crowd barriers or traffic bollards—to comment on city life and metropolitan spaces.

"By installing my sculpture, Vertical Highways V03, in front of Rockefeller Center, I want to initiate a dialogue of art and architecture that resonates with the urban history of New York City,” Pousttchi said in a statement.

This is the first time one of the Berlin-based artist’s “Vertical Highways” has been shown in the United States. Some smaller iterations were included in “Horizons,” her most recent solo show, mounted by Berlin’s Buchmann Galerie in September 2025. Previous sculptures in this series have been presented at the Jardin des Tuileries, outside Berlin Central Station, and at the Istanbul Modern, among other sites. Pousttchi’s work has been the subject of solo shows at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, and MoCA Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, among others.

“Bettina Pousttchi’s Vertical Highways V03 transforms the language of infrastructure into a striking visual experience,” EB Kelly, head of Rockefeller Center and senior managing director of Tishman Speyer, said in a statement. “Public art has long been central to Rockefeller Center’s identity, and this installation continues that tradition in a way that feels both contemporary and deeply connected to our architectural heritage. We’re proud to share this work with everyone who visits Rockefeller Center.”

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These 5 Gen Z Collectors Are Rewriting the Rules of the Art World https://ift.tt/KPd2HZw

Gen Z is on the tip of every industry’s tongue, and the art world is no exception.

Born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, this generation has firmly entered adulthood—and the collectors among them are making their mark. According to the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting, Gen Z represents nearly a fifth of active collectors globally.

Artsy spoke with five young collectors to learn what drives them, what they’re building, and how they see the art world shifting in real time.

Patrick Finnegan wants to help create the trends of tomorrow

At 29, venture capitalist Patrick Finnegan may know early-stage business bets—but his collecting is guided less by numbers than by feeling.

“I connect with art very emotionally,” he said. “While I do think like a value investor, art for me is ultimately about living with and sharing beautiful stories—seeing the world through someone else’s perspective.”

Finnegan began collecting seriously six years ago, introduced to emerging artists through friends. He now works closely with celebrity advisor Ralph DeLuca, known for advising film stars and directors, alongside Instagram, which he uses to discover new artists. Many of his recent acquisitions reflect a growing interest in abstraction by emerging women artists, including Caroline Absher, Pauline Rintsch, Jo Messer, and Thalita Hamaoui.

Asked how he thinks Gen Z is changing the art world, Finnegan doesn’t hesitate: “We’re fearless. We don’t just follow the herd—we spot trends early and, in many cases, help create them.”

Matilda Liu is building community through collecting

Since moving to London in 2016 to study curation and art business, California-born collector Matilda Liu’s collecting practice has grown through genuine connection.

With close ties to British and American galleries, her collection spans emerging artists such as Gus Monday and established blue-chip names, including Antony Gormley.

Now in her late twenties, she founded Meeting Point Projects, which hosts supper clubs and exhibitions that bring people into creative conversations.

“Increasingly, I think younger collectors are motivated by participation within cultural ecosystems rather than by auction visibility alone,” she explained. “Luxury today is less about brand names and objects as trophies, and more about taste, value systems, and community.”

Abby Smidt collects across generations

Bicoastal collector Abby Smidt isn’t afraid to embrace the past. She’s drawn to artists of the 1960s, especially those active in Southern California’s Light and Space movement, who often played with natural or artificial light through sculpture and installation. “I’m just fascinated with the quality of light and the colors that emerge,” she said.

Her collecting follows in the footsteps of her parents, Eric and Susan, prominent collectors of Abstract Expressionism. Though she grew up around art, Smidt traces her obsession back to an internship at LACMA during a James Turrell retrospective.

Her focus has since expanded to the movement’s often-overlooked women artists, including Mary Corse and Helen Pashgian.

At 27, Smidt has also built close relationships with the aforementioned artists, who are working well into their 80s and 90s. “They’re all still on this beautiful trajectory,” she mused. “I feel like I’m collecting alongside their career[s].”

Tia Tanna is rejecting old hierarchies

Museumgoers may already be familiar with works from the Tia Collection, if not with the eponymous young collector herself.

Founded by Tanna’s father when she was a child, the collection now facilitates 70 to 100 institutional loans each year, including for an upcoming show of Native American artists at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Now 25, Tanna began collecting through fashion photography before expanding into couture and contemporary art.

Recent acquisitions include work by Alia Ahmad, Issy Wood, Francesca Mollett, and Alvaro Barrington, alongside couture pieces—like a bridal look on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s upcoming Schiaparelli exhibition.

Tanna lights up most when speaking about designers, who she says create “for the body as opposed to the canvas.”

Gen Z collectors, she believes, are “looking across disciplines—toward performance, photography, fashion, and textile—recognizing that art isn’t confined to a single category.”

Lukas Jakob is taking a digital-first approach

“I belong to a generation that lives between resilience and exhaustion,” said German collector Lukas Jakob, “[between] digital connectivity and social fragmentation.”

A municipal worker by day, the 28-year-old has built much of his collection online, spanning digital works to installations. He began collecting a decade ago with the acquisition of a tie by Katharina Grosse, purchased with his first apprenticeship paycheck.

Today, Jakob dedicates about a third of his income to collecting. Based in the southwest German city of Freiburg, located near France and Switzerland, he stays deeply engaged with all three art scenes.

“I don’t buy for my living room,” he said. Instead, he prioritizes research and exhibiting, such as the collection show “Anti Heroes” at the Villa Merkel in Esslingen, Germany, which is now open. One highlight is Thomas Liu Le Lann’s 7-meter sculpture Shion (2021) from his “Soft Heroes” series, an acquisition that helped to inspire Jakob’s fascination with today’s antiheroes—“not triumphant, but ambivalent, overwhelmed, and multifaceted.”

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All the Art You Need to See During Hong Kong Art Week 2026 https://ift.tt/fgNvezJ

Art Basel Hong Kong may be the headline event of Hong Kong Art Week, but it’s hardly the whole story. To identify the must-see art destinations across the city this March, I asked the people who know it best: local gallery and fair directors, museum leaders, curators, and other art-world figures embedded in Hong Kong’s cultural landscape.

Their recommendations pointed to the expected tentpole fairs, but also to the places that lend the scene its distinctive character—from a former police compound–turned cultural hub, to a fast-growing gallery district on the South Side, to an esteemed nonprofit celebrating 30 years.

Here are 10 standout art destinations for Hong Kong Art Week 2026. We’ve also made this Google Maps list with the sites below and more that you can save to your phone to help navigate on the ground.

1. Art Basel Hong Kong

Wan Chai | Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road

“Hong Kong has long been shaped by the exchange of cultures, perspectives, and ideas, and that feels especially meaningful as we look ahead to the 2026 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong,” said fair director Angelle Siyang-Le. “This year, we are focused on bringing refreshed energy and perspective to the fair,” she added, pointing to several new initiatives: Echoes, a sector focused on works created in the past five years; a fresh approach to Encounters, the sector focused on large-scale works, this year with an off-site presentation at Pacific Place, including a new installation by Christine Sun Kim; and the arrival of Zero10, the digital art sector that made a splash at Art Basel Miami Beach this past December.

Set on the harborfront, the Convention and Exhibition Centre is ideally situated, with sweeping views. The fair runs from March 27 to March 29, with invitation-only VIP days on March 25 and 26.

2. Art Central

Central | Central Harbourfront, 9 Lung Wo Road

Art Central is one of the week’s best destinations for discovering new art and artists. Now in its 11th edition, the fair has sharpened its identity as a more emerging-focused counterpart to Art Basel, with over 100 galleries participating. This year’s edition launches a new Creative Programme curated by Zoie Yung that’s centered on digital culture and embodiment. Yung highlights two commissioned works in particular that are not to be missed: Kaitlyn Hau’s Recursive Feedback Ritual 0.01 (2026), a real-time computational sculpture she describes as “some of the most cutting-edge experimentation in the field,” and Chaklam Ng’s Shadow Work (2026), a performance investigating “the evolving relationship between performer and instrument beyond musical output.” The fair runs from March 25 to March 29, with an invitation-only VIP day on March 24.

3. Wong Chuk Hang Galleries

Southern District | Various locations

“I always love spending time in the South Side,” said Siyang-Le, “it’s honestly one of the most energizing art neighborhoods in Hong Kong. When you wander around Wong Chuk Hang and Tin Wan, you really feel the mix of galleries, studios, and all the activity happening at once.” She noted that #SouthsideSaturday is a particularly good time to visit, as the area is “buzzing with openings, artist talks, and special programs throughout the day.”

Wong Chuk Hang ranks high among many locals we spoke to. Once industrial, it’s now one of Hong Kong’s fastest-evolving art districts. Pascal de Sarthe—whose gallery De Sarthe is presenting a historical show of Jack Tworkov featuring works from his pioneering years among the Abstract Expressionists—noted the ideal moment to visit the area is Late Night Southside on March 24 (8–11 p.m.), when more than 28 galleries open for an evening of art and conversation.

Indeed, the neighborhood offers an exciting concentration of galleries, and the shows not to miss this year also include Etsu Egami at Tang Contemporary Art, Les Lalanne at Ben Brown Fine Arts, and a group show of 13 artists called “Resonance” at Whitestone Gallery. Koei Shiraishi, CEO of Whitestone Gallery, noted that his gallery relocated to this area last August and has seen its rapid growth. He recommends stopping nearby at the Arca for a drink or a light meal, where gallery artist Wu Shuang is presenting new work.

One of the most talked-about shows is “The Uncanny” at Art Intelligence Global, opening March 21 and presenting works by Yayoi Kusama, Robert Gober, and Louise Bourgeois, among others.

Zoie Yung also recommends alternative spaces Current Plans and GOLD by Serakai Studio as sites offering “encounters and experiments rarely found elsewhere in the city’s institutional landscape.”

4. West Kowloon Cultural District

Across the harbor, give yourself proper time for museum visits. The ferry from Central takes eight minutes—and, as Claudia Albertini, senior director of MASSIMODECARLO Hong Kong noted, “cruising the harbor from one shore to the other has turned a museum visit even more pleasant, especially at springtime.”

The headline stop is M+, where “Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now” is on view through August 9—and was the most recommended show from our experts. Suhanya Raffel, director of M+, calls it “simply a must.” It’s the most comprehensive survey in Asia to date of the leading South Korean artist and travels from Seoul’s Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. M+ is also presenting “Shanshui: Echoes and Signals,” which Pascal de Sarthe describes as “a profound exploration of the relationship between landscape and humanity in our post-industrial, digital age.” And Angelle Siyang-Le also recommends the new Robert Rauschenberg show, focused on the artist’s time in Asia. “This exhibition exemplifies how Hong Kong has been an influential melting pot for artists for decades,” she said.

A short walk away, the Hong Kong Palace Museum is well worth a visit. The current show “Heavenly Horses,” celebrating the Year of the Horse in 2026, presents 100 artworks, from the 13th century to the present, tracing the rich history of horse painting.

5. Central Gallery District

Central | H Queen’s, Pedder Building, W Place, and nearby

For concentrated gallery-hopping, Central is a go-to neighborhood. Standout shows in the area include Nicole Eisenman at Hauser & Wirth, El Anatsui at White Cube, Walter Price at David Zwirner, and Dinh Q. Lê at 10 Chancery Lane. Meanwhile, Gagosian presents Mary Weatherford’s first solo show in Asia, and Pearl Lam Galleries showcases works by Qiu Anxiong, whose paintings, the gallery notes, “depict a dystopian natural world inhabited by displaced animals and human figures.” MASSIMODECARLO, for its part, is celebrating 10 years in Hong Kong with new work by Lily Stockman inspired by the Buddhist Zen master Shitou Xiqian.

Also nearby is Sotheby’s Maison, which is presenting “beyond the abstract,” a major exhibition tracing the history of abstraction. The show features significant works by Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, and others, paired with African and ancient sculpture dating back 3,000 years. “While many may associate abstraction with contemporary art, this exhibition challenges that notion and traces the earliest forms of abstract expression,” noted Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia.

6. Tai Kwun

Central | 10 Hollywood Road

Locals consistently recommend a visit to Tai Kwun, the former Central Police Station that was transformed into a cultural destination in 2018. “Not only a space to experience history, art, and culture, but also a pulsing heart at the center of Hong Kong,” Albertini noted.

During Art Week, Tai Kwun Contemporary hosts live programming alongside a new exhibition, “Stay Connected: Supplying the Globe,” which brings together works by 40 artists who reflect on globalization and personal histories, considering China’s role internationally amid its rapid economic growth.

7. HKwalls

Central and Western | PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, and Chater Road

One of the week’s more playful and distinctly local projects is the nonprofit street art festival HKwalls, now in its 11th edition, running March 21 to29 at PMQ. This year, more than 20 artists from 14 countries will create large-scale murals, live performances, and digital projections across the Central and Western District.

New this year is Art on the Move, which, as Maria Wong, managing director of HKwalls, noted, is “turning delivery trucks into canvases and exhibition spaces.” Six artists will be “decking out” the interior and exterior of the trucks from March 21 to 28 at PMQ, with a grand finale on Chater Road on March 29, in partnership with Hongkong Land’s Art Walk in Central.

8. Para Site

Quarry Bay | 677 King’s Road

This year marks 30 years of Para Site, one of Asia’s most important nonprofit contemporary art spaces. The anniversary exhibition “Site-seeing” revisits a show of the same name from the institution’s first year, in 1996. “While the original exhibition explored questions of urban space, memory, and art-making, this iteration explores how these concerns have evolved as we navigate today’s cities,” Albertini noted.

During a week dominated by fairs and commercial openings, Para Site offers a chance to plug into the city’s own art history.

9. Pavilion and WEEKENDERS Tiny Little Art Fair

Central | Various locations

Two new satellite fairs are worth tracking alongside the week’s larger events. In the H Queen’s, find Pavilion, a new alternative fair founded by Willem Molesworth and Ysabelle Cheung of PHD Group, who previously ran two well-received editions of Supper Club. Pavilion is conceived as a viable platform for younger, more experimental galleries. And a short walk away, WEEKENDERS Tiny Little Art Fair, organized by Sansiao Gallery HK at Wilson House (19–27 Wyndham Street), brings together seven galleries and dealers from Hong Kong and Japan.

10. Oil Street Art Space (Oi!)

North Point | 12 Oil Street

For a stop slightly outside the main rush, Zoie Yung recommends Oil Street Art Space (Oi!) in North Point. The community-focused venue aims to make art relevant to local audiences. Yung noted that the curator Klaus Biesenbach singled it out at the 2025 Museum Summit as “one of Hong Kong’s most compelling cultural spaces, recognizing its ability to meaningfully connect community engagement with contemporary artistic practices.”

Not far from Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, Yung adds, “the area offers a relaxed atmosphere with gardens and several cafés nearby, making it an ideal spot for a quiet picnic and a moment of greenery within the city.”

Bonus

If you’re looking for an early morning break from art, Suhanya Raffel has you covered: “Go to the Hong Kong Flower Market in Mong Kok, which opens around 7 a.m. and duck in for some delicious steamed dumplings at one of the many local HK eateries around the area.”

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/l04F9oD