Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026

CollectingAdd to myFTGet instant alerts for this topicManage your delivery channels hereRemove from myFTSix shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026From exquisite horse paintings to Lee Bul’s failed utopias, here are the local artistic highlights away from HKCEC‘The Qianlong Emperor Holding an Arrow’ (1742) by Giuseppe Castiglione, being shown at the Heavenly Horses exhibition © The Palace MuseumSix shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on x (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on facebook (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on linkedin (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on x (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on facebook (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on linkedin (opens in a new window)Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Phoebe EvansPublishedMarch 20 2026Jump to comments sectionPrint this pageUnlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Heavenly Horses: Masterpieces from the Palace MuseumHong Kong Palace Museum, March 20 to March 17 2027Detail from ‘Three Horses’ (1342) by Jiufeng Daoren, being shown at the Heavenly Horses exhibition © The Palace MuseumWhen 18th century Italian missionary Giuseppe Castiglione arrived in the Qing court, he encountered a culture that had been painting horses for centuries. He remained for over five decades, working as a court painter for the Chinese emperor. On vast silk scrolls, Castiglione detailed figures and horses, while Chinese artists painted the surrounding landscapes, a collaboration exemplified in “The Qianlong Emperor Holding an Arrow”. The sumptuous work features in Heavenly Horses, a show of nearly 100 horse paintings spanning the 13th-14th century Yuan dynasty to the 20th century. Castiglione is shown alongside Jiufeng Daoren’s “Three Horses” (14th century), a rare silk handscroll of envoys presenting tribute horses to the imperial court. A Grade One national treasure, the work will be on view for just one month before returning to Beijing for at least three years of conservation rest. www.hkpm.org.hkLee Bul: From 1998 to NowM+, to August 9An installation view of Lee Bul’s exhibition ‘From Me, Belongs to You Only’ © Osamu Watanabe, courtesy of the artist and Mori Art MuseumFractured, glittering, monumental — South Korean artist Lee Bul’s installations feel like civilisations unravelling. The daughter of political dissidents, she returns repeatedly to the theme of failed utopias. A major retrospective co-curated by M+ and Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art gathers more than 200 works from the late 1990s to the present. At its centre is Lee’s series begun in 2005, Mon grand récit — sprawling landscapes of epoxy resin with structures referencing modernist architecture and dystopian fiction. Each installation is shown with drawings and preparatory maquettes, revealing how Lee builds her imagined worlds. The title of her series, which translates as “my grand narrative”, is deliberately ironic. “There’s an intentional shuffling of time and space in these works,” Lee says. “I’m trying to reveal something about our present moment.”mplus.org.hkAt 25: Artists’ Early Worlds, Part IAsia Art Archive, to June 27Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang in 1985, one of the many archival photographs at this Asia Art Archive exhibition © Courtesy of the artistAsia Art Archive marks its 25th anniversary by asking eight contemporary artists the question: what were you doing at 25? The answers emerge through archival photographs and early artworks. In a photograph taken in 1985, Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang stands in front of a drawing made with friends — cartoonish, energetic, naive in the best sense — one of his peers pulling a face from behind. In another snapshot, Singaporean artist and filmmaker Ho Tzu Nyen sits cross-legged on the floor, scissors in hand, surrounded by newspaper clippings and scattered paper. The exhibition is imbued with the scrappy energy of an art school studio, when ideas and skills and friendships form.aaa.org.hkStay Connected: Supplying the GlobeTai Kwun, to May 31Installation view of the ‘Stay Connected’ exhibition at Tai Kwun, featuring Li Liao’s installation ‘Consumption’ © Kwan Sheung ChiIn 2012, Chinese artist Li Liao spent 45 days working on the production line at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, the time needed to earn enough money to buy an iPad. His piece “Consumption” places the device on a pedestal alongside his framed contract and a factory uniform. It is one of more than 70 works in Stay Connected, the second chapter of Tai Kwun’s survey of art in China since 2008. The exhibition explores the country’s role as the world’s manufacturing centre, asking what it costs, in human and environmental terms, to produce the objects sustaining modern life. taikwun.hkSite-seeingPara Site, to June 14A still from Bo Wang and Lu Pan’s 2019 documentary ‘Many Undulating Things’, part of Para Site’s ‘Site-seeing’ © Photo courtesy of Bo Wang and Lu PanHong Kong’s urban landscape has transformed over three decades as redevelopment alters the city’s public spaces. In 1996, Para Site gallery staged its founding exhibition Site-seeing, examining how artists might respond to the changing feel of urban life. Thirty years on, the institution returns to the question with nine artists and artist groups shaped by booming metropolises, from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. Among them are Bo Wang and Lu Pan’s “Many Undulating Things” — a documentary built from footage of Hong Kong’s shopping centres, port warehouses and overpopulated tower blocks — and Anna Sew Hoy’s “Growing Ruins”, hand-built clay arches tangled in wire mesh. “The exhibition offers an opportunity to re-examine what urban development means for the region,” explains co-curator Junni Chen, “and how it textures our everyday lives.”www.para-site.artChan Wai-lap: Jeremy’s BathhouseOi!, to August 30Whether Roman, Japanese, Turkish or Chinese, bathhouses are places of ritual and encounter. Hong Kong artist Chan Wai-lap has spent years researching bathing cultures, travelling from New York to Istanbul and beyond to swim. At Oi!, he extends his Swimming series with an installation of more than 1,200 handcrafted tiles: crimson floors, a heart-shaped pool, colonnades of ceramics, a chequered wall of pink glass. “The swimming pool to me is not just a sports facility that contains water, but a public space containing stories,” Chan says. “It’s filled with people’s memories and emotions.”www.apo.hkFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morningReuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments sectionExplore the seriesREAD MOREArt Basel Hong Kong 2026How to dress like an emperor — according to a connoisseur of rare Chinese textilesCurrently reading:Six shows to see during Art Basel Hong Kong 2026Shahzia Sikander: ‘I’ve carried the erasure of feminine narratives’Is Hong Kong’s art market (slowly) bouncing back?‘I see everything in 3D’: Christine Sun Kim on echo chambers, sign language and Deaf lifeCan the last bamboo artisans of Hong Kong survive the modern age?How to dress like an emperor — according to a connoisseur of rare Chinese textilesA guide to Hong Kong’s best under-the-radar art spacesSee all 9 stories Follow the topics in this article Visual Arts Add to myFT Collecting Add to myFT Art Basel Add to myFT Hong Kong Add to myFT Comments