Hong Kong, the new art giant

To discover Hong Kong today is to experience a dense, vertical city where the flow of automobile traffic rubs shoulders with that of pedestrians, who often use wide, elevated footbridges spanning crossroads. This cosmopolitan city which has made efficiency its motto – particularly as a global financial center – offers an impressive collection of skyscrapers. Some, iconic, signed by big names in architecture such as IM Pei, Zaha Hadid or Norman Foster, form a skyline photogenic that can be seen from the mainland part of the city (Kowloon and the New Territories). Topped with lush tropical vegetation at its summit, Hong Kong Island is bordered by popular beaches to the south and you can reach one of the tiny, still bucolic islands that also make up its territory in a few minutes by boat. This unique site in the world, as a “special administrative region of China” has its own currency and relative autonomy – there is no need to obtain a visa to go there.

A skillfully created art district

For anyone returning to Hong Kong after twenty years of absence, with the nostalgic atmosphere of the films of Wong Kar-wai or Johnnie To in mind, the urban and cultural metamorphosis seems astonishing. The city has indeed established itself over the last decade as one of the most exciting destinations in Asia for art lovers. Two converging dynamics are at the origin of this spectacular change. On the one hand, the market was structured with the launch in 2013 of the powerful Art Basel Hong Kong fair, while the auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, had been established there for several years. On the other hand, the local government wanted to provide itself with a rich cultural offering thanks, in particular, to the implementation of a district dedicated to this objective, the West Kowloon Cultural District. This vast real estate program occupies no less than 40 hectares on the seafront, according to a development plan mixing museums, performance halls, public promenade, shops, offices and other infrastructures, including hotels. While at the beginning of the 2000s, there were no international art galleries on the island and its museums with their dilapidated scenography were unattractive, rehabilitation projects are being carried out at full speed, while leading institutions have sprung up from the ground. Magnetized by this gateway to Asia, between 2011 and 2018, major international galleries, from Gagosian to David Zwirner via White Cube, Perrotin, Pace and Hauser & Wirth, rushed to open branches there. In 2018, a new cultural hub appeared in the heart of the business district, in the nerve center of the city, where the Tai Kwun Culture & Arts project took over an abandoned colonial complex (a former police station, the central judiciary and a prison), transformed into a contemporary art and heritage center. The operation was financed thanks to subsidies from the Hong Kong Jockey Club – horse racing organizer and key philanthropic player in the city – which covers the operating costs. The remarkable Tai Kwun Contemporary art center, which organizes six to eight exhibitions per year, is frequented by both Hong Kongers and passing tourists.

A remarkable cultural facility

At the same time, on the mainland of Hong Kong, the outlines of the West Kowloon Cultural District began to take shape, first with its first “art pavilions”, then with its sculpture park. Three years later, in November 2021, the colossal M+ building, dedicated to visual arts, design and architecture, opened its doors there, causing a sensation with its facade of more than 100 meters wide which serves as a giant screen for video works, specifically commissioned or from the museum’s collection. A true “digital lighthouse” visible from Victoria Harbour, on the opposite bank. In July 2022, the Hong Kong Palace Museum became, for its part, the local showcase of the immense collections of the Beijing Palace, of which it displays a selection of works of art and Chinese imperial objects. The establishment also regularly hosts world-class exhibitions in collaboration with major foreign museums – the Met in New York, the Musée d’Orsay, but also the Palace of Versailles, the Museum of Decorative Arts, and even Egyptian institutions, which have lent, in 2025, some of their historical treasures. Also in West Kowloon, the Performing Art Center, currently under construction, a vast complex dedicated to dance and theater, should be inaugurated by 2026-2027. And it’s not over. On the island, the Oil Street Art Space (called Oi!), a former royal club transformed into an experimental art space, programs contemporary art exhibitions and commissions emerging artists for site-specific installations. As for the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the superbly renovated historic public museum, it has once again attracted many visitors since 2019. “In a decade, Hong Kong has built a complete cultural ecosystem with major museums, art schools… Even on a logistical level, we now have very professional transport companies, which was not the case before,” relates Tobias Berger. This influential “curator”, who played a key role in the opening and recognition of Hong Kong on the international contemporary art scene, has just founded a brand new “art salon”, Gold, in a former jewelry store, with businessman and patron Benjamin Cha. Alongside the independent art space Current Plans, and a handful of galleries (Antenna Space, Blindspot, etc.), Gold is one of the flagships of Wong Chuk Hang, a former business district that has become in just a few months an artistic hive duly mapped by tourist brochures. Because art is a precious source of oxygen in this city where freedom of expression has suffered numerous attacks in recent years.