Top Exhibitions to See in Hong Kong this Week

With Art Basel and Art Central happening in Hong Kong this week, we’re sharing our top exhibitions at art spaces around the city.

Gagosian
Katharina Grosse: “Touching How and Why and Where”
March 21—May 6
In “Touching How and Why and Where,” Gagosian is presenting a suite of new studio paintings from the German artist Katharina Grosse. Abstracted canvases in great proportions, Grosse’s works on view follow her use of sprayed pigments, which are blasted across her subject of choice—which sometimes include architectural interiors, panels, or objects. Painted with a process that focuses just as much on the act of painting as the final product, Grosse’s colorful works feature overlapping ribbons of bright hues that stretch from the top left to the bottom right of the canvas, made from continuous sweeping motions. Of the featured works, Grosse stated that “…Stencils worked as obstacles to the image. I have shifted my interest toward the free flow of color and its ambiguity.” 

Hauser & Wirth
Rashid Johnson: “Nudiustertian”
March 20—May 10
For Rashid Johnson’s first solo show in the Asian continent, Hauser & Wirth is presenting the exhibition “Nudiustertian,” which features all new works. Titled for an antiquated word pertaining to the very recent past, the artist is examining this time in his own practice through several suites of works (Bruise Paintings, Surrender Paintings, Seascape Paintings, and mosaics) that show the product of more recently-developed areas of his artistic oeuvre. At once tracking his own progress and mirroring the world around him, viewers can expect to see the artist examining themes like art history, identity, and critical history (among others) through the works on view—including a mosaic reminiscent of his “Anxious Men” series called Untitled Broken Men and a Bruise Painting entitled Last Days, which highlights the artist’s use of gesture in a repetitive motif that suggests the collective state of the present. 

Hong Kong Art Center
“The Collectors’ Choice Art Exhibition”
March 23—April 10
The Hong Kong Arts Center and Hong Kong Art School are co-presenting “The Collectors’ Choice Art Exhibition” in the museum’s 5/F Pao Galleries from March 23—April 10. Curated by Shirky Chan, the show (conceived in advance of the upcoming Collectible Art Fair in Hong Kong) encompasses over 30 works from alumni artists spanning areas like painting, ceramics, photography, and installation, which are all owned by nine noteworthy local art collectors, including names like Carol Lee Mei Kuen, Dr. KK Chan, the Living Collection, and Dr. Joseph Pang. On view, visitors at the Hong Kong Arts Center can expect to find a selection of Sharon Cheung’s memorable oil portraits, ceramics by Daniel Chau, works from Li Ning, like a trio of stunning monochrome ink and acrylic compositions that have been mounted on canvases, and Alex Heung’s painting Eye – Consciousness, which depicts a bird in 3D glasses sitting on top of a cage-shaped earring. 

Massimo de Carlo
Aaron Garber-Maikovska: “Valley Step”
March 20—April 29
Aaron Garber-Maikovska engages in a painting practice where physicality cooperates with intuition. In “Valley Step,” his first exhibition at Massimo de Carlo’s Hong Kong gallery, Garber-Maikovska’s six featured compositions are born from the influences of the colors, life, and landscape of his home in Los Angeles. First applying a background to his canvas, the artist moves in with lively, irregular strokes that create a dark line—a sort of motif in the works on view. This is accompanied by erratic patches of layered color and bursts of markings which, when working together, create a field of emotion, movement, and life. 

Perrotin
Katherina Olschbaur: “Midnight Spill”
March 19—April 22
Katherina Olschbaur’s newest works—entrancing oil paintings on canvases of linen—can be found in the exhibition “Midnight Spill” at Perrotin’s Hong Kong Gallery. Olschbaur’s first solo exhibition in Asia (open March 19 through April 22) presents visitors with a viewing experience that could be described as “a journey from chaos to figuration,” where the artist’s perception of light and color is of the utmost importance. While rooted in realistic figurative depictions, Olschbaur’s portraits and scenarios employ a spectrum of markings from smooth shading to abstract lines and gestural scratches, almost to a cut-and-paste effect, where bits and pieces of the figures appear somewhat realistic, accented by patches of bright color or hectic brushstrokes. Often captured mid-act—eating, reading, lounging with an overturned glass—the artist’s subjects have the stately, distant quality of classical statues and portraiture. 

David Zwirner
Rirkrit Tiravanija: “The Shop”
March 20—May 6
David Zwirner presents its first exhibition of the artist Ririkrit Tiravanija from March 20—May 6, titled “The Shop”. Inspired by the Chinese sci-fi trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past, novels written by Liu Cixin surrounding tales of an alien invasion, the artist’s show of new works is a participatory exhibition that engages his viewers. Tiravanija works in a variety of mediums to bring his installations to life, including painting, video, photography, music, printmaking, and mixed-media assemblages, following a practice that looks at communal traditions like cooking—in particular Thai culinary traditions, which are centered around bringing people together. 

Pace
Zhang Xiaogang: “Lost”
March 21—May 4
Open at Pace from March 21—May 4, Zhang Xiaogang’s “Lost” is a show of works created over the past three years. Featuring painted compositions from Zhang’s “Light” series, viewers will find themselves meditating on these thoughtful, tranquil images, where the artist depicts simple snapshots of moments that are flooded with light—like in Light No. 5, where the colors of a hand holding a book are interrupted by a patch of glowing yellow. Also included is a suite of oil paintings (some on canvas and some on paper) from the “Jump” series, in which the artist’s subjects appear suspended in air, as though defying gravity. Through dynamic depictions of unremarkable or everyday occurrences, viewers might find themselves reminded of our shared humanity amid the turbulence of contemporary life, captured by the artist in a manner suggesting poetic fables of the present moment. 

M+
“Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now”
November 12, 2022—May 14, 2023
On the occasion of the museum’s first anniversary in November 2023, M+ in Hong Kong debuted its first special exhibition, a retrospective of the art world icon Yayoi Kusama. Entitled “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now,” more than 200 works have been sourced from museums and private collections across the world for this major presentation, which is open through May 14, 2023. Taking a novel approach to examining the legendary artist’s practice, viewers will find seven decades of work representing Kusama’s trademark aesthetic and how it has been employed in her quest to explore life, death, and a need for interconnectedness.

Co-curated by Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator at M+ and the independent curator Mika Yoshitake, the show has been presented in a layout that is both chronological and thematic. Aspects of Kusama’s entire oeuvre—installations, drawings, sculptures, collages, moving images, and more—are explored through the conceptual spaces looking at the themes Infinity, Accumulation, Radical Connectivity, Biocosmic, Death, and Force of Life, beginning with her earliest work to her most recent. The show also features three new works on view for the first time ever, including a commission titled Death of Nerves, a mirrored immersive environment from 2022 titled Dots Obsession—Aspiring to Heaven’s Love, and two Pumpkin sculptures, which greet visitors in the main hall on the ground floor.  

K11 MUSEA
Phyllida Barlow: “untitled: folly; baubles”
February 24—March 28
Now on view in the center Atrium of the cultural-retail destination, K11 MUSEA, is the Asian debut of Dame Phyllida Barlow’s 2017 installation untitled: folly; baubles. Commissioned for the 57th Venice Biennale by the British Council Barlow’s larger-than-life work (on view through March 28) was initially comprised of about 30 enormous colorful baubles—though around ten are featured in the traveling exhibition. The baubles saw the artist transforming commonplace materials like cardboard, plywood, cement, and fabric from everyday materials into an astounding, energetic sculptural presence. Following its first stop within the Asian continent, the installation will next be found at K11 ECOAST next year.