HONG KONG.- The 2025 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong will bring together 240 exhibitors from 42 countries and territories, including 23 newcomers, presenting artistic practices that reflect the show’s commitment to global diversity and regional representation. More than half of the participating galleries are from the Asia-Pacific region, highlighting Art Basel’s vital role as a platform for the region’s dynamic art scene. The extensive week-long offsite and onsite public program will further underscore Hong Kong’s role as a major cultural hub.
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Encounters
Encounters, the show sector dedicated to large-scale projects will feature 18 large-scale installations by artists from a broad spectrum of geographies.
Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor and titled ‘As the World Turns’, Encounters will be structured across four platforms: Passage, foregrounding themes of cultural resonance, resilience, and storytelling; Alteration, delving into the subversion of abstraction and materiality; Charge, exploring the intersections of digital and physical realms; The Return, homing in on mythology, spirituality, and the cyclical nature of existence.
The sector will also extend beyond the show floor with an offsite Encounters project. Fourteen works included in this year’s edition will be made especially for the fair. This will be Glass-Kantor’s last edition as curator. Highlights include:
• As part of Passage, three monumental paintings by Pacita Abad, showcasing the late Filipino-American artist’s ambitious exploration of iconographies and techniques from the Global South, presented by Silverlens and Tina Kim Gallery
• As part of Alteration, a suite of 30 brass sculptures by Hong Kong-born artist Christopher K. Ho, drawing from the visual language of Modernism to create a playful visual enigma, presented by Property Holdings Development Group
• As part of Charge, a new work by Lu Yang, for which the Tokyo-based artist will stage a pop-up store selling artworks produced by a digital avatar named DOKU, presented by de Sarthe and COMA
• As part of Charge as well, an installation by Chinese-born, New York-based artist Frank Wang Yefeng, recreating an abstracted garden inspired by a trip the artist took to the Gobi Desert and exploring the concept of nomadism, presented by Vanguard Gallery
• As part of The Return, a project by Vajiko Chachkhiani, a work that evokes the eternal cycles of migration and displacement, reflecting on the recurring dynamics of ‘them and us’ that shape human history, presented by SCAI The Bathhouse
• At Hong Kong’s Pacific Place Park Court, an offsite Encounters project by Zurich-based artist Monster Chetwynd, which will combine sculpture and performance, inspired by cinematic choreography and metamorphosis, presented by Galerie Gregor Staiger, Massimodecarlo, and Sadie Coles HQ, supported by Swire Properties, the Official Partner of offsite Encounters
Kabinett
A record number of 36 galleries will participate in Kabinett, the sector for thematic presentations within galleries’ main booths, with a strong focus on solo projects from the Asia-Pacific region and the Asian diaspora. Highlights include:
• A series of gestural ceramics and paintings by the late American artist Martin Wong, made between the late 1960s and early 1970s in the San Francisco Bay Area, presented by P.P.O.W.
• A group presentation of ink paintings bringing together work by artists from the post-Mao period, including Liu Dan, Li Jin, and Yang Jiechang, showcasing the diversity of approaches to the medium, presented by Ink Studio
• Ann Leda Shapiro’s ‘Manifestation of Qi’, a series of figurative watercolors in which the American artist explores life's intricate systems and landscapes of mind and body, presented by Axel Vervoordt Gallery
• A suite of cardboard sculptures and drawings by the late Vũ Dân Tân, one of Vietnam’s pioneering contemporary art figures, exploring the concept of garment as armor, presented by 10 Chancery Lane Gallery
• A presentation of masterful ceramic works by Takahiro Kondo, which the Japanese artist made using his patented ‘Silver Mist’ technique and exploring the shapeshifting qualities of water, presented by Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
• A group of new paintings by Pei Yanqing, executed in a muted palette articulated around indigo and depicting oneiric scenes, anchored in the New York-based artist’s training in Chinese painting, presented by Hive Center for Contemporary Art
The MGM Discoveries Art Prize
The MGM Discoveries Art Prize, a newly established award for the 2025 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong aimed at supporting emerging artists and fostering new talent, has unveiled its jury of esteemed international experts. They are Aaron Cezar, Founding Director of Delfina Foundation, Antonia Carver, Director of Art Jameel, Christopher K. Ho, Executive Director of Asia Art Archive, Park Seungho, Chairman of PARKSEOBO FOUNDATION, and X Zhu-Nowell, Artistic Director of Rockbund Art Museum.
The shortlisted artists for the inaugural MGM Discoveries Prize are Shin Min, represented by P21; Kayode Ojo, represented by Sweetwater; and Saju Kunhan, represented by Tarq. The winner will be announced during the show at the MGM lounge and will receive a cash prize of USD 50,000 to be shared between the artist and their gallery, along with the opportunity for the artist to exhibit their work in Macau.
Film
Hong Kong’s independent art institution Para Site will steer the curatorial direction of the 2025 Art Basel Hong Kong Film Program. Titled ‘In Space, It’s Always Night’, this year’s program is inspired by themes addressed in Isadora Neves Marques’ Vampires in Space (2022), a feature film which will be presented during a special screening.
The Film Program will feature seven screenings bringing together the works of 30 artists. It will showcase a selection of short films that reflect on ecological interdependence, resilience amid both physical and mental societal constraints, human desires, and an inquiry into the technological realities shaping humankind’s increasingly hybrid and interconnected existence.
Echoing Para Site’s curatorial direction, collaborations with cultural video channel Nowness Asia and Videotage – one of the region’s leading non-profit organizations dedicated to video art – will explore topics foregrounded in the special screening of Neves Marques’ work as well, with Videotage dedicating its selection to Hong Kong artists.
Highlights include:
• A special screening of Vampires in Space (2022) by Isadora Neves Marques, which follows a family of vampires traveling to an Earth-like exoplanet, reflecting the Portuguese artist’s interest in Queer identity and family structures, presented by Umberto di Marino
• Thai artist Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s ANG48 (2022), a film that blends archival material from Asian film history, creating an intelligent operating system embodied as a half-human, half-golden-snail figure, presented by Bangkok CityCity Gallery
• Corpo Fechado—The Devil’s Work (2018), a film by Colombian artist Carlos Motta retracing the story of José Francisco Pereira, an enslaved West African man from the 18th century who after creating a syncretic religion was tried for sorcery, presented by mor charpentier
• German artist Sung Tieu’s Memory Dispute (2017), a short film shedding light on forms of violent alteration, such as the effects of Napalm on Vietnam’s environment and people, as well as the process of skin bleaching, presented by Emalin
• London-based artist duo Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings’ Good Society (2024), a work exploring Queer life in Berlin during the Weimar Republic and its contemporary echoes, based on the memories of Hastings’ grandmother, presented by Arcadia Missa
• Cao Shu’s Phantom Sugar (2023), a film in which the Chinese artist takes AI-controlled vertical farming as a starting point to sketch out a speculative future in which plant respiration can be predicted, presented by ShanghART Gallery
• The program by Videotage, titled ‘The Pixelated You’ features work by five Hong Kong-based artists, Jolene Mok, Wong Winsome Dumalagan, Lam Wing Sze, Tsui Hou Lam and Jess Lau. They explore and imagine others through self-recorded footage, segments from other sources, fictional plots, and reconstructed materials
• By Nowness Asia the films in ‘Ghostly Metaphors’ deploy various metaphors as threads linking the past, present, and future with works by Kitty Yeung, Riar Rizaldi, Yuyan Wang, and Dongnan Chen
The Film program is freely accessible to the public.
Conversations
Conversations at Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 will bring together leading figures to examine the forces driving the world of art and culture today. The panels will cover topics ranging from the evolution of Southeast Asian patronage and artists' engagement with AI, to the artistic dimensions of rave culture and the links between art, design, and architecture. The program will also include an offsite panel in Shenzhen focusing on contemporary living with art in today’s Greater Bay Area, in partnership with Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB).
Highlights include:
• What are artists learning from tech and AI today? with Taiwanese-American filmmaker and multimedia artist Shu Lea Cheang, moderated by Chinese American artist Tishan Hsu
• How is arts patronage evolving in Southeast Asia? with Purat Osathanugrah, Chairman and President of Dib Bangkok Museum of Contemporary Art
• Living traditions: remixing heritage to challenge old stories, with artists Shao Fan and Citra Sasmita, moderated by fellow artist Jordan Nassar
• Hybrid Architectures: when art meets design, with architect Kulapat Yantrasast, moderated by Marisa Yiu, Co-founder & Executive Director of Design Trust.
• A performance by Pedro Wonaeamirri, a senior cultural leader on the Tiwi Islands (now part of the Northern Territories, Australia) and musician Mayunkiki, a member of the Ainu Indigenous ethnic group (who reside in Northern Japan and Southeastern Russia), followed by a discussion with Aichi Triennale curatorial advisor Professor Ishikura Toshiaki, associate professor in the Department of Arts & Roots at Akita University of art and Alexie Glass-Kantor, curator of Encounters
Onsite Conversations are freely accessible to the public.
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