HONG KONG.- M+ announced an exciting array of exhibitions, moving image programmes, and international collaborations in 2026. These programmes underscore how M+ is redefining the cultural landscape of the region and beyond.

Special Exhibitions

Following its acclaimed debut at Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, in September 2025, the Special Exhibition Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now will open in the M+ West Gallery in March 2026. Co-organised by M+ and Leeum Museum of Art, the exhibition is a comprehensive survey of Lee Bul’s pioneering practice. Lee (South Korean, born 1964) is one of the most important artists to emerge from Asia in recent decades. The exhibition highlights her ongoing investigations into technology, utopian modernity, and humanity’s aspirations and failures in pursuit of progress. The Seoul presentation has welcomed more than 30,000 visitors in its first month. After M+, the exhibition will tour to Europe and North America.

Design Ah! Experience the Wonder of Everyday Design invites visitors to discover the role design plays in our daily lives. It is based on the popular Japanese television programme Design Ah! neo on Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Through hands-on games, interactive installations, and immersive audiovisual experiences, this family-friendly exhibition reveals how design influences our behaviours, fosters connections, and sparks creativity. Opening in the M+ Main Hall Gallery in June 2026, this is the first international presentation of the Design Ah! exhibition.

Myths, Monsters, and Manga: The Art of Fantasy in Asia explores fantastical imagery in Asian visual culture from the nineteenth century to the present day. Tracing its evolution from pre-modern traditions and early Asian Surrealism to Japanese manga, anime, and contemporary global digital aesthetics, the exhibition uncovers how artists across centuries used these subjects and styles to respond to shifting sociopolitical realities. The exhibition will open in the M+ West Gallery in October 2026.

Other Exhibitions

Ryuichi Sakamoto | seeing sound, hearing time

This exhibition celebrates the legacy of composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japanese, 1952–2023). It centres on async–immersion (2023), a large-scale installation created with artist Shiro Takatani (Japanese, born 1963). Inspired by Sakamoto’s 2017 album async, the work invites viewers into a three-dimensional, immersive sonic experience, in which visual compositions of Sakamoto’s instruments and studio objects are displayed across a large LED screen. The exhibition will open in The Studio at M+ in February 2026.

Dial-A-Poem Hong Kong

This is the latest edition of Dial-A-Poem, a groundbreaking project established in 1968 by poet John Giorno (American, 1936–2019) to bring poetry into everyday life. It features approximately thirty newly recorded readings by local poets in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. People can listen to the poems via telephones in the gallery or by calling a local phone number. The exhibition will open in the M+ Focus Gallery in April 2026.

Heri Dono and Wael Shawky: Chorus

This exhibition brings together two thought-provoking works from the M+ Collection by Heri Dono (Indonesian, born 1960) and Wael Shawky (Egyptian, born 1971). Drawing on mythology, folk tales, oral storytelling, and theatre, both artists explore how civilisations evolve and intertwine. Their works connect the past to the present while envisioning alternative futures beyond the relentless drive of economic progress and modernisation. The exhibition will open in the M+ Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries in May 2026.

Janet Cardiff: The Forty Part Motet

The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of ‘Spem in Alium’, by Thomas Tallis 1556) (2001) by Janet Cardiff (Canadian, born 1957) is one of the most acclaimed sound installations of the twenty-first century. It is a reinterpretation of composer Thomas Tallis’s (English, 1505–1585) sixteenth-century sacred motet ‘Spem in Alium’ (Hope in Any Other). The installation plays forty individually recorded singers from the Salisbury Cathedral Choir through forty speakers arranged in an oval, one voice per speaker. The work creates a spatial experience of the music as the sound moves around the room before converging as a full choir. This is the first project realised through the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between M+ and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, signed in February 2025. The exhibition will open in The Studio at M+ in August 2026.

Herzog & de Meuron: In Focus

This exhibition highlights a significant donation to the M+ Collections from Herzog & de Meuron (established Switzerland, 1978), the world-renowned architecture firm who designed the M+ building. The exhibition also celebrates M+’s fifth anniversary in November 2026. It features models, drawings, and material samples from urban planning projects as well as built and unbuilt works in China, including M+ (2013–2020), Tai Kwun (2006–2018), and the National Stadium in Beijing (2002–2008). The display takes the form of the KABINETT, a wooden vitrine system that the firm developed for their foundation in Basel. The exhibition will open in the M+ Focus Gallery in September 2026.

Fairytales: Selections from the Takahashi Ryutaro and M+ Collections (working title)

This exhibition features works from the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, the leading private collection of contemporary Japanese art, together with the M+ Collections. The show explores issues of social and individual psychology following the collapse of Japan’s bubble economy in the 1980s. It features works by artists such as Aida Makoto, Ikeda Manabu, Konoike Tomoko, Murakami Takashi, Nara Yoshitomo, and Yanagi Miwa, many shown in Hong Kong for the first time. Seen together, these artworks offer a compelling look into the imaginative and introspective dimensions of contemporary Japanese art. The exhibition will open in the M+ Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries in December 2026.

Overseas and Touring Exhibitions

M+ continues to collaborate with leading museums worldwide, building on its mission to foreground Asian contemporary artists and makers and strengthen its role as a cultural bridge. Since its opening in November 2021, M+ has signed MOUs with fourteen museums and cultural institutions around the world. These partnerships support co-produced exhibitions, publications, and touring projects that bring M+ to the global stage. One example is Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now, co-organised with Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, which will continue its international tour to Europe and North America after the M+ presentation in 2026.

M+’s first Special Exhibition, Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, toured to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain in 2023 and Serralves Museum in Portugal in 2024. Following this success, the critically acclaimed and award-winning Special Exhibition I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, the first full-scale retrospective of Chinese American architect Ieoh Ming Pei (1917–2019), toured to Power Station of Art in Shanghai from April to August 2025, where it was very well received. The exhibition will tour to Qatar Museums Gallery – Al Riwaq, Doha, from the end of October 2025 to February 2026.

M+ is also collaborating with the Vitra Design Museum, Germany, and the Geoffrey Bawa Trust on the exhibition Geoffrey Bawa: Architecture for the Senses, the first major retrospective dedicated to architect Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lankan, 1919–2003). The exhibition traces key threads in Bawa’s work, such as his interdisciplinary collaborations, the role of ecology and social engagement in his work, and architecture’s relationship to colonial and postcolonial discourses. It will open at the Vitra Design Museum in September 2026, after which it will tour to M+ in June 2027.

M+ Moving Image Programmes

M+ Restored is an initiative supported by CHANEL that celebrates the creative experimentation and technical innovation of the Hong Kong New Wave film movement. By restoring and presenting nine feature-length films, the project amplifies global recognition of the city’s rich cinematic heritage. The first three restorations were completed earlier this year, and they have begun touring major film festivals. The Arch (1968) by T’ang Shushuen will be featured at BFI Southbank in London this November. This follows on the heels of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May and subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and Viennale 2025. The System (1979) by Peter Yung will be presented at the San Diego Asian Film Festival in November 2025, alongside The Arch (1968). Love Massacre (1981) by Patrick Tam will be screened in late October and early November 2025 at the Tokyo International Film Festival, one of Asia’s most prestigious events in the field. All three titles have been selected for the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival this November, where M+ Restored films will be shown together at a festival for the first time.

The Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival returns to M+ in May 2026 for its third edition, which focuses on the theme of space. Through screenings, exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops, and live acts, the three-day festival explores how artists and filmmakers engage with physical, psychological, and machine-generated worlds, expanding the boundaries of spatial and cinematic experiences. The festival is supported by M+ Major Partner CHANEL.

In 2026, the M+ Facade will feature a series of site-specific commissions, transforming one of the world’s largest media facades into a dynamic canvas for visual experimentation. The museum will collaborate with Art Basel for the fifth consecutive year to co-commission an artist to activate the M+ Facade in spring 2026. Autumn 2026 will feature Winds of Hong Kong (working title) by Refik Anadol (Turkish, born 1985). Winds of Hong Kong is an AI-driven ‘data sculpture’ that visualises wind patterns across the city in real time. The spectacular work captures the energy of Hong Kong’s natural and urban landscape, revealing how AI can uncover hidden patterns. The commission is supported by Presenting Sponsor Julius Baer.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, reflecting on the museum’s trajectory, says, ‘2026 marks a defining chapter in M+’s evolution into a global cultural institution, as it celebrates its fifth anniversary. Through meticulously curated programmes, international partnerships, and touring exhibitions, the museum continues to expand the discourse of Asian contemporary art and visual culture. Our upcoming exhibitions and moving image programmes will further elevate M+ as one of the most innovative voices in the region, engaging with audiences across borders and generations.’