M+ announces its 2024 programme

Exhibition highlights include:
Noir & Blanc: A Story of Photography, co-presented with the French May Arts Festival and in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, the first major retrospective of the seminal architect I. M. Pei; and
Guo Pei, showcasing the early designs and key collections of China’s first couture artist

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture, located in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, announces the details of an exciting array of major exhibitions, M+ Facade commissions, and cinema programme for its third year since opening in November 2021. The 2024 programme covers a broad range of disciplines including visual art, design and architecture, moving image, photography, and fashion.

M+ Exhibition Programme in 2024

Special Exhibitions

The Special Exhibition programme includes I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, the first major retrospective of the seminal Chinese American architect I. M. Pei (1917–2019), opening in June 2024. Among the high-profile projects I. M. Pei realised over the seven decades of his celebrated career are Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the modernisation of the Grand Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery of Art East Building in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. To lend a contemporary lens to Pei’s work, M+ presents newly commissioned photographs of his iconic and lesser-known buildings by a new generation of photographers from around the world including South Ho, Naho Kubota, Lee Kuo-min, Giovanna Silva, Mohamed Somji, Tian Fangfang, and Yoneda Tomoko. Architectural models of Pei’s built and unbuilt projects will also be made in collaboration with architecture schools at The University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Another Special Exhibition Noir & Blanc: A Story of Photography, co-presented with the French May Arts Festival and in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), is M+’s first exhibition focused on photography, featuring a stellar list of the world’s greatest photographers drawn from the vast BnF collections and M+’s own collections from 1915 to 2019. Among the photographers featured are Man Ray, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, Valérie Belin, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The exhibition will open in March 2024.

The Special Exhibition collaboration between Guo Pei (b. 1967) and M+ showcases the early designs and key collections of Guo Pei, China’s first couture artist. Combining Chinese cultural heritage with international elements and artistic expression, Guo's astonishing runway collections have amazed fashion and art audiences around the world for almost thirty years. The Special Exhibition is staged in close collaboration with the couturier and her studio, displaying a selection of garments in China for the first time to create a layered dialogue around visual imagination and workmanship with the M+ Collections. The exhibition will open in September 2024.

Other exhibitions to be held in 2024 include:

Bùi Công Khánh: Dislocate, a display of a large-scale wooden sculpture by Vietnamese artist Bùi Công Khánh (b. 1972) that explores historical architecture and modern memory. Made from aged and new wood of the jackfruit tree—a local plant that is valued in Vietnam for its strength and versatility—the sculpture was painstakingly hand carved over two years by local artisans in Hội An in central Vietnam. It is Bùi’s most ambitious and large-scale project to date. The installation is on view in the Main Hall in the M+ building until April 2024.

Ay-O: Hong Hong Hong, a monographic show dedicated to Japanese artist Ay-O (b. 1931), widely known as the ‘rainbow artist’ for his signature rainbow patterns, who developed his distinct artistic language in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and later in the milieu of the international movement of Fluxus. The exhibition will open in December 2023.

Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, a new thematic display of works drawn from the M+ Collections reflecting connections between landscape and humanity in our post-industrial and increasingly virtual world. The interdisciplinary presentation includes exceptional works by artists such as Liu Chuang, Guo Hongwei, Amar Kanwar, Lee Ufan, Tatsuo Miyajima, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Isamu Noguchi, Wesley Tongson, Vivian Wang, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang, and Zao Wou-Ki. The exhibition will open in February 2024.

Movana Chen: Knitting Conversations, a monumental installation by Hong Kong artist Movana Chen (b. 1974) reflecting on female labour, personal and shared memories, material transformation, and time. Knitting Conversations was first exhibited in 2013 when audience members were invited to contribute to the work by bringing along a treasured book, which Chen transformed by shredding the pages to turn them into ‘yarn’. Following the end of her 2013 exhibition, Knitting Conversations continued to grow with many individuals donating their books in cities around the world. This will be the first time the completed work is shown in Hong Kong. The installation will be on view in February 2024.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Primitive, a site-specific presentation in The Studio, M+, marking the first time the work is displayed in Hong Kong. As part of the M+ Collections, Primitive is a multi-screen video installation that comprises two short films and an artist’s book. It represents a pivotal moment in the artist’s career when the bridging of visual art, moving image, and cinema became a defining aspect of his practice. The installation will be on display in March 2024.

Trevor Yeung (b. 1988) will represent Hong Kong in a solo exhibition at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, co-commissioned by M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC). Trevor Yeung: Hong Kong in Venice will open in April 2024.

Henry Steiner: Graphic Communicator is the first museum exhibition dedicated to Henry Steiner (b. 1934), known as the father of graphic design in Hong Kong, his branding work has become an indelible part of daily life in the city, as well as globally. Born in Austria, Steiner trained at Yale University under the renowned American graphic designer Paul Rand and moved to Hong Kong in 1961, where he has been living and working for over sixty years. The exhibition will open in June 2024.

LEE Mingwei: Sonic Blossom is a performative installation by LEE Mingwei (b. 1964). The work consists of a live performance in which trained opera singers approach a visitor in the museum galleries to offer the gift of song. It is inspired by the artist’s experience of caring for his mother during her recovery from surgery, when they both took solace in listening to Franz Schubert’s Lieder. The installation will be on view in August 2024.

A.A.Murakami is a Tokyo- and London-based artist duo formed by Alexander Groves (b. 1983) and Azusa Murakami (b. 1984) known for their pioneering ‘Ephemeral Tech’. The duo will create two immersive interlinked installations: one traces the journeys of physical fog rings travelling into the digital realm, and the other reveals an environment of floating bubble clouds. The exhibition will open in August 2024.

Making it Matters, an experimental display exploring different approaches to the process of making, from responsible design to material innovation and creative reuse strategies. The exhibition showcases a wide range of artists, designers, and architects currently in the M+ Collections, including John Cage, Raffaella della Olga, Anna Ridler, Julie & Jesse, Fujimori Terunobu, Vo Trong Nghia Architects, and Rural Urban Framework. The exhibition will open in November 2024.

M+ Moving Image Programme: M+ Cinema

M+ Cinema will present Once Upon a Time in Beijing in its Winter Edition from January to March 2024, in dialogue with the Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China currently on view until April 2024, including Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). This programme will explore how cinema has portrayed the many facets of Beijing as a city, its culture, and the dynamic lives of its citizens. The programme will feature iconic blockbusters alongside independent films that tell lesser-known and more personal stories of Chinese society in transition. In addition, a selection of documentary films underlines the significant impact of the fashion industry in China.

For its Spring Edition from April to June 2024, M+ Cinema will present the Asian Avant-Garde Film Circulation Library, a festival in early May 2024 featuring works by historic and contemporary artists and filmmakers and engaging audiences in dialogues around the lineages of experimental and expanded film practice.

Throughout the year, M+ Cinema will continue to explore Hong Kong’s iconic film history. Grand Stair will continue to be a space offering unique screenings and social experiences during its signature programmes M+ at Night and Stair in the Dark.

M+ Moving Image Programme: M+ Facade

Co-commissioned by M+ and Tai Kwun Contemporary, ETC (2023) is a new cinematic portrait of Hong Kong by American artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967), to be displayed on the M+ Facade at night from January to March 2024.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, highlights the important milestone as the museum steps into its third year: ‘Following a tremendously successful second year, fuelled by the global recovery from the pandemic, M+ is in a stronger than ever position to present extensively researched and meticulously curated visual culture programmes within the museum as well as on major international platforms. Our 2024 lineup of exhibitions and programmes spotlight iconic contemporary artists and makers from across the globe that bring M+’s unique vision to life.’

Remarks

About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, it is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. M+ is a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.