Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: Where Asia’s Future Meets the World

Art Basel Hong Kong announces further highlights for its 2026 edition, returning to the heart of Asia with new energy, fresh curatorial perspectives, and collaborative initiatives around the host city.

For its 2026 edition, Art Basel Hong Kong returns with an expanded program that brings together new sector developments, fresh perspectives, and citywide collaborations, reinforcing the fair’s role as the leading platform for artistic exchange in Asia and beyond. The fair will feature 240 galleries from 41 countries and territories, with more than half operating spaces across the Asia Pacific. Art Basel Hong Kong, whose Global Lead Partner is UBS, will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from March 27–29, 2026, with Preview Days on March 25 and 26, and programs unfolding across multiple sites in the city. Art Basel Hong Kong continues to connect artistic practices from the region with international audiences, strengthening Hong Kong’s position as a vital global art hub.

Encounters, the sector dedicated to large-scale sculpture, installation, and performance, will enter a new chapter under the leadership of an international curatorial team headed by Mami Kataoka, alongside Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, and Hirokazu Tokuyama. Extending beyond the exhibition halls, the sector will also include an offsite Encounters presentation at Pacific Place, where a site-specific digital animation installation by Christine Sun Kim will be presented, supported by Swire Properties, the Official Partner of offsite Encounters.

Art Basel Hong Kong will also mark the Asia debut of Zero 10, Art Basel’s global initiative dedicated to art of the digital era, following its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2025. Zero 10 provides a dedicated platform on the show floor for exhibiting and collecting digital practices, extending the brand’s long-standing commitment to artistic innovation.

In addition to this, the Kabinett sector will feature 35 focused thematic presentations within galleries’ booths, with an emphasis on historical and contemporary practices from the Asia Pacific.

Collaboration across disciplines and sites remains central to the fair program. The fair’s citywide Public Program will again offer free public access to Film, Conversations, Exchange Circle, and collaborative programs developed with cultural institutions across Hong Kong. For the third consecutive year, Art Basel will partner with Tai Kwun to present Artists’ Night on March 27, spotlighting emerging and experimental performers, musicians, and visual artists. Onsite, Art Basel Hong Kong will also collaborate with Hong Kong Ballet for State of Wonder, a series of dance excerpts integrating movement into the fair’s environments.

New in 2026, Art Basel will launch Friends of Art Basel Hong Kong, an initiative developed in collaboration with select regional museums to strengthen institutional relationships across Asia.

Complementing the fair program, the Art Basel Shop will present special editions and collaborations created exclusively for Art Basel Hong Kong.

Encounters
Boundary breaking, large scale projects that transcend the traditional gallery booth

Dedicated to large-scale projects that transcend the traditional gallery booth, Encounters returns as a central sector of Art Basel Hong Kong, under the leadership of a new curatorial team comprising both institutional and independent curators, led by Mami Kataoka, alongside Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, and Hirokazu Tokuyama. The 2026 edition will present 12 artworks, guided by a curatorial vision that draws on the Five Elements—a cosmological framework widely found in Asia, with each element (space/ether, water, fire, wind and earth) designated to specific areas throughout the convention halls. Highlights include:

A multimedia textile installation landscape by Suki Seokyeong Kang, representing the element of space/ether, presented by Kukje Gallery
Parag Tandel’s yarn-based installation exploring ancestral connections to the sea, representing the element of water, presented by Tarq
Shapes in glazed ceramics by Masaomi Yasunaga, representing the element of fire, presented by Lisson Gallery
Geraldine Javier’s monumental eco-printed fabric columns resembling trees, representing the element of earth, presented by Silverlens
Encounters will extend beyond HKCEC, where Christine Sun Kim’s site-specific digital animation installation, A String of Echo Traps (2022-2026) will be on view at Pacific Place’s Park Court. Reflecting on echo and translation and accompanied by a sound composition, A String of Echo Traps will be presented by White Space, and supported by Swire Properties, the Official Partner of offsite Encounters.

For the full list of participating artists and galleries, please visit https://artbasel.com/hongkong/encounters.

Kabinett
Thematic presentations staged within galleries’ booths

Kabinett is the sector for focused thematic presentations staged within participating galleries’ booths. The 2026 edition will feature 35 projects, 23 of which will be focused on historical and contemporary artists from the Asia Pacific. Highlights include:

A series of luminous, hand-painted glass lightboxes by Judy Chicago, presented by Jessica Silverman
Dinh Q. Lê’s 1998 installation, Damaged Gene, uses children’s clothing and pacifiers to address the enduring impact of war, presented by P.P.O.W.
A meditative architectural installation comprising of two recent bodies of work by Ma Qiusha, presented by Beijing Commune
A curated selection of early works by Christo, presented by Annely Juda Fine Art, reflecting the gallery’s decades-long collaboration with the artist
A suite of abstract paintings by Tang Chang, a pioneering figure in Thailand’s modern art scene, presented by gdm
A joint presentation of sculptural works by Jeewi Lee and Francisco Tropa, reflecting on relics and material transformation as markers of time, presented by Meyer Riegger Wolff

To view the full list of participating artists and galleries, please visit https://artbasel.com/hongkong/kabinett.

Zero 10
Art Basel’s global platform for the digital art era

Zero 10, Art Basel’s global initiative dedicated to art of the digital era, will make its Asia debut at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026, following its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2025. The title references 0,10, Kazimir Malevich’s seminal 1915 exhibition in Petrograd, a historic point of departure for the avant-garde that redefined creative language for a new century. In this spirit, Zero 10 aims to transform how digital art can be exhibited, contextualized, and collected within today’s art economy.

Curated by Eli Scheinman and presented by GoTone Privilege Club, Zero 10 will feature 14 exhibitors, including Art of This Millenium (AOTM), Art Blocks, Asprey Studio, bitforms gallery, BottoDAO, Fellowship x ARTXCODE, √K Contemporary, Nguyen Wahed, Office Impart, Onkaos, Plan X, Silk Art House, SOLOS, and TAEX. Highlights include:

Digital animations by DeeKay exploring psychological states through the visual language of early video games, presented by AOTM
A dialogue between AI, sculpture, installation, and traditional ink painting, featuring works by Seneca, Qu Leilei, Tim Yip, presented by Asprey Studio
A silver sculptural project by Jack Butcher examining systems of value, presented by Silk Art House
A participatory blockchain-based work by Robert Alice exploring digital provenance through the East Asian tradition of seals, presented by Onkaos

The full list of participating artists and exhibitors will be available shortly on the Art Basel website.

Public Program
Curated talks, performances, and activations across the show floor and the city

The Film Program will be curated for the first time by Ellen Pau, a pioneering Hong Kong media artist and curator and co-founder of Videotage, a groundbreaking non-profit platform for media art in Asia. Titled ‘In Between Magic and Reality’, the program brings together a selection of films that propose imagination as a strategy for resistance, memory, and survival, continuing the fair’s tradition of presenting moving image works that engage with questions of the day.

Supported by the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS), in collaboration with ArtReview, two films will be featured in a special screening, followed by a talk with the artists. The films are:

Ayoung Kim’s Al-Mather Plot 1991 (2025), a film combining personal narrative and historical research to examine oil, geopolitics, and urban transformation in Riyadh
ikkibawiKrrr’s Dances with Trash (2024), which imagines a post-human world through animations of discarded objects

Other highlights include:

Sin Wai Kin’s short film The Fortress (2024), examining how archetypes have been used to justify systems of power and control, presented by Blindspot Gallery
Delicate Spells of Mind (2022), a film by British-born Australian artist Lucy McRae exploring collective experience through movement and ritual, presented by Capsule Shanghai
Andrew Thomas Huang’s sci-fi retelling of a Buddhist folklore story, titled The Deer of Nine Colors (2025) and presented in collaboration with NOWNESS ASIA
A selection of films by Yuan Goang-Ming, Ernest Fung, Eric Siu, Yao Qingmei, Alice Wong, Winsome Wong Dumalagan, presented by Videotage

The Film program is freely accessible to the public. To view the full list of participating artists and galleries, please visit https://artbasel.com/hongkong/events/film.

City-wide Program
A city-spanning celebration of culture

In collaboration with Art Basel Hong Kong for a weeklong art week, Tai Kwun will host Artists’ Night on Friday, March 27, followed by Art After Hours: Beings in Motion on Saturday, March 28.

Now in its third year, Artists’ Night featuring live performances, installations, and music, the evening will unfold across multiple venues at Tai Kwun, showcasing the work of emerging and experimental performers including Justin Talplacido Shoulder, Geumhyung Jeong, Tation, DAVID BORING, and Lydo.

Three featured artists, Justin Talplacido Shoulder, Geumhyung Jeong, and Tation will return to Art After Hours: Beings in Motion.

Alongside the performances, Tai Kwun gallery spaces hosting the contemporary art exhibition Stay Connected: Supplying the Globe will remain open late and feature a participatory work by the collective Foreign Investment.

For the fifth consecutive year, Art Basel and M+ will co-commission an artwork for the M+ Facade, presented by UBS. From March 23, 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) by Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander will be presented on the museum’s facade facing Victoria Harbour. Animated from hand-painted images, this radiant cinematic tableau reimagines miniature painting to navigate the enduring currents of power and trade that have shaped the global landscape from the nineteenth century to the modern era. The co-commission will be screened nightly on the M+ Facade from Monday, March 23 to Sunday, June 21, 2026.

Cultural Partners

Art Basel continues to support a network of Hong Kong’s non-profit institutions, including 1a space, Asia Art Archive, Asian Cultural Council, Asia Society Hong Kong Center, CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile), Design Trust, HASS Lab, Hong Chi Association, Hong Kong Art Gallery Association, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC), Para Site, Tomorrow Maybe, and WMA. Art Basel will extend its support to local university art programs, including the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University, Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and University Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Hong Kong.

Art Basel Hong Kong will welcome Hong Kong Ballet and First Initiative Foundation (FIF) as new cultural partners. In collaboration with Hong Kong Ballet, Art Basel Hong Kong will stage
performing arts collaboration State of Wonder — a multi-site performance that brings a series of short, evocative dance excerpts into the HKCEC on Saturday, March 28. Activating the fair’s environments, the work invites audiences to rediscover a sense of wonder in the everyday.

Founded as a registered charity in 2010, FIF supports and proactively creates local and global initiatives that bring meaningful connection, empowerment, and joy to communities through the arts. FIF will pair a musician from its international network with an artist featured in Art Basel Hong Kong’s 2026 Film Program, co-creating an original soundtrack for the artist’s moving‑image work.

Art Basel will also launch Friends of Art Basel Hong Kong, a new initiative developed in collaboration with regional museums to strengthen institutional relationships across Asia, including with institutions in Mainland China, He Art Museum in Greater Bay Area and Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.