Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: A City in Motion

Art Basel’s 2026 edition in Hong Kong arrives with a particular sense of composure and confidence. The fair draws together 240 galleries from 41 countries and territories, reaffirming its position as the region’s most influential crossroads for contemporary art. More than half of the participants operate in the Asia Pacific region, including 29 galleries with spaces in Hong Kong, a detail that anchors the fair within the city’s cultural fabric rather than merely using it as a backdrop.

The fair’s expanding reach is apparent in the 32 galleries participating for the first time, spanning Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Greater China region, Turkey, France, Georgia, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. Names such as A Lighthouse called Kanata, The Commercial, Pilevneli, Uffner & Liu, Galería Casado Santapau, and 1 Mira Madrid / 2 Mira Archiv widen the fair’s perspective and introduce new contexts into its global dialogue.

A New Pulse: Introducing Echoes

A fresh addition shapes the 2026 edition. Echoes, a sector devoted to works created in the past five years, offers a snapshot of artistic thinking as it unfolds. Each booth hosts up to three artists in tightly curated presentations. Among the highlights are Max Estrella from Madrid, presenting Tiffany Chung’s embroidered mappings of spice routes alongside Miler Lagos’s carved book sculptures, and Double Q Gallery from Hong Kong with an atmospheric installation by the Polish artist Natalia Załuska, turning the booth into a spatial field of geometric tension.

Reimagining Encounters

Encounters, long known as Art Basel Hong Kong’s portal into the monumental and the immersive, adopts a new curatorial structure. For the first time, a collective of four Asia based curators oversees the sector. Mami Kataoka provides guidance as lead curator, joined by Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, and Hirokazu Tokuyama. Their combined perspectives promise an approach shaped by regional nuance, institutional knowledge, and a shared interest in the ways contemporary art negotiates scale, performance, and environment.

The Public Program and a City’s Energy

The citywide Public Program returns with a constellation of free screenings, discussions, and partnerships with Hong Kong’s cultural institutions. It extends the fair’s reach beyond the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and into the rhythms of the city itself.

This edition will mark the first time the Film Program is curated by an artist. Ellen Pau, a pioneer of media art in Hong Kong, brings decades of insight shaped by Videotage, the Microwave Festival, and her own landmark works such as Song of the Goddess and Recycling Cinema. Her stewardship signals the fair’s continued engagement with moving image work and Hong Kong’s media-art history.

One day of the Conversations Program will be curated by Venus Lau, Director of Museum MACAN in Jakarta. Lau’s interdisciplinary perspective, built through curatorial roles across Asia, frames contemporary art as a mode of cultural weather-mapping, attentive to shifts in language, politics, and collective memory.

A Monument for the City

For the fifth year, Art Basel and M+ will co-commission a major public artwork for the museum’s façade. Presented by UBS, Shahzia Sikander’s 3 to 12 Nautical Miles will animate the exterior of M+ with luminous sequences drawn from her hand-painted watercolours. The artwork charts maritime routes that shaped histories of trade, empire, and exchange. Its imagery moves from nineteenth-century Hong Kong and South Asia to the entangled economies of the present. The commission underscores Art Basel’s commitment to placing ambitious contemporary work in the public realm.

Zero 10: A Digital Horizon

Following its debut in Miami Beach, Zero 10, supported by OpenSea, will arrive in Hong Kong with its second edition. The initiative concentrates on digital era practices and brings together artists, studios, galleries, and technologists. Its presence confirms Art Basel’s long-term investment in emerging modes of production and collecting.

The Galleries Sector

The core Galleries sector gathers 182 of the world’s leading galleries, a panorama that stretches from twentieth-century masters to rising voices. This year’s presentations emphasise both cross-generational dialogue and a reconsideration of artistic traditions.

Nine galleries make their first appearance in this sector.
Notable examples include:

• A Lighthouse called Kanata, tracing Japan’s renewed interest in abstraction through pairings of emerging painters and postwar figures such as Takeo Yamaguchi, Kumi Sugai, and Hisao Domoto
• The Commercial, presenting five Australian artists including Archie Moore’s conceptual self-portrait and Mitch Cairns’s new paintings
• Pilevneli, with works by Refik Anadol, Hüseyin Çağlayan, Kevin Francis Gray, and :mentalKLINIK
• Uffner & Liu, showing nine artists who approach figuration through transformation and disguise
• Galería Casado Santapau, partnering with Kalfayan Galleries to explore painting, drawing, and collage
• 1 Mira Madrid / 2 Mira Archiv, bringing stitched textiles and works on paper by Teresa Lanceta, Maria Lai, and Hamish Fulton

Several participants graduate from the Insights and Discoveries sectors into the main Galleries sector, signalling the fair’s support for younger galleries. These include Tabula Rasa Gallery, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, HdM Gallery, Jason Haam, Yoshiaki Inoue Gallery, and Yutaka Kikutake Gallery.

The fair also welcomes 14 returning galleries, among them carlier gebauer, Eslite Gallery, Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Starkwhite, and Waddington Custot, each contributing renewed perspectives.

Discoveries: The First Glimpse of What Comes Next

With 25 exhibitors, the Discoveries sector foregrounds emerging artists through solo presentations. Many works reflect material transformation as a conduit for personal and historical narrative.

Highlights include:

• Phillida Reid with Cayetano Ferrer’s carved-stone relics derived from AI hallucinations of museum artefacts
• PTT Space, presenting Ciwas Tahos’s investigations of indigenous and queer kinship
• Shrine Empire, with Neerja Kothari’s sequence of 51 erasure drawings
• Property Holdings Development Group, showing Chan Ting’s sculptural assemblages of found objects
• Vin Gallery, offering Ako Goto’s immersive installation in ceramics, light, and shadow
• Spurs Gallery, presenting clay and metal works by Roksana Pirouzmand
• Cylinder, debuting with Hyun Bhin Kwon’s hybrid, sound-based installation
• N/A, presenting Jeongsu Woo’s layered collages influenced by medieval iconography and contemporary subcultures

The MGM Discoveries Art Prize returns, providing financial support and a residency experience in Macau for the winning artist.

Insights: A View into Asian Art Histories

The Insights sector features 20 curated projects that explore artists and movements from across Asia and the Asia Pacific region, ranging from 1900 to the present. Exhibitions focus on pivotal moments and intergenerational dialogues.

Notable presentations include:

• G Gallery, connecting Korean feminist practices across decades through the works of Yang Juhae and Woo Hannah
• Mizoe Art Gallery, marking the centenary of Tomonori Toyofuku
• Gallery Kogure, presenting Masao Tsuruoka’s explorations of the human condition
• Sun Gallery, with works by the Korean monochrome pioneer Chungji Lee
• Matthew Liu Fine Arts, showing experimental ink by Shen Chen and Huang Rui
• MtK Contemporary Art, presenting Rinko Kawauchi’s luminous photographs

Regional Rhythms

Hong Kong’s fair unfolds alongside a wider constellation of major events across Asia: the Singapore Biennale, Taipei Biennial, Shanghai Biennale, Thailand Biennale, and Kochi-Muziris Biennale, all running through the fair period and contributing to an intense regional season.

The Curators: Profiles in Influence

The fair’s curatorial leadership brings together some of the region’s most respected voices.
Short biographies of Mami Kataoka, Isabella Tam, Alia Swastika, Hirokazu Tokuyama, Ellen Pau, and Venus Lau trace careers shaped by institutional leadership, experimentation, and a sustained commitment to contemporary art across Asia.

Dates and Details

Art Basel Hong Kong takes place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 27 to 29 March 2026, with Preview Days on 25 and 26 March. UBS continues as the fair’s Global Lead Partner.