The Paper Art reviews the week's highlights. In southern China, art from Hong Kong and Shenzhen speaks out together. The special exhibition "Picasso: Dialogue with Asia" at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong explores Picasso's influence on Asian art, and the Hong Kong Palace Museum focuses on Chinese food culture with "A Moveable Feast". In Shenzhen, solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Yu Youhan and Li Shan are presented one after another.
In Shanghai, French artist Fabrice Iber's "From the Valley" moved his life and creation from western France to Shanghai; in Beijing, the Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum's collection exhibition opened, and the original Song Dynasty painting "Mountain Magpie and Loquat" in the collection will be exhibited for a limited time for one day on March 30. In London, "Amazing Works: Sketches of Victor Hugo" unfolded Hugo beyond literature; in Basel, the "Northern Lights" exhibition showcased the descriptions of landscapes by artists from the Scandinavian Peninsula and Canada.
Shanghai
Fabrice Iber: From the Valley
Location: Power Station of Art, Shanghai
Exhibition period: April 2 - June 29, 2025
The exhibition brings together more than 70 representative works by French artist Fabrice Iber from the 1990s to the present, including more than 20 new works created specifically for Shanghai. Through this exhibition, Iber has moved his hometown of living and creating in western France to Shanghai, between metaphor and reality.
East meets West: China-Italy Contemporary Printmaking Exchange Exhibition
Location: Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition period: April 3 - June 2, 2025
Using printmaking as the medium, the exhibition will present nearly 100 representative prints, mixed media and new media artworks created by 15 Chinese and 15 Italian artists since the 1970s, showcasing the cultural creativity and vitality of the two ancient civilizations in the contemporary era.
Grand View of Heaven and Earth: A trace of civilization across time
Location: Long Museum (West Bund)
Exhibition period: March 22 - June 29, 2025
The exhibition brings together about 200 items from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties collected by private institutions, including oracle bone inscriptions, bronzes, jades, Buddha statues, porcelain, furniture, etc., exploring the history of Chinese civilization spanning 3,000 years. Key exhibits include three boxes of Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions, the bronze Xi Jia plate from the fifth year of King Xuan of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the Ming Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup.
Thirty - Liu Haisu Art Museum's 30th Anniversary Commemorative Exhibition
Location: Liu Haisu Art Museum
Exhibition period: March 15 - May 28, 2025
The exhibition takes the 30-year development history of Liu Haisu Art Museum as the main theme, and comprehensively presents the museum's artistic heritage and cultural responsibility. A total of 144 works and documents are exhibited, including many ancient paintings of the "treasure of the museum" level and Liu Haisu's last painting, which are exhibited for the first time.
Paintings from various dynasties in the East Hall of Shanghai Museum, Chinese calligraphy from various dynasties
Location: Shanghai Museum, East Building
Exhibition period: February 19, 2025 Exhibits update
In this round of permanent exhibitions of calligraphy and painting, the Shanghai Museum has brought out its national treasures, including the page of "Cursive Calligraphy of Yuan Sheng's Letter" by Wang Xizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the scroll of "Epitaph of Princess Runan" by Yu Shinan of the Tang Dynasty, the scroll of "Deep Valley" by Guo Xi of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the scroll of "Snow Trees and Cold Birds" by Li Di of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Impression Party: Impressionist Art Exhibition from the POLA Art Museum
Location: Shanghai Museum, East Building
Exhibition period: January 22 - April 21, 2025
The exhibition was jointly planned by the Shanghai Museum and the POLA Art Museum in Japan. It is the largest exhibition held by the POLA Art Museum overseas. It brings together nearly 70 classic works by more than 30 artists including Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, etc., presenting a panoramic view of the beginning, development, prosperity of Impressionist art and its lasting influence on later art.
Literature Carries the Truth - Xi Jinping's Calligraphy Art Exhibition
Location: Shanghai Artmai Cultural and Creative Industry Park·Huafu Art Space
Exhibition period: March 28 - April 27, 2025
Through the famous quotes from the book "Xi Jinping Quotations" published in recent years, the content involves themes such as "morality, self-cultivation, respect for the people, politics, and governance". 93 Shanghai artists and "general calligraphers" from three generations, including Han Tianheng, Tong Yanfang, and Chen Xiang, were organized to complete 100 calligraphy works. The exhibition is co-organized by the Shanghai Seal Society, Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Charity Association, Xinhua Painting Academy, and Qingpu District Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
Jiang Baolin's Modern Ink Art Research Exhibition
Address: Shanghai Art Museum (No. 1536, Xinzhen Road, Minhang District)
Duration: March 21 - April 20, 2025
The octogenarian painter Jiang Baolin is a student of Lu Yanshao and Li Keran. The exhibition presents Mr. Jiang Baolin’s important explorations at different stages of his creation, including his early pioneering line-drawing landscape works, as well as abstract innovative works and large-scale freehand flower paintings.
Zhenguanjian--Tang Dynasty History and Culture Theme Exhibition
Location: Minhang District Museum
Exhibition period: January 23 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition is divided into four parts: "The Beginning of the Tang Dynasty", "The Beginning of the Changmin", "The Splendor of the Silk Road" and "The Remaining Charm of the Reign". The exhibition covers the period from the Northern Zhou Dynasty to the middle and late Tang Dynasty, including 132 pieces (sets) of cultural relics such as Yuchi Jingde's tombstone, smiling ladies, painted pottery figurines, and gilded silver pots. It shows the historical picture of the early Tang Dynasty from many aspects such as political system, social outlook, cultural exchanges, and historical evolution, and gives a glimpse into the growth path of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, and encounters the splendor of the reign of Zhenguan.
Ahmed Matar: Antenna
Location: UCCA Edge, Shanghai
Exhibition period: March 8 - June 8, 2025
The exhibition comprehensively showcases the creative process of Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Matar, covering more than 100 works of art. His artistic practice explores collective memory, reveals and records unknown stories, and continuously depicts and analyzes Saudi Arabia in a complex and in-depth manner.
Bronze as a mirror, a guide for action: Exhibition of Song and Jin bronze mirrors from the Heilongjiang Provincial Museum
Location: Jiading Museum
Exhibition period: March 18 - June 20, 2025
The exhibition selects more than 70 bronze mirrors from the Song and Jin Dynasties, and divides them into five parts according to the patterns, namely "Bronze Mirrors with Double Fish Pattern", "Bronze Mirrors with Dragon Pattern", "Bronze Mirrors with Character Stories", "Bronze Mirrors with Auspicious Beasts, Flowers and Birds Patterns" and "Bronze Mirrors with Inscriptions". By comparing the bronze mirrors from the Song and Jin Dynasties, the exhibition shows the phenomenon of ethnic integration between the northern ethnic minorities and the Central Plains in the long-term exchanges, as well as the political, economic and cultural collisions and integrations.
Mirror Image: Lucio Fontana and Michelangelo Pistoletto
Exhibition period: March 20 - June 15, 2025
Location: Prada Rongzhai (No. 186, North Shaanxi Road)
Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) and Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 1933) were two giants of the post-war Italian and international art scene. Bringing together 26 works from the 1940s onwards, the exhibition highlights the two artists’ exploration of new forms of expression and their rejection of previously canonical materials, methods and themes.
Kawauchi Rinko: The distant shining star is twinkling in my hand
Location: Fotografiska Center for Image Art
Exhibition period: February 21 - June 22, 2025
The exhibition displays important series of works by Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi in recent years, including the "M/E" and "An interlinking" series, presenting her unique photographic language and keen perception of life.
Knitting together?
Location: West Bund Art Museum
Duration: February 18 to April 27, 2025
"Weaving, together?" designed by French architect and artist Émilie Queney in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou is a large-scale public weaving project consisting of several movable looms and weaving stations.
Conversation with Turner: Echoes of the Sublime
Location: Pudong Art Museum
Exhibition period: October 1, 2024 - May 10, 2025
The exhibition features more than 100 works, showing the development of Turner's artistic career and the changes in his creative style in chapters. The exhibition also dialogues with Turner's artistic heritage through the works of contemporary artists, reinterpreting the artistic concepts of the 18th century from a 21st century perspective, allowing the audience to appreciate the masterpieces of the master and the diverse expressions of the "sublime" of art.
Shanghai: The Capital of Photography 1910s-2020s
Location: Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Duration: December 25, 2024 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition brings together 268 works by 35 photographers and artists who have lived in Shanghai for a long time, as well as more than 80 pieces (sets) of related materials and exhibits. Starting from the works of artists such as Ding Song, Tao Lengyue, and Jin Shisheng who were active in Shanghai in the early 20th century, it presents the changes and development of Shanghai and photography across a century.
Love for Ziyuguang·Cao Sugong's Ink Collection Exhibition in Mohailou
Location: Shanghai Museum of Writing and Ink
Exhibition period: March 3 - June 7, 2025
The exhibition is based on Cao Sugong's classic calligraphy works and documentary historical materials. It counts Cao Sugong's calligraphy treasures from four aspects, namely "tracing back to the past", "recording history", "appreciating treasures" and "classic evidence", and traces back their development process.
Beijing
Collection Exhibition of CAFA Art Museum
Location: Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum
Duration: From March 30, 2025
The collection exhibition will be divided into the "ancient part" and the "modern part", with more than 500 pieces of collections on display. The most eye-catching thing is that the original painting "Mountain Magpie and Loquat" from the Song Dynasty in the collection will be exhibited for a limited time on the opening day. This painting is also the first time it has been publicly displayed since the construction of the new CAFA Art Museum. Song Dynasty paintings have become a peak in the history of Chinese art with their exquisite skills, profound artistic conception and rich themes. It is hoped that through this work, the audience can feel the vividness and vividness of Song Dynasty flower and bird paintings.
Copying and Imitation: Exhibition of Chinese Painting Imitation Teaching Works from the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Location: Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum
Exhibition period: March 2 - April 16, 2025
The exhibition displays more than 300 works of imitation, teaching drafts and imitation-creation transformation of Chinese painting in CAFA over the past century, including Qi Baishi and Li Keran's imitations of Bada Shanren's paintings. Why is imitation important for learning Chinese painting? The exhibition also aroused discussion and thinking about Chinese painting teaching in the academic community.
The Light of Inclusion - China-Pakistan Art Exchange Exhibition
Location: Art Museum, Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University
Duration: From March 1, 2025
The exhibition is themed "Integration and Dialogue" and is divided into three sections: "Gandhara", "Maiji Mountain" and "Light of Integration". Among them, the Gandhara sculptures on display are all reproduced through technical scanning, 3D printing and other technologies. It is a cooperation between China and Pakistan on the digitization and in-depth research of Gandhara art heritage.
Oscillation does not demagnetize: Exploring sound practices in mainland China and Hong Kong since the 1990s
Location: Inside-Out Art Museum
Exhibition period: February 22 - June 1, 2025
The exhibition focuses on the sound creation and its history in mainland China and Hong Kong, aiming to view sound art as a dynamic and permeable practice method and explore its many possibilities for dialogue with reality. The exhibition includes nearly 60 works by 57 sound artists (groups), especially the latest works of artists who have been active in the forefront of sound creation in the past 20 years. The exhibition also presents a wealth of documentary materials related to sound practice since the 1990s, including images, photographs, manuscripts, design drawings, web pages and physical objects.
Qi Baishi in Beijing - Special Exhibition to Commemorate the 160th Anniversary of Qi Baishi's Birth
Location: Beijing Grand Canal Museum
Exhibition period: November 29, 2024 - March 30, 2025
This year marks the 160th anniversary of Qi Baishi's birth. The exhibition will bring together more than 200 Qi Baishi art treasures, presenting Qi Baishi's artistic career and social journey in Beijing through multimedia means such as painting, calligraphy, seal carving, documents and digital technology.
The Greeks - From Agamemnon to Alexander
Location: Capital Museum
Duration: November 20, 2024 - May 18, 2025
The exhibition brings together 270 pieces of collections from 14 museums and cultural relics institutions in Greece, including the National Archaeological Museum of Greece and the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, covering all periods of ancient Greek civilization.
The Diversity of Beauty: Art and Life in Ancient Greece
Location: National Museum of China
Duration: November 6, 2024 - June 5, 2025
The exhibition will be themed "beauty". Different from the previous exhibition narratives that were based on historical periods, it unfolds a vivid aesthetic scroll of ancient Greece from three perspectives: "daily life", "makeup" and "human body". 279 pieces (sets) of pottery, bronze, gold, glass, murals, sculptures and other representative cultural relics from the National Archaeological Museum of Greece span 5,000 years, covering the Cycladic civilization, Minoan civilization, Mycenaean civilization, as well as all important historical periods of ancient Greece, including the Geometric Pottery Period, Archaic Period, Classical Period and Hellenistic Period. Most of the exhibits are exhibited abroad for the first time.
Jiangsu
Wu's Northern Friend
Location: Suzhou Museum
Exhibition period: March 21 - June 5, 2025
The exhibition takes the cultural exchanges between the three kingdoms of Jin, Chu and Wu as the main theme, and the struggle for hegemony and ritual culture of the princes in the Spring and Autumn Period as the hidden theme, presenting a magnificent historical story. A total of 116 pieces/sets of cultural relics are exhibited in the exhibition, covering bronze ritual vessels, jade wares and other categories in the Spring and Autumn Period. The Jin Gong Plate, a vessel made by Duke Wen of Jin, one of the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period, is also exhibited in Suzhou for the first time.
Colleagues in the Art World: Exhibition of Works by Wu Zuoren and Li Kuchan
Location: Wu Zuoren Art Museum
Exhibition period: March 1 - June 2, 2025
This exhibition will present 45 calligraphy and painting works by Wu Zuoren and Li Kuchan, reviewing their 40-year friendship and exploring the similarities and differences in their artistic styles and concepts, as well as their profound influence on the development of modern Chinese art. Wu Zuoren studied in France, where he borrowed the concepts and techniques of Western oil painting to improve the modeling ability of Chinese painting. Li Kuchan studied under Qi Baishi and was good at creating freehand flower and bird paintings with a strong, bold and magnificent style.
Splendid Jiangnan: The pinnacle of Chinese traditional weaving and embroidery craftsmanship
Location: Nanjing Museum
Exhibition period: January 22, 2025 - April 22, 2025
The exhibition is divided into three units: "Weaving·Ingenious Calculation", "Embroidery·Exquisite Craftsmanship", and "Dyeing·Colorful Colors". It comprehensively presents the 7,000-year history of textile craftsmanship in the Jiangnan region, and explores the innovative spirit of "Made in China" and the concept and connotation of "Chinese Design" through weaving and embroidery. The exhibition has a complete timeline, from textile tools in the Neolithic Age to modern and contemporary works, reflecting the unremitting efforts of the working people in Jiangnan for the inheritance of textile craftsmanship for thousands of years. Most of the exhibits are on public display for the first time in more than 40 years.
View of the World: The World of Ming Dynasty
Location: Nanjing Museum
Exhibition period: January 22 - July 20, 2025
The exhibition narrative spans the 14th to 17th centuries, placing Ming Dynasty China in the first wave of globalization. Through five parts, namely "The Rising Sun and the Moon", "Sailing Legends", "Silver Trade", "East and West", and "Harmony and Coexistence", more than 400 exhibits are presented to present the communication and integration between Ming Dynasty China and the world.
Horse: A Millennium Symbol of Power from the Mediterranean to Jiangnan
Location: Suzhou Wu Culture Museum
Duration: Until May 18
The exhibition tells the different relationships between humans and horses in ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad, at different historical stages, through oil paintings, Chinese paintings, prints, sculptures, silk fabrics, chariot and horse equipment, pottery figurines and other types of cultural relics.
Zhejiang
Watching Tea - "The Forbidden City·Tea World" Tea Culture Cultural Relics Exhibition
Location: Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Zhijiang District
Exhibition period: January 10 - April 6, 2025
As a special exhibition of cultural relics with the theme of tea culture hosted by the Palace Museum, "The Palace Museum·Tea World" is based on the Palace Museum's tea utensils, utensils, paintings, ancient books, documents, furniture and other cultural relics of various dynasties, and deeply displays the development context, humanistic features, aesthetic pursuits and philosophical thoughts of Chinese tea culture for thousands of years in multiple dimensions. Among them, the famous manuscripts of the "Four Masters of Song Dynasty" Su, Huang, Mi and Cai gathered together, including "Su Shi (Biography) Running Script Dinghuiyuan Two Poems Draft Volume", "Huang Tingjian Running Script Send Forty-Nine Nephews Poems Volume", "Mi Fu Running Script Calligraphy ...
Guangdong
A Thousand Years of History: An Exhibition to Commemorate the 130th Anniversary of Xu Beihong's Birth
Location: Guangdong Museum of Art New Building
Exhibition period: March 1 - June 15, 2025
As a pivotal figure in the modern transformation of Chinese art, Xu Beihong's artistic practice has always been permeated with the academic logic of "being broad and meticulous". Through the three historical slices of Xu Beihong, "Xu Sheng from Jiangnan: Enlightenment, Studying and Artistic Transformation (1895-1925)", "Born in Adversity: Art Education and Patriotism (1926-1936)" and "Self-improvement: National Responsibility and Aesthetic Education Thought (1937-1953)", the exhibition combines the intertextual narrative of 73 representative works and a large number of documents to deeply decode the era generation mechanism of his "art saves the country" concept and "realism" methodology.
Youhan and Yu Youhan: Yu Youhan's Early Experience and Late Style
Location: Shenzhen Art Museum (New Building)
Exhibition period: March 25 - June 16, 2025
This exhibition is the first large-scale retrospective exhibition of Mr. Yu Youhan since his death. It comprehensively presents the artist's creative career spanning more than half a century, covering more than 100 works and rich documentary materials. In this exhibition, the two curators, Liu Ding and Lu Yinghua, based on their own dual perspectives of art history and intellectual history, outline the outstanding achievements of Mr. Yu Youhan based on his own artistic exploration and tireless dialogue with the times, and also extract several key issues related to contemporary art history from his personal practice.
Li Shan: Quantum Leap
Location: Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Art Center
Exhibition period: March 24 - May 23, 2025
This exhibition is curated by internationally renowned curator Hou Hanru, and will present Li Shan's creations across multiple media over the past decade, including his representative biological art installations, large-scale paintings created in recent years, large-scale site-specific installations, research manuscripts over many years, and experimental video works. The exhibition will use an "immersive" experience to lead the audience to explore Li Shan's profound cognition and thinking on life and science, biology and art, and the possibilities of the future of mankind from a multi-sensory perspective.
Xue Song: “Natural-Not Natural”
Location: Shenzhen Contemporary Art and Urban Planning Museum
Exhibition period: March 25 - June 29, 2025
The exhibition brings together the essence of Xue Song's nearly 40 years of artistic career, comprehensively presenting his artistic development from pop collage to abstract expressionism, covering a total of more than 60 paintings and archives, and focusing on the artist's new works in the "Law of Nature" series since 2019. The exhibition was specially curated by art critic and independent curator Dr. Jiang Jun.
Shanxi
Ideals and Glory: Ancient Greek and Roman Sculpture Art Exhibition
Location: Shanxi Museum
Exhibition period: January 1, 2025 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition displays 134 precious sculptures from the National Museum of Liverpool, UK, showing the ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, the source of Western civilization, and taking visitors to the distant Mediterranean coast, where ancient humans showed the ultimate beauty of the human body and pursued ideals, harmony and beauty. These sculptures, whether they are statues of gods, heroes or ordinary people, reflect the ancient Greeks' love for life and their deep understanding of human nature.
Changing Situation: Jin and Qin in the Spring and Autumn Period
Location: Shanxi Museum
Exhibition period: January 1, 2025 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition is jointly organized by Shanxi Museum, Shanghai Museum, Henan Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Gansu Provincial Museum, Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and other 16 cultural and museum institutions. It uses 206 sets of precious cultural relics to show the complex and changing relationship between Jin and Qin during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, especially during the Spring and Autumn Period, and appreciate the style of that era.
Liaoning
Strolling through the US and China: An exhibition of cultural relics on women in ancient Rome
Location: Liaoning Provincial Museum
Exhibition period: January 1, 2025 - July 1, 2025
The exhibition is centered on the collections of Italy's prestigious Capitoline Museums, and is supported by more than a dozen exhibition institutions at home and abroad. A joint curatorial team composed of experts and scholars from Chinese and Italian museums has carefully selected more than 150 sets of cultural relics related to the life courses of women in ancient Rome and my country's Han Dynasty. The aim is to use real objects to present the rich spiritual world and high vitality of women in the ancient world two thousand years ago, and to reproduce the colorful female narratives.
Hebei
Joseph Beuys: 7000 Dreams
Location: Xinyi Art Museum, Langfang, Hebei
Duration: Until June 15, 2025
This exhibition is the opening debut of the newly established Joseph Beuys Research Center (China). It takes Joseph Beuys's ecological art project "7000 Oaks" as the starting point and reviews Joseph Beuys's art in seven chapters.
Hunan
Only the Chu style: the calligraphy and painting of Hunan scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties
Location: Hunan Museum
Duration: December 17, 2024 - November 16, 2025
The exhibition selects more than 90 pieces (sets) of works by Hunanese or visiting Hunan scholars during the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the collection of the Hunan Museum, attempting to fully and multi-dimensionally display the calligraphy and painting art of the elegant Hunan gentry during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Hongkong
Picasso: Dialogue with Asia
Location: M+ Museum, Hong Kong
Exhibition period: March 15 - July 13, 2025
This special exhibition presents more than 150 works of art, including more than 60 works by Picasso and more than 80 works by Asian artists from the collection of the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, presenting Picasso's influence on Asian art through a cross-cultural and cross-temporal dialogue.
Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman: Transfiguration
Location: M+
Duration: December 14, 2024 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition features important early series of works by Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, born in 1951) and Cindy Sherman (American, born in 1954), tracing the origins of their creations and describing how they reconstruct classic images from art history, film, and media culture. These creative acts of cross-dressing and avatars are not simply imitations of the original works, but also reflect the unique perspectives and backgrounds of the two artists. The images they reproduce often deviate from the original images, making them feel both familiar and ambiguous. Morimura and Sherman establish a fluid and changeable relationship with their impersonations, revealing that identity is a malleable concept.
The World of Cézanne and Renoir: Collections of the Orangerie and Musee d'Orsay in France
Venue: Hong Kong Museum of Art
Duration: Until May 7
The exhibition is themed on two representatives of Impressionism, Cézanne and Renoir, and displays 52 paintings from the Orangerie Museum and the Orsay Museum, aiming to present the artistic styles of Cézanne and Renoir and reveal their friendship.
A Moveable Feast: Chinese Food Culture
Location: Hong Kong Palace Museum
Exhibition period: March 19-June 18, 2025
Food culture is naturally an important part of Chinese traditional culture. This exhibition is divided into four units: "Across Life and Death", "Across Culture", "Across Landscapes", and "Across Time". From Neolithic sacrificial and burial food utensils to multimedia tables, it explores the past and present of contemporary food utensils.
Clear Stream Flows Far Away: A Clear View of Chinese Landscape Art
Venue: Art Museum, University of Hong Kong
Exhibition period: February 14 - May 11, 2025
The exhibition will display landscape paintings from the early Qing Dynasty (17th century) to the present day from the collection of the Hong Kong University Art Museum. The works on display reflect the development of Chinese landscape painting over three centuries: Zha Shibiao of the Xin'an School in the early Qing Dynasty inherited the literati painting tradition, the Lingnan School in the late Qing Dynasty advocated a compromise between Chinese and Western styles, the Guangdong Chinese Painting Research Association in the Republic of China advocated seeking improvement in tradition, and the works of Huang Binhong, Liu Haisu and others reflected the trend and form of the diversified development of modern Chinese painting.
Xiuming Wubei: Military Artifacts from the Qing Dynasty in the Palace Museum
Location: Hong Kong Palace Museum
Exhibition period: January 22, 2025 - January 21, 2026
The exhibition is divided into six units: "The Rise of the Eight Banners", "The World of Swords", "Riding and Archery with Guns and Cannons", "Drills and Military Salutes", "History in Pictures" and "Defending the Sea Borders". It presents the development of military organization, technology and art in the Qing Dynasty through about 190 Qing Dynasty court military cultural relics collected by the Palace Museum, including helmets, bows and arrows, swords, horse harnesses, paintings, textiles, books, scientific instruments and many other categories of items.
When the Forbidden City meets the Palace of Versailles – Cultural Exchange between China and France in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Location: Hong Kong Palace Museum
Duration: Until May 4, 2025
The exhibition features nearly 150 treasures from the Palace Museum and the Palace of Versailles, presenting the history of mutual appreciation, inspiration and exchange between the Chinese and French courts in the fields of culture, art, science and technology, as well as the long-standing friendship between the two countries.
Taipei
Auspicious Seasons: Exhibition of Cultural Relics from the Museum's Collection
Location: National Palace Museum, Taipei
Exhibition period: January 28 - April 27, 2025
This exhibition relies on the seasonal cultural relics collected by the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It is divided into three units: "Seasonal Sequences", "Three Festivals Celebrations" and "Four Seasons". It leads the audience through different festivals and takes a glimpse of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter in the Qing court.
The Immortal's Soul: Lü Dongbin in the Forbidden City's Cultural Relics
Location: National Palace Museum, Taipei (Southern Campus)
Exhibition period: February 4 - April 27, 2025
Lü Dongbin, Zhongli Quan, Tieguai Li, Zhang Guolao, Lan Caihe, Han Xiangzi, Cao Guojiu, and He Xiangu together form the so-called "Eight Immortals", which have become a popular theme in Yuan and Ming operas, among which "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" is the most famous, often combined with the theme of "The Queen Mother of the West's Peach Banquet", and has become a common auspicious decoration in Ming and Qing artifacts. This exhibition will use the paintings and artifacts in the museum's collection to show the immortal spirit sought by scholars and the longevity and happiness sought by the secular world, leading the audience to glimpse the different aspects of Lü Dongbin.
Painting from the Heart: Human Touch in Painting and Calligraphy
Location: National Palace Museum, Taipei
Exhibition period: January 10 - April 13, 2025
This exhibition will bring together calligraphy and painting works that express one’s feelings through words and paintings. Through daily letters, poems, calligraphy and paintings created specifically for others, and images with the connotation of gifts, it will showcase the talent and ideas of calligraphers and painters, and present to the audience a microcosm of social etiquette and interpersonal relationships.
overseas
Japan
Spring in the Art Museum
Location: The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Exhibition period: March 13 - April 6, 2025
The museum will showcase a number of cherry blossom-themed paintings in Hall 10. The most eye-catching one is Kawai Gyokudo's "Late Spring Screen", which is exhibited once a year and presents a poetic scene of pink cherry blossoms scattered on the water amidst the green mountain scenery. In addition, Akechi Tamae's "Cherry Blossom Scroll" depicts more than 40 kinds of cherry blossoms, including weeping cherry, yukin cherry, and Oshima cherry, which is also a work that cherry blossom lovers cannot miss.
Hilma af Klint Exhibition
Location: The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Duration: March 4 - June 15, 2025
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a Swedish artist who completed her first abstract painting as early as 1906. She entered the field of abstract art earlier than Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian and others, and is therefore regarded as an important pioneer of Western abstract painting. This is the first large-scale retrospective of the artist in Asia, focusing on her representative series "Temple Paintings", with a total of about 140 works on display. Combined with relevant documentary materials, it comprehensively reviews Af Klint's artistic career and explores her creative characteristics and sources of inspiration.
Monet's Water Lily Hour
Location: KYOCERA Museum of Art, Kyoto
Exhibition period: March 7 - June 8, 2025
The exhibition focuses on Monet's "Water Lilies" series of paintings, and displays about 50 Monet paintings collected by the Musee Marmottan in France, combined with collections in Japan, to comprehensively review Monet's artistic creation in his later years. When this exhibition was held in Tokyo, it caused a great response.
Singapore
Mirror in Mirror: A Journey of the Soul
Location: ArtScience Museum
Exhibition period: March 1 - July 6, 2025
The exhibition uses cutting-edge technology and creative art to make the human inner world visible, allowing viewers to choose their own exploration path and feel the potential and endless creativity of the human mind in an immersive experience.
France
Suzanne Valadon
Location: Centre Pompidou
Duration: January 15 - May 26, 2025
The Centre Pompidou’s 2025 blockbuster exhibition is dedicated to one of the most important artists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Suzanne Valadon. Bringing together more than 200 paintings and drawings, the exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Valadon’s daring and original career, tracing the artist’s unique trajectory from her days as a sought-after model in Montmartre to her recognition by her peers and critics.
U.K.
Astonishing: Sketches by Victor Hugo
Location: Royal Academy of Arts (RA), London
Exhibition period: March 21 - June 29, 2025
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) created an immortal literary classic. What is less known is that he was also a powerful visual artist. From his early cartoons and travel works to his dramatic landscapes and experiments with abstraction. This exhibition brings together exquisite works on paper to reveal Hugo beyond literature.
Edvard Munch Portrait Exhibition
Location: National Portrait Gallery, UK
Duration: Until June 15
Nietzschean enthusiasm, symbolism and expressionism, madness, early death... This is the impression people have of the humorous and cynical Edvard Munch. Of course, he is best known as the creator of the painful "Scream" in 1893. The exhibition brings together more than 40 paintings and works on paper, most of which have never been exhibited in the UK before. These works allow viewers to enter Munch's social circle and discover another side of this artist.
Siena: The Rise of Painting (1300-1350)
Location: National Gallery, London
Exhibition period: March 8 - June 22, 2025
In the early 14th century, Siena, as the artistic capital of Italy, attracted a large number of artists to come to learn, collaborate and explore. The exhibition will bring together more than 100 paintings, sculptures, metal objects and textiles from the early European Renaissance, illustrating the creativity of Sienese artists and their influence on the surrounding area. Highlights include the "Mesta" altarpiece by Duccio (c. 1255-1319) and the "Orsini" polyptych by Simone Martini (1284-1344).
From Goya to Impressionism: The Oscar Reinhardt Collection
Location: Courtauld Gallery
Exhibition period: February 14 - May 26, 2025
The Courtauld Museum of Art will host the first large-scale exhibition of the Oscar Reinhardt Collection outside of Switzerland, taking advantage of the closure of the Oscar Reinhardt Museum for renovation in 2025. The exhibition will focus on works by Spanish painter Francisco Goya, French Romanticist pioneer Theodore Géricault, French Realist founder Gustave Courbet, and many Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Exhibits include Manet's "In the Café", Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "Chaucau, the Clown", Cézanne's still life and two works created by Van Gogh during his hospitalization in Arles.
Turner: Light and Shadow
Location: Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
Duration: Until November 2, 2025
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner, one of Britain's most popular artists. This exhibition displays a series of Turner's prints and watercolors. Among them, "Liber Studiorum" (Study Book) is a series of 71 prints that took Turner 20 years to complete. This exhibition is able to display all of them, showing how he used lines, tones and space in prints and paintings from a unique perspective.
Tarot: Origins and Future
Location: Warburg Institute, University of London, UK
Duration: Until April 30
As a tool of exploration, a source of artistic inspiration, and a symbol of counterculture, the tarot has long been about destiny, creativity, and a shaper of identity. The exhibition "Tarot: Origins and Legacy" explores the long history of the tarot, exploring its origins and its evolution in the hands of artists, mystics, and writers.
Mughal Empire: Art, Architecture and Luxury
Location: Victoria and Albert Museum
Exhibition period: November 9, 2024 - May 5, 2025
The exhibition will bring together more than 200 works by artists and craftsmen from ancient Iran and northern India, showcasing the artistic achievements of the Mughal Empire's Golden Age (c. 1560-1660), spanning the reigns of three emperors: Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
Picasso Print Collection
Location: British Museum
Duration: Until March 30, 2025
This exhibition spans Picasso's entire career and brings together approximately 100 etchings, lithographs, fly ash etchings, linoleum prints and other works, showcasing Picasso's use of different printmaking techniques and his ever-changing artistic creation methods, and giving the audience an in-depth understanding of his collaborative relationship with printers, publishers and other artists.
Tirza Garwood: Beyond Ravilius
Location: Dulwich Picture Gallery
Duration: November 19, 2024 - May 26, 2025
The exhibition features more than 80 works, exploring her style of "exquisite naivety" - using seemingly innocent subjects to convey deeper meanings. The exhibition covers all areas of her practice, including almost all of her existing paintings, as well as her humorous woodcuts, pencil drawings, experimental mica paper designs and collage constructions.
Germany
The Blue Rider Universe: From Kandinsky to Campendink
Location: Berlin State Museum
Exhibition period: March 1 - June 15, 2025
The exhibition is divided into seven chapters, introducing Kandinsky's prints, Franz Marc's paintings of plants and animals, August Marc's paintings on paper, female artists in the Blue Rider group, the Blue Rider yearbook, and the Berlin avant-garde gallery "Storm Gallery" which hosted the Blue Rider exhibition in 1912.
Kandinsky's Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century
Location: Kunsthalle Barberini, Potsdam
Exhibition period: February 15 - May 18, 2025
The exhibition brings together 125 works by 70 artists (with 12 Kandinsky works linked together), showing the development of geometric abstract art in Europe and America in the 20th century. This is not only a visual exploration, but also a review of the ultimate pursuit of modernism. Since Kandinsky, Western artists have gradually shifted from depicting the visible world to exploring the interaction of color, line and shape, and regarded it as a visual language that transcends national boundaries.
Switzerland
Northern Lights
Location: Fondation Beyeler
Exhibition period: January 26 - May 25, 2025
The exhibition presents 74 landscapes created between 1888 and 1937 by artists from Scandinavia and Canada, including masterpieces by Hilma af Klint and Edvard Munch. These artists all used the boreal forest as a common source of inspiration. Natural phenomena such as the seemingly endless forests, endless summer glow, long winter nights and the northern lights gave rise to a specific form of Nordic modern painting, which continues to exert an enduring appeal and fascination.
USA
The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt
Location: Jewish Museum, New York
Duration: Until August 10
Esther was a famous Persian queen and a Jewish heroine who saved her compatriots from extinction. In the 17th century, the story of Queen Esther also inspired the Dutch people during the War of Independence. This exhibition presents works by many Dutch artists, including Rembrandt, depicting the story of Esther.
Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men
Location: Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Exhibition period: February 25 - May 25, 2025
The exhibition, co-organized by the Getty Museum, the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, and the Art Institute of Chicago, focuses on Caillebotte's frequent depictions of male figures, even in traditionally female spaces. His paintings highlight the surprising innovation in his work by highlighting his unique treatment of gender roles in figure painting.
Breaking the Paradigm: The Brooklyn Museum’s 200th Anniversary
Location: Brooklyn Museum
Duration: February 28, 2025 - February 22, 2026
The exhibition aims to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Brooklyn Museum. It is divided into three chapters: "Made in Brooklyn", "The Construction of the Brooklyn Museum and Its Collection", and "The Gift of Art". It explores the rich history and future development prospects of the collection in a novel narrative way.
Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Exhibition period: February 8 - May 11, 2025
Under the brush of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), the charm of nature is not limited to direct description, but also the habitat of emotions and souls. The concept of romanticism is not only reflected in the interweaving of light, shadow and color on the canvas, but also in the secret resonance between landscape and heart. Through the works, the exhibition invites the audience to appreciate the poetry of nature and soul.
Melting the Ancient to Create the New: Exhibition of Bronzes from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Exhibition period: February 28 - September 28, 2025
The exhibition is co-organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Shanghai Museum. It brings together about 100 collections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and nearly 100 loaned collections from many cultural and museum institutions such as the British Museum, the Cernuschi Museum, the Palace Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the Liaoning Provincial Museum. It focuses on bronze ware, supplemented by different types of cultural relics such as paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, lacquerware, and jade. It expounds on the interpretation, inheritance, and development of the early bronze ritual tradition in China's Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and presents the unique artistic value of China's late bronze ware.
Collection Spotlight: Piet Mondrian
Location: Guggenheim Museum, New York
Duration: November 22, 2024 - April 20, 2025
This exhibition will focus on the paintings and drawings of Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian, tracing the evolution of Mondrian's style throughout his painting career, from his early experimental works in the Netherlands to his iconic works in Paris and then to his later works after moving to New York.
