Grand opening

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture, will open to the public on November 12, 2021.  

Located in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, M+ showcases a pre-eminent collection of 20th- and 21st-century visual culture within an Asian context, encompassing the disciplines of design and architecture, moving image, and visual art from Hong Kong, Greater China, Asia, and beyond.  

The M+ building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup, is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world. Situated at the southernmost edge of Kowloon overlooking Victoria Harbour, it is among Hong Kong’s most iconic landmarks, both monumental in its architectural form and radically open to the urban landscape. 

For the museum’s grand opening, works drawn from the M+ Collections as well as new commissions will be on view in exhibitions and presentations across 33 galleries and other display spaces. Emanating from a uniquely Hong Kong perspective coupled with a global vision, the opening displays introduce the chronological developments and multifaceted narratives of visual culture from the 1950s to the present day.  

The M+ Collections feature artworks in mediums ranging from painting, sculpture, and ink art to installation and digital media. Part of an expansive conception of visual culture, these pieces are in dialogue with architectural drawings and models, graphic design products, manufactured objects, album covers, posters, and video games, as well as artist videos and films. 

Hong Kong Visual Culture is at the core of the M+ Collections and links various curatorial research areas while grounding the museum’s global programming in the unique context of its home city.  

Opening exhibition highlights 

Hong Kong: Here and Beyond: an exploration of what makes Hong Kong unique, through its celebrated art, architecture, design, and cinema. 

M+ Sigg Collection: From Revolution to Globalisation: a journey through four significant decades for contemporary Chinese art, from 1970 to 2012.  

Things, Spaces, Interactions: more than 500 examples of furniture, architecture, graphic arts, and other design objects that have had a profound influence in Asia and across the globe over the last 70 years. 

Individuals, Networks, Expressions: an expansive story of how artists created their own visions amid the rise of contemporary Asia on the world stage. 

Antony Gormley: Asian Field: a monumental work by British artist Antony Gormley featuring a sea of clay figurines made by residents of Xiangshan village, Guangdong. 

The  Dream of the Museum: a global constellation of art at the heart of M+’s unique Asian context. 

The building 
Encompassing approximately 65,000 square metres, the building is composed of a podium and a slender tower that fuse into the shape of an upside-down “T.” The structure includes some 17,000 square metres of exhibition space across thirty-three galleries, three cinemas, a mediatheque, a learning hub, and a roof garden. The tower houses the museum’s research centre, offices, restaurants, and the M+ Lounge. The tower’s harbour-facing facade is embedded with thousands of powerful LEDs, forming a giant digital screen for moving image works and museum messaging.  

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 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.