On December 11, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) of the Hong Kong SAR, in collaboration with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) and the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA), announced that artists Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui will represent Hong Kong at the 61st Venice Biennale. 

Both Ng and Hui were born and raised in Hong Kong. Ng is a midcareer installation and media artist known for immersive, site-specific works that use light as a primary medium. His technologically advanced practice often conjures cultural memory and invites participatory engagement, resulting in contemplative, meditative experiences that allude to social issues and the textures of everyday life. 

Hui is an emerging artist formally trained in Chinese delineative gongbi painting. Her experimental approach to this tradition integrates cultural symbols from different civilizations into contemporary quotidian objects. She is best known for intricate paintings on toilet paper and underglaze porcelain styled in kitsch forms, exemplified by Make a Wish (2022), a commissioned site-specific installation at HKMoA. 

HKMoA is co-organizing and curating the Hong Kong exhibition at the Venice Biennale for the first time, taking over from M+, which had overseen the city’s participation since 2013. HKADC, which appoints the curating institution, had not disclosed the reasons for the change. HKMoA’s selection process involved inviting nominations from local tertiary institutions and professional art organizations while also considering artists recently commissioned by LCSD museums. A seven-member selection panel, comprising curator and gallerist Johnson Chang; Fumio Nanjo, senior advisor of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum; and collector William Lim, among others, then shortlisted candidates from a pool of over 200 names. 

Hong Kong’s participation at the 2026 Venice Biennale will break from the solo-artist format of the city’s past Venice outings, from Lee Kit in 2013 through Trevor Yeung in 2024.

Arphy Li is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.