The question of what the future holds for us and the planet remains at the forefront of everyone’s mind. The new year is rising like the sun at dawn, just out of sight but already spreading its glow. Yet 2024’s preoccupation among many artists working across Asia was a reckoning with history. For an artist such as Archie Moore—winner of the Golden Lion at the 60th Venice Biennale for his monumental installation kith and kin (2024) in the Australia Pavilion—who went back 65,000 years to trace his Aboriginal bloodlines and the legacy of the colonial state, the past holds the key to understanding the present. The horizon line on our cover and throughout these pages represents this liminal space as we reflect and prepare to begin the cycle anew.

In the 20th edition of the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, we survey the many contemporary art events across Asia and the world, from art fairs and auctions to biennials and major exhibitions. The nucleus of the Almanac is the 15 City Reports, where our contributors reflect on impactful artworks and conversations from 2024 and preview what’s in store for 2025. In our interviews, we caught up with several artists having major forthcoming showcases. Beginning in Aotearoa New Zealand, we spoke to Brett Graham about the legacy of the 19th-century Land Wars and the continued influence of his artist-father. Like Graham, the Shaanxi-based artist Xiyadie was featured in the Venice Biennale, where he displayed his monumental handmade erotic papercuts. Meanwhile in Tokyo, Ei Arakawa-Nash reflected on his first institutional retrospective in Japan, which included irreverent collaborations with over 50 creatives, friends, and volunteers. Among other energetic artist-organizers making an impact in the region, AAP spoke to Hong Kong artist Florence Lam about the Per.Platform initiative for live art, Ulaanbaatar painter and performance artist Anunaran Jargalsaikhan, and Ho Chi Minh City-based collective Art Labor member Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần about working closely with Indigenous communities to foreground local concerns.

Throughout this Almanac we hear about the dynamics at play in cities across Asia. From Seoul, curator Valentina Buzzi assesses how the art scene in the South Korean capital won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Christopher Whitfield describes how Taipei’s creative scenes have responded to major geopolitical events. In Manila, Sam del Castillo looks at artists’ preoccupation with the climate, a theme echoed by curator and critic Quddus Mirza, who observes the environmental consciousness evident at the biennials in Lahore and Karachi. Yvonne Wang surveys the annual flurry of activity across the city-state, while Beverly Yong and Rachel Ng recount the new energy lifting the Kuala Lumpur scene. From Istanbul, Matt Hanson assesses the rifts between private ventures and artist-driven initiatives. Chelsea Pettitt highlights ambitious international exhibitions staged in London amid funding cuts for the arts. Finally, from Los Angeles, Jennifer S. Li describes how the art scene has witnessed a slight contraction while smaller spaces appear to be thriving.

For our Artists of the Year, alongside Archie Moore, we looked at the influential Saudi Arabian artist Manal AlDowayan whose work dissects the politics of collective memory and Saudi female identity. We highlight Yuko Mohri’s large-scale, kinetic installations shown in the Japan Pavilion at Venice, in Tokyo, and elsewhere around the world. The similarly active Trương Công Tùng staged reinterpretations of Indigenous communities’ mythological beliefs from his native Vietnam at venues from Venice to New York. A prominent figure for decades, Korean artist Do Ho Suh received a major homecoming solo survey in Seoul. Finally, our One to Watch for 2025 is London-based Taiwanese artist Steph Huang, who exhibited widely in the UK and is set for more projects in the year ahead, including in Taipei.

Elsewhere, we survey eight major festivals of the year—from the Biennale of Sydney to the Gwangju Biennale. At the year’s center was the 60th Venice Biennale, with its theme of “Foreigners Everywhere,” which tapped directly into the zeitgeist. In our Exhibitions of the Year, we look back on major surveys at museums from Tokyo to Shanghai and New York, as well Wong Ping’s provocations in Hong Kong, the late Lala Rukh’s poetic works in Sharjah, and Amanda Ba’s figurative paintings in New York. In News we cover the major commissions, awards, appointments, new buildings, and controversies, the passing of influential figures, and we preview what is to come in 2025. Additionally, we give a year-in-review to the commercial art fair and auction sectors. For Inside Burger Collection, Harry C.H. Choi uncovers the thematic concerns of the elusive Julia Phillips, who explores social relationships via the human body.

The ArtAsiaPacific Almanac 2025 would not be possible without the generous support of Burger Collection, Stephen Cheng, Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation, Gallery Hyundai, Kukje Gallery, Mapletree, Stefan Rihs, Chloe Suen, Nicola Chu, and Jean-Marc Bottazzi. We are grateful to the many people who support ArtAsiaPacific throughout the year, including the contributors and organizations that share their time, thoughts, images, and information with us. Many thanks to our art director Heesun Seo and designer June Lin for conceiving an elegant design, which captures the founding spirit of the Almanac, now two decades old. Finally, this endeavor could not be realized without the dedicated efforts of the AAP editorial team: HG Masters, Oliver Clasper, Louis Lu, Annabel Preston, and Annette Meier. As always, we look ahead to the enlightening engagements with artists and cultural communities from across the world that await us in 2025.