From the vertical H Queen’s gallery building in Central to bluechip street-level spaces and emerging galleries across the SoHo area (South of Hollywood Road), Central Gallery Day returns on Monday, March 25, ahead of Art Basel Hong Kong’s VIP previews on March 26–27. Among the numerous exhibitions happening in Central and Sheung Wan, for both local visitors and overseas guests, here are our editor’s picks for the commercial gallery openings across Central area and nearby. (We will publish our picks for Southside and Kowloon shows to see later in the week.)

Mar 25–May 11
Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point is Matter
David Zwirner Hong Kong

German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has been exploring the potentials of photographic practice for over three decades. “The Point is Matter” spans both floors of the gallery, bringing together a wide range of subjects and themes in Tillmans’s recent work. Throughout the exhibition, the photographer seeks connectedness through his gaze, bringing together works shot around the world and invoking resonances between local scenery and society at large.  

Mar 25–May 11
Glenn Ligon 
Hauser & Wirth 

New York-based conceptual artist Glenn Ligon showcases new works in his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, including a continuation of his Stranger painting series, a new abstract painting series titled Static, and a series of untitled drawings on Kozo paper. Using excerpts from James Baldwin’s landmark essay “Stranger in the Village” (1953), Ligon radically transforms text in his works to explore the politics of culture and identity. 

Mar 26–May 9
Kylie Manning: Sea Change
Pace Gallery

Alaska-born, Brooklyn-based artist Kylie Manning is known for her radiant paintings depicting sweeping landscapes and anonymous figures. The first solo exhibition of the artist in Hong Kong features five large-scale paintings and a series of related drawings inspired by her collaboration with choreographer Christopher Wheeldon at the New York City Ballet 2023. 

Mar 25–May 18
Louise Giovanelli
White Cube

In her paintings, British artist Louise Giovanelli investigates how the materiality of paint can mediate meaning. Cropping images from sources such as early Renaissance paintings, film stills, and images of popular performers, Giovanelli creates intensely worked surfaces that are delicate and luminous, encouraging a slower process of looking. Her first solo exhibition in Hong Kong features two oil-on-linen paintings titled Maened (2023). 

Mar 25–May 11
Yan Pei-Ming: Kung Hei Fat Choi 
Massimo De Carlo

Known for his wet-on-wet monochromatic oil paintings, the Shanghai-born artist Yan Pei-Ming interest displays an in human figures and portraiture, which is on view at his latest solo show, “Kung Hei Fat Choi.” Using a mop-sized brush, the artist creates iconic portraits of figures spanning politicians, religious and cultural icons, animals, family members, and the artist himself. 

Mar 25–May 10
Edgar Plans: Heart of Fearlessness
Tang Contemporary Art

Madrid-born street art-inspired artist Edgar Plans expands the pop genre with his colorful and lively depictions of “Animal Heroes,” which reference cultural icons in video games, comics, animation, and sports. In his upcoming solo exhibition, Plans presents his latest works of mixed-media on canvas and graphite on paper that realize the imaginative world his “heroes” inhabit. 

Mar 22–TBA
Myonghi Kang: The Rebirth of Nature
Villepin

Veteran Korean painter Myonghi Kang presents her solo exhibition “The Rebirth of Nature,” conceived as an oasis of natural calm amid the city. Kang showcase her paintings of nature referring to sites in Hong Kong, Taipei, and elsewhere in the world, inspired by landscape artists throughout art history, such as JMW Turner, Eugene Delacroix, Paul Cézanne, and others, while embracing the spirit of traditional Chinese painting. 

Mar 22–May 16 
Wucius Wong: Water Thoughts and Mountain Visions
Alisan Fine Arts

Hong Kong ink painter Wucius Wong’s latest solo exhibition is divided into four different series: “Land and Sky,” “Water,” “City Scenes,” and “Calligraphy,” showcasing nearly 20 paintings created since 1985. Like other artists of the New Ink movement, Wong is renowned for re-imagining landscape ink paintings through experimentation, in which he discovered a language of geometrical abstraction. 

Mar 21–Jun 1
Zheng Chongbin: Immeasurable Things
Galerie du Monde

San Francisco-based artist Zheng Chongbin explores processes of nature through microscopic and macroscopic imagery in his videos and installations. His monumental light installation at Galerie du Monde shows a destabilized space, where the boundaries between humans, technology, and the environment are blurred. Here, the past, present, and future coexist as one, encouraging viewers to perceive “the self” in flux. 

Mar 21–May 11
Wang Keping
10 Chancery Lane

Franco-Chinese wood sculptor Wang Keping incorporates natural elements of wood, such as wood-grain patterns, knots, boils, and branches, into his artworks. Focusing on figuration and sensuality, he depicts an intimacy through his abstract depictions of woman, men, couples, mothers, and children. This solo exhibition presents some of his most important works and celebrates his more than 45 years of making sculpture. 

Mar 28–May 11
Movana Chen: Words of Heartbeats
Flowers Gallery

Known for her paper-based practice, Hong Kong- and Lisbon-based artist Movana Chen presents her solo exhibition with a new body of work called Love Letters (2023). Over three decades, Chen has archived over 180 hand-written letters sent from her friends, family, and loved ones. The artist then shredded and knitted these papers into sculptural forms, transforming past memories into physical embodiments of entangled love. 

Mar 14–Apr 27
Oh Se-Yeol
Soluna Fine Art

Evoking the essence of the Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement, veteran Korean artist Oh Se-Yeol incorporates unconventional elements like collages and objects into his paintings. Oh’s works are open to interpretation as the symbols are expected to recall personal memories, especially from childhood. The exhibition showcases Oh’s paintings made over the past four years. 

Mar 21–May 5
KY Wong: Plastic Love
Square Street Gallery

Hong Kong artist KY Wong explores the relationship between people and their possessions in her first solo exhibition at Square Street Gallery. Her presentation of kitschy toys from claw machines and million-dollar luxury pets accentuates the superficial qualities of these objects, whose cute exteriors distract us from examining darker realities like addiction, waste, and illness. 

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