Tai Kwun is a not-for-profit art space and a centre for heritage and arts in Dedicated to encouraging conversations between the wider public and contemporary art, Tai Kwun Contemporary offers events such as Art After Hours and Family Day, as well as public screenings and workshops. Its extensive programmes include Summer Institute: an annual seminar and lecture series targeting tertiary-level students from Hong Kong and Asia, as well as Booked: Hong Kong Art Book Fair, an annual art book festival that welcomes exhibitors from around the world and features art and artists’ books, photobooks, critical and theoretical as well as experimental writing, art magazines, zines, related ephemera and more.
Read MoreIt is located in the former Central Police Station compound, with a revamped design by the renowned Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. Led by the partnership between the Government of the Hong Kong SAR and The Hong Kong Jockey Club, the centre opened its doors to the public in May 2018 with a mission to foster cultural discourse in Hong Kong through presenting heritage, contemporary art and performing arts.
Tai Kwun Contemporary—Tai Kwun’s contemporary art arm—presents exhibitions in an exhibition space of more than 1,500 square metres. While Tai Kwun’s JC Contemporary building houses six to eight exhibitions each year, performing art—whether theatre, music, dance, or film—will be found throughout the building complex in JC Cube, the Laundry Steps, the Prison Yard, and the Parade Ground, among others.
Notable presentations at Tai Kwun Contemporary include Six-Part Practice (2018), which was the institution’s first solo presentation and featured works by Hong Kong artist Wing Po So that engage with traditional Chinese medicinal herbs; Gaylord Chan at Tai Kwun (2019), a newly commissioned documentary about the influential Hong Kong artist; and MURAKAMI vs MURAKAMI (2019), a major survey of internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami that brought together a selection of his iconic costume designs together in an exhibition for the first time.
Tai Kwun Contemporary also hosts compelling group exhibitions and artist workshops, including its inaugural group show Dismantling the Scaffold (2018), which was curated by Hong Kong curator Christina Li and presented works by Nadim Abbas, Big Tail Elephant, Tiffany Chung, Chen Shaoxiong, Superflex and Jens Haaning, and Xijing Men, among others; sharing session and performance Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tang Kwok Hin Talk About “Deinstitutionalising Educational Structures” (2018); and conversations between Hong Kong comic artist Kongkee and writer Albert Tam on a cyberpunk Hong Kong in Cyberpunk Here and Now #1: Kongkee x Albert Tam (2019).
Dedicated to encouraging conversations between the wider public and contemporary art, Tai Kwun Contemporary offers events such as Art After Hours and Family Day, as well as public screenings and workshops. Its extensive programmes include Summer Institute: an annual seminar and lecture series targeting tertiary-level students from Hong Kong and Asia, as well as Booked: Hong Kong Art Book Fair, an annual art book festival that welcomes exhibitors from around the world and features art and artists’ books, photobooks, critical and theoretical as well as experimental writing, art magazines, zines, related ephemera and more.