Asia Art Weekly News Bulletin – ISSUE 76 Week of 3 August 2026
(1) Hong Kong International Airport Launches Cultural Arts Festival Featuring Retro Flight Board Displays and Ludo Seats
Hong Kong International Airport launched its Cultural Arts Festival. The event features retro mechanical Kai Tak flight board displays, public seats transformed into Ludo chessboard installations, local calligraphy displays, and live performances across Terminal 1 to showcase Hong Kong’s creative heritage to global travelers.
(2) HKU Business School Shenzhen Hosts Greater Bay Area Cultural Symposium on AI and Artistic Heritage
HKU Business School’s Shenzhen Campus hosted a symposium on AI, art, and cultural heritage. Featuring insights from HKUST(GZ) President Prof. Ni Mingxuan, HKAPA Director Prof. Chen Chung-ying, and dancer Tang Ya, the event highlighted AI applications, educational transformations, and technology-enhanced stage performances across the Greater Bay Area.
(3) Second International Oil Painting Exchange Exhibition 2026 Opens Next Week at Hong Kong Central Library
The 2nd International Oil Painting Exchange Exhibition runs August 11–16, 2026, at HK Central Library. Featuring works by international masters, the free event includes an East-West fusion concert and an art history lecture by Shen Ping.
(4) Taichung Art Museum to Host Yageo Foundation Exhibition Featuring Bacon, Picasso, and Hockney
Taichung City Museum of Fine Arts will unveil “The Scorpion and the Frog” exhibition on November 20, 2026. Featuring 66 Yageo Foundation artworks by Bacon, Picasso, Hockney, and Gentileschi, the show juxtaposes five centuries of art to explore human nature and reason.
(1) Hong Kong International Airport Launches Cultural Arts Festival Featuring Retro Flight Board Displays and Ludo Seats
(Photo Credit: Singtao Headline)
The Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) hosted the “Hong Kong International Airport Cultural Arts Festival,” showcasing four major art installations and exhibitions alongside approximately 30 live performances across Terminal 1. Speaking at the opening ceremony, AAHK Chief Executive Officer Vivian Cheung Kar-fay highlighted that as a global aviation hub, the airport serves as travelers’ first impression of Hong Kong, making cultural displays an ideal venue to showcase local emerging artistic talent.
The featured art installations bridge historical nostalgia and interactive design. The installation “Glimpse of Time” recreates Kai Tak Airport’s iconic mechanical split-flap flight information board, using rotating flaps to alternate between historical Kai Tak photos and modern Chek Lap Kok imagery. Another prominent installation, produced in collaboration with the Hong Kong Arts Center and design group STICKYLINE, transforms passenger seating in Departure Hall into a giant Ludo (aeroplane chess) board. The design omits a traditional “finish line” to symbolize that the airport is continuously both a departure point and an arrival destination.
Additional displays include dynamic screen exhibitions featuring calligraphy from 1930s to 1990s Hong Kong shop signs, film posters, and advertisements, alongside artwork created by trainees from the Hong Chi Association. AAHK also noted that cultural experiences at the airport will further expand with phased openings of Terminal 2 expansion areas and future developments at Skytopia and AsiaWorld-Expo.
(2) HKU Business School Shenzhen Hosts Greater Bay Area Cultural Symposium on AI and Artistic Heritage
(Photo Credit: hkcd.com)
According to a news report on the recent event held at the Shenzhen Campus of the HKU Business School, the “HKU Greater Bay Area Cultural Gathering” brought together leaders from technology, performing arts, and academia to explore “Artistic Innovation and Cultural Inheritance in the AI Era.” Yan Su, Executive Director of HKU Business School Shenzhen Campus, noted in his opening remarks that the symposium aims to foster cross-disciplinary synergy across innovation, arts, and business while examining the future boundaries of art under the impact of artificial intelligence.
Prof. Ni Mingxuan, founding President of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), detailed three computational media projects: training AI models to preserve Tanka culture alongside a digital avatar (“Grandpa A-Long”); using VR 3D-scanning technology at Foshan Ancestral Temple’s Wanfu Stage to create immersive Cantonese Opera experiences; and hosting “Phantom Realm,” a cross-regional MR/AR exhibition integrating virtual art into physical campus spaces.
Prof. Chen Chung-ying, Director of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA), addressed the institutional evolution of arts education, emphasizing that AI is reshaping cultural productivity. She outlined HKAPA’s transition into a regional cultural engine through interdisciplinary restructuring, system-collaboration skills training, and ecosystem integration, noting that while technology extends value, humans must remain the primary givers of cultural meaning. Furthermore, Tang Ya, former principal dancer of the Hong Kong Dance Company and founder of Grand Dance Night, shared how her productions integrate multimedia films and traditional Nanyin music to enhance narrative storytelling, emphasizing that human emotion and physical expression remain the irreplaceable core of stage arts.
News Source: https://www.hkcd.com.hk/hkcdweb/content/2026/08/03/content_8767930.html
(3) Second International Oil Painting Exchange Exhibition 2026 Opens Next Week at Hong Kong Central Library
(Photo Credit: Hong Kong Oil Painting Research Society)
The “Second International Oil Painting Exchange Exhibition 2026” will take place from August 11 to 16, 2026, at Exhibition Galleries 1–5 on the ground floor of the Hong Kong Central Library. Co-organized by the Hong Kong Oil Painting Research Society and Cypress Seed Gallery, with support from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the six-day exhibition brings together prominent contemporary painters from Mainland China, Russia, France, and Hong Kong to foster international dialogue and public engagement.
The exhibition features masterworks from renowned institutions, including professors from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and masters from the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Alongside the gallery display, the event incorporates diverse public educational and cultural programming. On August 14, an evening concert titled “East-West Music Exchange” will combine Chinese and Western musical elements performed by the Music Lover Youth Chinese Orchestra and the Locomotive Trio, creating a cross-disciplinary audio-visual experience inside the gallery space.
Additionally, artist Shen Ping will deliver a special public lecture on August 16 titled “Starting from the Oil Painters of the Central Academy of Fine Arts…” Utilizing 700 archival images, Shen will trace the century-long evolution of Chinese oil painting—highlighting masterpieces by Xu Beihong and Wu Zuoren, analyzing works by Fan Dian and Dong Xiwen, and examining the profound impact of the Soviet-led “Maksimov Oil Painting Training Class” on contemporary Chinese art. Admission to the entire exhibition and its associated public events is free to the public.
(4) Taichung Art Museum to Host Yageo Foundation Exhibition Featuring Bacon, Picasso, and Hockney
(Photo Credit: Jonathan Wilkinson)
The Taichung Taichung City Museum of Fine Arts will open “The Scorpion and the Frog: Masterpieces from the Yageo Foundation Collection” on November 20, 2026. Co-hosted with the Yageo Foundation, the international special exhibition showcases 66 Western and Eastern artworks spanning five centuries from the Renaissance to contemporary art, with 55 pieces making their public debut in Taiwan.
Curated by New York-based curator Philip Larratt-Smith, the exhibition uses the “Scorpion and the Frog” fable as an overarching metaphor to explore tensions between reason and instinct, power and desire, and the sacred and secular. Rejecting a traditional chronological layout, the exhibition places works from vastly different eras side by side to provoke dialogue on the human condition.
Key highlights include placing Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait VI alongside Tintoretto’s Portrait of Cardinal Marcantonio Da Mula, juxtaposing late Renaissance authority with modern psychological anxiety. Additionally, David Hockney’s double portrait Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy will be shown in Taiwan for the first time following the artist’s passing in June 2026 at age 88. The exhibition also features works by Artemisia Gentileschi, Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Sanyu, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, offering a comprehensive presentation of world-class masterpieces in Central Taiwan.
News Source: https://500times.udn.com/wtimes/story/12672/9669891?form=udn_ch2_common3_cate
