Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) launches our Through the Lens series, a sequence of recorded tours of exhibitions from galleries, museums to cultural institutions around the world led by docents, curators and directors. Take a walkthrough of exhibitions and studios, listen in on tales of famed works, and hear the voices of the artists. Through the Lens, titled after Alice Through the Looking Glass, dives into the adventures and explorations of unfamiliar worlds. ASHK brings these worlds into focus for our Hong Kong community, playing host to dedicated voices and leaders in the international art world, as they tell us more about the sub-cultures, developments and influences of places we currently can’t travel too. Step through your screen into a world beyond belief, from Nice, Sydney, and New York to Hong Kong and more. At the end of each month, a new video is released on ASHK's YouTube channel. 

Art Gallery of New South Wales

From its magnificent site in Sydney, the Art Gallery of NSW is one of Australia’s flagship art museums and the state’s leading visual arts institution. Our mission is to serve the widest possible audience as a centre of excellence for the collection, preservation, documentation, interpretation and display of Australian and international art, and a forum of scholarship, art education and the exchange of ideas.

Watch the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes exhibition here.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @artgalleryofnsw.

Fundació Joan Miró with Marko Daniel

The Fundació Joan Miró was created by Miró himself, at first principally with works from his own private collection, with a desire to set up an internationally recognised centre in Barcelona for Miró scholarship and contemporary art research, and to disseminate the collection. The Fundació opened to the public on 10 June 1975 and has since become a dynamic centre in which Joan Miró’s work coexists with cutting-edge contemporary art.

Marko Daniel has a degree in Art History and Philosophy from University College London (1988), a PhD in the History and Theory of Art from the University of Essex (1999),and is a specialist in contemporary Chinese and Catalan art. In 2006, Daniel joined Tate Modern, London, as a curator of public programmes. Since 2011, he has held the position of head of public programmes at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London. During this period, held projects such as Tate Exchange, a space at the new Tate Modern building for experimental and collaborative art projects. Daniel has also developed a programme of more than 350 annual public events at the two Tates in London, and promoted research in modern and contemporary art, especially Chinese, as part of the institution’s programming. Among other exhibition projects, heco-curated, together with Matthew Gale and Teresa Montaner, the exhibition Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape, exhibited at Tate Modern, London, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Fundació Joan Miró between 2011 and 2012.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @fundaciomiro.

National Gallery Singapore with Dr. Seng Yu Jin

National Gallery Singapore is a leading visual arts institution which oversees the world’s largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian modern art. Situated at the birthplace of modern Singapore, in the heart of the Civic District, the Gallery is housed in two national monuments - City Hall and former Supreme Court - that have been beautifully restored and transformed into this exciting 64,000-square-metre venue. Reflecting Singapore’s unique heritage and geographical location, the Gallery aims to be a progressive museum that creates dialogues between the art of Singapore, Southeast Asia, and the world to foster and inspire a creative and inclusive society. This is reflected in our collaborative research, education, long-term and special exhibitions, and innovative programming.

Seng Yu Jin is a Senior Curator at the National Gallery Singapore. He recently completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne, on the history of exhibitions in Southeast Asia. He was previously a Lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts in the MA Asian Art Histories and BA Fine Arts programmes. He currently lectures in the Minor in Art History at the National University of Singapore. Seng’s research interests cover regional art histories focusing the history of exhibitions and artist collectives in Southeast Asia. His curated exhibitions include From Words to Pictures: Art During the Emergency (2007), and co-curated the FX Harsono: Testimonies (2010), Singapore Biennale, If the World Changed (2013) and Awakenings: Art in Society in Asia, 1960s to 1990s (2019). He co-edited Histories, Practices, Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art and co-authored Singapore Chronicles: Art with Shabbir Hussain Mustafa.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @nationalgallerysingapore.

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston with Adrianna Benavides

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) is a non-collecting institution dedicated to presenting the best and most exciting international, national, and regional art of our time. Founded in 1948, the Museum prides itself on presenting new art and documenting its role in modern life through exhibitions, lectures, original publications, and a variety of educational programs and events.

Adrianna Benavides is CAMH’s Teen Council and Tours Program Coordinator. She is a Xicana art educator, designer, and stylist from Magnolia Park, Houston, Texas. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Occidental College (Los Angeles, California). Benavides has been an educator in Houston for over 10 years. She is a vibrant soul promoting positivity, community, and upcycling through her work. Contemporary art and streetwear are tools for Benavides to make connections and create meaningful dialogue with her community.

Find them online at camh.org and on Instagram at @camhouston.

Musee des Arts Asiatiques with Adrien Bossard

Based on a selection of iconic works evoking Asian cultures, combining court arts with popular and tribal expression, the museum's collection reconciles genres that have traditionally been split between history, ethnography and decorative arts museums, while also including some more contemporary art.

A Franco-Singaporean born in 1985 and raised in France and New Caledonia, Adrien Bossard has been a museum curator since 2013. Graduated from the Paris Sorbonne University, from the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), from the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) and of the National Heritage Institute in Paris, he developed unique competences in French Archaeology, in the Chinese world and culture, and in the management of cultural institutions. After managing the Oise Archaeological Museum, he moved to the Guimet - National Museum of Asian Arts where he was in charge of the Chinese Archaeological collection. He currently heads the Departmental Museum of Asian Arts and the Lympia Cultural Space in Nice. @bossardadrien

Find them online here and on Instagram at @maatoulon.

Q Contemporary Budapest with Eszter Csillag

Q Contemporary was inspired by a rising generation of artistic talents responding to tremendous socio-economic change in the post-communist landscape of CEE.

Today, our collection consists of CEE works with a focus on artists who have been active from the second half of the 20th century to present day. Q Contemporary celebrates these visionaries—whose works we not only love, but are dedicated to promote through our growing ambitions as a global art space and ambassador for CEE contemporary art.

Eszter Csillag has been the Artistic Director of the Q Contemporary collection since its formation. She is responsible for programming and cultural exchanges between Asia and Central Eastern Europe, besides building collaborations with other institutions.

She collaborated with Hauser & Wirth (2020) and Christie’s Education (2021) to held lectures exploring the Central Eastern European contemporary art with a focus on women artists. She co-curated with K11 Art Foundation the exhibition “Tracing the Fragments” (Hong Kong, 2021) and organized accompanying events, and tours alongside partnering up with Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia Society, and Para Site to mention but a few. She has worked for years on mapping the artists of Central and Eastern Europe, with a special focus on emerging artists.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @qcontemporary.

UCCA Edge Shanghai with Philip Tinari

UCCA was founded in 2007 by Guy and Myriam Ullens as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Committed to the belief that art can deepen lives and transcend boundaries, UCCA presents a wide range of exhibitions, public programs, and research initiatives to a public of more than one million visitors each yea

Opening May 2021, UCCA Edge occupies 5500 square meters over three levels of the new EDGE tower in Shanghai’s Jing’an District. Designed by New York-based architects SO – IL, the museum includes 1700 square meters of gallery space as well as a wraparound outdoor terrace and public spaces including a lobby and auditorium. As an integral part of the UCCA constellation, UCCA Edge will mount exhibitions of leading Chinese and international artists, some developed exclusively for the Shanghai audience, some touring from other UCCA locations.

Philip Tinari is Director and CEO of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, one of China’s leading institutions of contemporary art. Since joining in 2011, he has led its transformation from a founder-owned private museum into an accredited museum across multiple locations, a public foundation, and a family of art-driven enterprises. During his tenure, UCCA has mounted more than seventy exhibitions and thousands of public programs, bringing artistic voices established and emerging, Chinese and international, to an audience of over a million visitors each year. From 2009 to 2012 he founded and edited LEAP, the first internationally distributed, bilingual magazine of contemporary art in China. He is a contributing editor of Artforum, and launched the magazine’s Chinese edition in 2008. Having written extensively on contemporary art in China, he was co-curator of the 2017 exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Based in Beijing since 2001 and fluent in Mandarin, Tinari is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on US-China Relations. He holds degrees from Duke and Harvard.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @uccaedge.

The Museum Rietberg in Zurich with Khanh Trinh

The Museum Rietberg, one of the largest art museums in Switzerland, is administered by the City of Zurich. With a focus on the traditional and contemporary arts and cultures of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, it has some 23,000 objects and 37,000 ethnographic photographs in its collection. Most of the objects are on public display, either in the museum’s galleries or in its open storeroom.

Alexandra von Przychowski studied East Asian Art History and Sinology in Germany and China. In 1997 she starts working at the Museum Rietberg as an Exhibition Assistant. Since 1998 she has been in charge of the fields of China and the Art of the Himalayan Region. She focuses on highly diverse themes in her exhibitions and publications: they range from Chinese ceramics, calligraphy, painting, and Buddhist art from Bhutan, to symbols of propaganda of the Cultural Revolution. 

Khanh Trinh studied East Asian Art History, Japanese and Chinese Studies at the University of Zurich. She earned her PhD degree with a thesis on the Japanese painter Tani Bunchō (1763–1840). Before taking up the position of curator of Japanese and Korean Art at the Museum Rietberg in 2015, Trinh worked as a curator and lecturer in the arts of Japan in Berlin (Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, 1997–2004), Tokyo (Waseda University, 2006–07), and Sydney (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2007–15). She has curated numerous exhibitions and contributed to their accompanying catalogues. Her research and curatorial interests focus on pre-modern Japanese painting and woodblock print, as well as contemporary Japanese and Korean art. 

Find them online here and on Instagram at @museumrietberg

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

As the visual arts center at one of the world’s leading public research universities, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) brings the rich artistic resources of the UC Berkeley campus to the broader public. BAMPFA’s mission is to inspire the imagination, ignite critical dialog, and activate community engagement through art, film, and other forms of creative expression. Through its collections, research resources, and programs, BAMPFA aspires to be locally connected and globally relevant.

Professor Osmund Bopearachchi is the Emeritus Director of Research of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S.-E.N.S. Paris), former Adjunct Professor of Central and South Asian Art, Archaeology, and Numismatics, University of California, Berkeley and former Visiting Professor and Member of the Doctoral School of the Paris-Sorbonne University.

He is a numismatist, art historian and archaeologist. He is an author of 17 books, 5 Exhibition Catalogues; 2 translations of book; editor of 6 volumes; author of 14 book reviews and 143 research articles in reputed international journals. He has read 92 papers at international colloquia; presented 275 conferences in 80 cities, and has carried out 120 archaeological missions in 24 different countries.

Prof. Bopearachchi holds B.A. from the University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka), and B.A. honours, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. from the Paris 1 Sorbonne University, and a Higher Doctorate (Habilitation) from the Paris 4 Sorbonne University.

He published three books last year (2020): Roots of Sri Lankan Art published by the Department of Archaeology, Colombo; From Hindu Kush to Salt Range, co-authored by Prof. Susmita Basu Majumdar, published by the ink beyond Imagination, Kolkata and “When West Met East: Gandhāran Art Revisted published by Manohar, Delhi.  This book received the distinguished “Ikuo "Hiriyama Award” attributed by the French Academy.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @bampfa

Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art

QAGOMA is home to more than 20 000 artworks from Australia and around the world, in every imaginable medium. It holds an internationally significant collection of contemporary Asian and Pacific art. Shaped by its history and projecting into the future, the Collection is a record of the institution's past and an expression of its aspirations. Each work that enters the Collection is considered for how it might contribute to conversations between works. An intellectual adventure as well as a cultural record, the Collection is at the heart of the Gallery.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @qagoma

Virtual Tour Video Coming Soon.

Birmingham Museum of Art with Katherine Anne Paul

Founded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama holds one of the finest collections in the Southeast of the United States of America. More than 27,000 objects displayed and housed within the Museum represent a rich panorama of cultures, including those from Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa, including work by both Pre-Columbian and more recent works by Native North American artists. Highlights include the Museum’s collection of the arts of Asia, Vietnamese ceramics, the Kress collection of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from the late 13th century to the 1750s, and the Museum’s world-renowned collection of Wedgwood, the largest outside of England.

This virtual tour will focus on the newly opened special exhibition, Expanding Darshan: Manjari Sharma, To See and Be Seen, that brings together the work of rising star—global contemporary photographer Manjari Sharma—with the diverse historic collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art. This exhibition introduces nine of the most significant deities of the Hindu pantheon and their relevance in art and faith, serving as a gateway to the concept of darshan—seeing and being seen by the divine.The temporal and regional expansiveness of the Indic world is illuminated not only throughout India, but also through featured works from Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, and Thailand. Expanding Darshan is a testimony to the inextricable and continuing relationship between art and religion that promotes a shared visual language even beyond Hinduism, resonant with Buddhist, Jain, and even more recent forms of Islamic art specific to South and Southeast Asia. The wide-ranging aesthetic systems and worldviews of these works of art reflect complex multiculturalisms that embrace diversity in a myriad of ways. 

Katherine Anne Paul, PhD the Virginia and William M. Spencer Curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art, promotes the riches of both classical and contemporary art originating from Asia and its layered intersections with art of the greater world. Dr. Paul’s past publications include Beyond Zen: Japanese Buddhism Revealed (2021), Arts of South Asia: Cultures of Collecting (with Allysa Browne Peyton, 2019), Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam through Time & Place (2018), Korea: Highlights of the Newark Museum’s Collections (2016), among others. Dr. Paul has held posts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Newark Museum. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Reed College and a Ph.D. and M.A. in the Languages and Cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Fulbright scholar, she has performed field research in twenty-six nations within Asia.

Find them online here and on Instagram at @bhammuseum