From Japan to Australia, 2025 looks set to be an invigorating year for institutional exhibitions across the Asia-Pacific region. These are the shows we are looking forward to.

“Picasso for Asia: A Conversation” at M+ Hong Kong
March 2025

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of a Man (Portrait d’homme) (1902–3). © Grand Palais Rmn (Musée national Picasso- Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso 2024.

“Picasso for Asia: A Conversation” is a highlight of M+’s 2025 program and a must-see event. Co-curated by M+ and the Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), and co-presented with the French May Arts Festival, the exhibition offers a groundbreaking reinterpretation of Pablo Picasso’s legacy.

More than 60 masterpieces on loan from MnPP will be placed in dialogue with approximately 80 pieces by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ collection. This unprecedented cross-cultural and intergenerational exchange bridges the iconic 20th-century European master and contemporary Asian artists, creating a rich and dynamic conversation. Notably, this will be the first major Picasso exhibition in Hong Kong in more than a decade.

—Cathy Fan

“Capcom Creation: Moving Hearts Across the Globe” at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
March 20–June 22, 2025

“Capcom Creation: Moving Hearts Across the Globe.” Courtesy Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka.

This is a big year for Japan, and the number of exciting major exhibitions scheduled to take place across the country in 2025 is almost large enough to warrant a separate list.

One of the most highly anticipated exhibitions, “Capcom Creation: Moving Hearts Across the Globe” is a retrospective of the game company that first garnered global fame with its Street Fighter game series. Founded in 1983 in Osaka, which still serves as the studio’s headquarters, Capcom is also known for titles including Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. This presentation is expected to feature original drawings and development proposals for these renowned titles, as well as displays on the evolution of the technology of game production.

Video games, alongside manga and anime, are not just entertainment. They are cultural productions embedded in the psyche of many Asians and many others who grew up under their influence. And since game engines are playing an increasingly prominent role in artistic practices, revisiting the trajectory of Capcom will shed light on our understanding of contemporary art today.

—Vivienne Chow

“Anicka Yi” at UCCA Beijing, China
March 22–June 15, 2025 

Anicka Yi, “There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” installation view, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, 2024. Courtesy the artist, Leeum Museum of Art, and Gladstone Gallery. Photo: Andrea Rossetti.

For over a decade, Anicka Yi has captivated the global art world with what she describes as an exploration of “biopolitics of the senses”—how cultural and biological forces shape human sensory experiences. Renowned for her innovative use of organic and ephemeral materials such as bacteria, scents, and tempura-fried flowers, Yi’s work delicately explores the nuances of emotion and sensation.

If you missed her major solo exhibition at the Leeum Museum in Seoul, which just closed, you’ll soon have another opportunity to explore the work of this acclaimed Korean-American artist in Beijing. Curated by Peter Eleey, UCCA’s curator-at-large, this solo exhibition will be her most extensive presentation to date. The show will feature newly commissioned works alongside a selection of her earlier pieces, offering a comprehensive introduction to her unique artistic universe.

Other UCCA exhibitions worth marking on your calendar include Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist’s solo exhibition (July 19–October 19, 2025), which will focus on newly commissioned video works, and Chinese artist Yang Fudong’s most comprehensive institutional show to date (November 15, 2025–February 22, 2026).

—Cathy Fan

“City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920–1940s” at the National Gallery Singapore
April 2–August 17, 2025

Liu Kang, Breakfast (1932). Courtesy National Gallery Singapore.

The 1920s to 1940s marked a groundbreaking era for Asian artists in Paris. The National Gallery Singapore will bring this dynamic period to life in this exhibition. Featuring renowned figures such as Foujita Tsuguharu, Georgette Chen, Le Pho, Liu Kang, Xu Beihong, and Sanyu, the show will also spotlight lesser-known artists from this pivotal time. United by their shared experience of cultural “otherness,” these artists engaged in profound exchanges of aesthetics and ideas, bridging cultures in extraordinary ways. The exhibition delves into how these artists lived, worked, and exhibited during their Paris years.

Visitors will encounter more than 150 works, including paintings, sculptures, lacquer pieces, decorative arts, and rare archival materials, offering a rich and immersive exploration of this transformative period.

—Cathy Fan

13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale at the Seoul Museum of Art
August 26–November 30, 2025 (tentative)

SMB13 pre-Biennale II “Notes for a Séance,” graphic identity, 2024. Design: Daniel Leyva. Courtesy Seoul Museum of Art.

Inaugurated in 2000 and organized by the Seoul Museum of Art as an initiative of the city, the Seoul Mediacity Biennale has been seen as an underdog event in the South Korean capital, but one that is poised to rival the major biennales in Gwangju and Busan. After opening in summer, it will be on view during September’s Seoul Art Week, which coincides with Frieze Seoul. The show will be helmed by artistic directors Anton Vidokle, artist, filmmaker and e-flux founder; curator and art historian Hallie Ayres; and Lukas Brasiskis, a scholar and film curator. Their proposal, “exhibition-as-séance,” pitches a show that explores the intricate connections between our waking life and the “more-than-human world.”

The main theme will be the intersection between artistic practices and technology, with reference to occult and mystical traditions. More details about the show will be announced in the months to come. Coincidentally, these narrative threads related to the occult echo those of some exhibitions opening in the U.K. in December and January. What does this tell us about 2025? I guess we will find out soon enough, if our divination tools don’t tell us first.

—Vivienne Chow

“Japanese Contemporary Art and the World 1989-2010” (Working title) at the National Art Center, Tokyo
September 3–December 8, 2025

Visitors look at an art installation by Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima titled Mega Death during the exhibition “Minimalism: Space. Light. Object” at the National Gallery Singapore on November 22, 2018. Photo: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images.

This ambitious survey of Japanese contemporary art is likely to serve as an important historical reference in the years to come. Billed as the first curatorial collaboration between the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) and Hong Kong’s M+, the show revisits the development of Japanese contemporary art against the backdrop of key recent historical events that shaped the course of the country: the end of the Shōwa era (1926–89), the beginning of the Heisei period (1989–2019), and the Tōhoku Earthquake in 2011. Besides showcasing key works and lesser-known projects, the exhibition will emphasize the connections between Japan’s contemporary art world and the global art scene.

This exhibition also marks one of M+’s many international collaborations planned for 2025. Another major one to look forward to is “Lee Bul: My Grand Narrative” (working title), scheduled for September 2025 at Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul; it will travel to M+ in 2026 and then to other venues internationally.

—Vivienne Chow

14th Taipei Biennial at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
November 2025 

Taipei Biennial 2023: “Small World,” live performance by Li Jiun-Yang and Buddha, Tiger, Dog. Courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

First launched in 1998 by organizer Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Taipei Biennial is billed as the island’s most important event to showcase contemporary art while responding to changing global cultural contexts. The 14th edition is expected to open in November, coinciding with Taipei Art Week, and will be helmed by the curatorial duo of Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, the current co-directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art museum in Berlin, who operate under the name Art Reoriented and have already collaborated with more than 70 museums around the world. Their approach, they promise, “will prioritize the artists, allowing their voices to continuously broaden our understanding of the complex worlds we inhabit,” according to their statement.

—Vivienne Chow

“Data Dreams: Contemporary Art in the Age of A.I.” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
November 21, 2025–April 26, 2026

Fabien Giraud, preview image for The Feral (2025 – 3024)© Association 3024

For its major summer exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia will present “Data Dreams: Contemporary Art in the Age of A.I.,” the first exhibition of its kind at a major Australian institution. This ambitious show will feature works by leading contemporary artists from around the globe, exploring our evolving relationship with artificial intelligence. The exhibition will delve into pressing issues including the interplay between technology and power, the influence of algorithms and datasets on our worldviews and perceptions of reality, and the significant environmental impact of the data economy. Additional themes include the co-evolution of humans and machines, new perspectives on intelligence and agency, and the implications of technologies that simulate human cognition—forming memories, hallucinating, and dreaming.

For those who can’t wait until next summer (or winter, depending on where you are) to visit the museum, American artist Julie Mehretu’s first major survey in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region will remain on view until April 27, 2025.

—Cathy Fan