M+ Museum opened grandly last year, attracting more art and culture enthusiasts to the West Kowloon Cultural District. And the adjacent Hong Kong Palace Museum also officially announced that it will open to the public on July 2nd, nearly a year later. Before you enter, why not take a look at what highlights this museum has to offer!
The opening exhibition was jointly curated by the Hong Kong Palace Museum and the Palace Museum, with 914 selected items from over 1.86 million items in the Palace Museum, making it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The types of Palace Museum cultural relics on display in Hong Kong this time cover various categories of the Palace Museum’s collection, including paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, gold and silverware, enamel, jade, lacquerware, ancient books, ancient architecture, etc., spanning a history of 5000 years. The vast majority of the cultural relics on display are being exhibited in Hong Kong for the first time, with 166 first-class cultural relics classified as “national treasures,” providing audiences with a rare opportunity to appreciate rare antiques and paintings.
右：展廳 2「紫禁一日 — 清代宮廷生」
右：展廳 5 「器惟求新 — 當代設計對話古代工藝」
The Hong Kong Palace Museum has a total of 9 exhibition halls. In the opening exhibition, 5 thematic exhibitions (Halls 1 to 5) will display the Palace Museum’s architecture, art collections (including paintings, ceramics, and objects), cultural exchanges between China and the West in the Ming and Qing dynasties, court life, portraits of Qing emperors and empresses, and related cultural heritage of the Palace Museum.
右：展廳 7「古今無界 — 故宮文化再詮釋」
There are two special exhibitions (Galleries 6 and 7) showcasing Hong Kong’s Chinese art collections and multimedia installations inspired by the culture of the Forbidden City created by Hong Kong artists respectively; Gallery 6’s exhibition “Appreciating Together: Traversing Hong Kong’s Collecting History” will detail Hong Kong’s centuries-old Chinese art collecting activities through its exhibits, while outlining the development of local museums.
Exhibition Hall 7’s exhibition “Boundless: Reimagining the Culture of the Palace Museum” invites six multimedia and cross-disciplinary artists from Hong Kong to reinterpret and reinterpret the culture and collections of the Palace Museum from the perspective of contemporary Hong Kong, exploring the rich and diverse Chinese culture beneath the red walls and yellow tiles.
The other two exhibition halls (Halls 8 and 9) will host large special exhibitions, showcasing ancient Chinese calligraphy and paintings as well as art and cultural relics with horses as the theme from the Palace Museum’s collection. Among them are 35 classic masterpieces in Chinese calligraphy and painting history, rare treasures from the Jin, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, all of which are national first-class cultural relics. Some of them are even unique editions passed down through generations, with an exhibition period of only 3 months. In the horse culture and art exhibition, the official selection includes 111 art treasures from the Palace Museum, including paintings, sculptures, and more, as well as world art collections with horses as the theme from the Louvre Museum in France.
In order to allow more members of the public to appreciate the precious collections of the museum, starting from the opening, the public can make online reservations for free admission on Wednesdays within 12 months (excluding special exhibitions and events). Tickets for the opening exhibition will be available for public sale starting from June 14 (Tuesday), and the public can purchase tickets for entry through the Hong Kong Palace Museum website, West Kowloon Cultural District website, or through the “West Kowloon Cultural District” mobile application.
Image source and learn more: Hong Kong Palace Museum
