Known for her ceramic works, Sara Tse combines a mastery of technique with a sophisticated lyricism to evoke feelings, memories, and history. In her current project, Tse is using photographic and print media to preserve memories and images from her own childhood.

Painter Anselm Kiefer's focus is history, time and collective memory, particularly the dark past of German history and the influences of Fascism, Nazism and mythology.
His works include monumental paintings, installations, works on paper, artist books, and altered photographs, and can incorporate physical elements like lead, concrete, glass, textiles, tree roots and burned books. Wim Wenders recently completed a 3D film on Anselm Kiefer, which was shown at special screenings at the Cannes Film Festival. That hasn't reached Hong Kong yet, but what has reached us are two solo exhibitions at two different galleries. At the Villepin Gallery “Golden Age” features paintings and sculptures created between 2020 and 2022. While “hortus conclusus” at Gagosian showcases four decades of his landscape paintings.

Formed three years ago, local indie band “Uchu Yurei” is a progressive instrumental fusion band. The Japanese name of the band "Uchu Yurei” means “spirits in the cosmos”.
Influenced by soundtrack music and game music, the band integrates jazz, rock, Latin and orchestral elements.

For thousands of years, artists have tried to capture the human figure in their work. Sometimes they've represented individuals realistically, as in sculptures of famous people. Sometimes they've idealised them, in the form of gods and goddesses. Towards the end of the 20th century though, a few sculptors began to create hyper-realistic figure sculptures. Australian artist Patricia Piccinini takes hyper-realism one step further.

Patricia Piccinini's works present us with a sort of “artificial nature”, a glimpse of a possible future in a hybrid world. Paris-based Syrian artist Ziad Dalloul says his aim is to open pathways between the visible and the imagined, the real and the metaphysical, through examining the relations between static objects, lived spaces, and the ever-changing natural environment. On show at Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery as part of Le French May Arts Festival, “Shimmer of Memory” showcases 20 of Dalloul’s oil paintings and works on paper created in the past 11 years.

Upcoming presentations by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department in their world music series include lecture demonstrations focusing on the Japanese shakuhachi, West African Mande music, Flamenco from Spain and Central Asian classical music. This Saturday, you can hear classical Indian music forms such as the raga and the dhun and even a folk music piece, in a sitar recital by Anil Singh. He's with us right now.

"Some enchanted evening you may see a stranger", or so Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for the Musical "South Pacific". We can't guarantee THAT, but we can introduce you to an Enchanted Evening of Mélodies Françaises on Saturday 27th May in the company of Musica Viva. They're giving a concert as part of Le French May. Some of their members will be here to tell us more in part two. But before listening to French classical music, we’re looking at a unique French stained glass technique known as “le gemmail”, which literally translates as “enamel gem”. Until August 27th, you can see this technique used to create reinterpretations of paintings by Pablo Picasso at the University of Hong Kong's Museum and Art Gallery.

In the paintings of Chinese Canadian artist Crystal Liu, the motifs of moon, stars, mountains and rocks are metaphors for the internal landscapes of human beings.
Her solo show at Galerie du Monde, “you gave me everything” is a reflection on the complexities of life. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Liu's father died. She found comfort in long walks in nature. The series “our place” grew during this period, as she was creating a dream garden in which she and her father might meet again.

If you’re a music lover, there are many genres and styles to choose from in this year's Le French May Arts Fest, ranging from classical music concerts and orchestra performances to contemporary and multi-genre music with dance. The programme presented by Musica Viva, “An Enchanted Evening of Mélodies Franҫaises” features local singers, a chamber ensemble and two dancers performing a selection of French music.

Whether considered as a form of self-expression, an activity with functional purposes, or as a way to communicate ideas with others, art is a universal human behaviour.
For Alixe Fu, engaging with the public and with viewers of his works is an increasingly important aspect of his artistic practice.

It's May, and it's time to celebrate the annual Le French May Arts Festival. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the festival offers more than 100 programmes ranging from dance, exhibitions, and music to food and wine. In an earlier show, we introduced an exhibition that takes you - via virtual reality - to the Palace of Versailles. Today, we look at an exhibition by renowned Japanese artist, Yuki Onodera, who has been based in Paris for three decades. The exhibition, at wamono art, features a selection of her works, including the “Here, No Balloon” series which focuses on a part of Paris’s history that has disappeared.

Classically trained as a countertenor, RUMBU also writes, arranges, produces, and sings his own music in quite a different genre. In 2017, he joined local music producer Chiu Tsang-hei in a programme to learn how to produce pop music professionally. Next week, he's performing with ten other young artists in the “Indie Pop Concert” at the Hong Kong Pop Culture Festival. He's with us right now.

Organised by Tai Kwun Contemporary, Booked is a fair dedicated to art books - not just books about art, but books as works of art in themselves. It showcases artists, creative practitioners and publishers who use books and Zines as a medium of artistic expression. This year’s edition also introduced the concept of “Sounds Like Print”.

On show at Tang Contemporary Art, “A Mirage of a Shining City” features the works of two artists: Stephen Wong & Chow Chun-fai. The two met and became friends while studying at the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Both also live in Fotan. The exhibition highlights their contrasting yet complementary approaches to light and shadow and to urban and rural landscapes. Wong specialises in rural scenes, while Chow’s works focus on Hong Kong’s nocturnal cityscape.
The exhibition reflects not only the strong local flavour of their works, but also their long-standing friendship and collaboration.

Its been a busy time for pianist Rachel Cheung. Apart from her local solo recitals, chamber music concerts, and performances at this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival, Rachel has also been travelling to Berlin to record her debut classical album "Reflections", an extended album released on two Super Audio CDs.

Swing dance developed from, and was inspired by, the “swing” style of jazz music in the 1920s. Cab Calloway, long associated with Harlem's Cotton Club, was one of the band leaders who created the music that accompanied such dance styles as the Lindy Hop, the Balboa, the Collegiate Shag, and the Charleston. Today, there are hundreds of such styles. Even here in Hong Kong, Swing is still alive and kicking.

The project “Fusion 2”, on show at the Asia Society Hong Kong Centre until 25th June, is a collaboration between the Italian Cultural Institute and the Arkad Foundation of Seravezza. Focusing on the idea of “fusion”, the pieces on display are sculptures made of marble and wood. The exhibition features ten young artists, five from Hong Kong working primarily in wood and five of different nationalities, based in Italy, working in marble. Each sculptor from one place collaborated with an artist from the other, working not only on their own sculptures but also those of their partners.

Organised by the Hong Kong Harmonica Association, the 1st Hong Kong International Chromatic Harmonica Competition was held in early April. The call for entries opened in October 2020. Twenty-four contestants were shortlisted in August 2021. Four contestants made it to the final, and the winner was announced just last month. He's Ramiel Leung. He’s here with us right now.

The origins of the pipe organ, a keyboard instrument that requires its player to use both hands and feet, date back to the hydraulis of ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC. Today, it's mostly identified with churches, sometimes cinemas - where it accompanied silent movies - and large concert halls. Organist and composer Cameron Carpenter is a rare interpreter, innovator, and game-changer for this ancient instrument. He was in Hong Kong in March for three recitals at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. We went to talk to him.

The Palace of Versailles, about 19 kilometres west of Paris, was built at the command of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The Park and Palace of Versailles were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979, featured as one of the greatest achievements in French 17th century art. Covering 63,154 square metres, the palace today consists of 2,300 rooms, gardens, as well as historic galleries and museums. Right now, without leaving Hong Kong, you can wander, virtually at least, through some of the famed rooms of the Palace such as the Hall of Mirrors, and Marie-Antoinette’s bedchamber, as well as the gardens, at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in the exhibition, “Virtually Versailles” as part of this year's Le French May.

The Tsun Lok Dizi Enzemble Group was set up in 2005 to feature and promote the Chinese bamboo flute. The group focuses on six types of flute: the xiaodi, bangdi, qudi, dadi, bass and contra bass dizi. Apart from playing music from the traditional repertoire, they also like to introduce new interpretations such as re-arrangements of Chinese and Western orchestral music. Next week, the group is collaborating with another ensemble in a concert that also features the zheng, a Chinese plucked zither.

The members of the Esmé Quartet were all born in South Korea, but it was while studying in Germany that they got together to form the ensemble. The Quartet came and performed several concerts at this year's Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houcong was the 12th emperor of the Ming dynasty, having come to the throne at the age of 13. He's a somewhat controversial figure, credited with adding a degree of reform and stability to the government in the early years of his 45 year reign. However, he also became known for his cruelty, and during the middle to later years of his reign, for neglecting his official duties and retreating to the West Park in Beijing to spend time and money consulting with Daoist alchemists in the hope of becoming immortal. His interest in those Daoist beliefs influenced the designs of imperial porcelain during his reign, during which the number of porcelain wares ordered by the imperial court from the Jingdezhen kilns increased substantially to a total of almost 600,000 pieces. Some of the finer examples can be seen in a current exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art until 14th June.

Clarinettist and composer Raphaël Sévère was born into a family of musicians. His mother was a Hungarian pianist and his father a French clarinettist and music professor. He was introduced to the piano, the violin, and the cello when he was young.
As a soloist and a chamber musician, he’s also a composer. He composed his first piece “Obscurs” in 2016. He’s in town this time for three concerts with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, one of which features a world premiere of his new composition.

The art of words, and we're introducing an ongoing exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art that highlights the structure and shape of Chinese characters throughout their long history, and the ways in which they are sometimes adapted creatively in the modern world.

If you’re curious about what the inside of at least one artist's mind might look like, you can dive into the “psychological landscape” of Korean artist JeeYoung Lee at La Galerie. The idea of self-reflection, identity and human existence inspired Lee to create her photography series “Stage of Mind”. The works combine painting, installation, sculpture, mixed media, and performance. Lee spends weeks or even months in her studio to stage and build theatrical sets that represent her emotional experiences. She then records these inner landscapes with a large format 4x5 film camera. Once captured, the sets are demolished, a process that she says allows her to observe herself from creation to destruction.

Many composers and musicians began their musical journey at early ages. Hong Kong-born Anson Wong was just four when he began studying music. A graduate of the Diocesan Boys’ School, he's also began studying at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts since he was nine, majoring in piano, bassoon, and composition.
Anson's a former bassoon player with the Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra. He'll be joining them in Tsuen Wan Town Hall this Sunday for their annual concert, this time at the piano. He's with us right now to tell us more.

Street art can vary from the unsightly to the inspiring, but whatever its quality, whether graffiti or spectacular mural, it is often at the mercy of the authorities. Even works by well-known artists such as Banksy, Invader, JR, and locally, the King of Kowloon, have in the past been obliterated by local officials or by private landowners. Other street art has official blessings though. For several years, during Art March, Hong Kong has been celebrating an annual art festival that aims to brighten up our urban environment.

When you watch films or performances, or look at artworks, how much attention do you pay to the spectacles the actors, or the subjects, may be wearing? Since 2012, the Society of the Spectacles, founded by film historian, Robert Hamilton, has been focusing on exactly that. The society is a creative and research collective that examines the cultural significance of eyewear in films and art. The title of the exhibition “Strelnikov’s Glasses and Other Stories”, on show at the Hong Kong Art Centre until May, refers to the spectacles that “General Strelnikov”, as played by Tom Courtenay, wore in David Lean's film of “Doctor Zhivago”.
The exhibition includes works by 24 artists, designers and filmmakers.

Two years ago, musician and composer Eason Chan met three other aspiring musicians: Lester Lam, Daniel Toh and Moon Tang, on social media. The four began collaborating on a range of musical projects, even though they all have different musical styles and come from different musical backgrounds, but later diverged onto other paths. Later this month, they’re joining forces again for a concert called “Somewhere Apartment”. We’re delighted to have them with us now.