If it’s May, as any Francophile will know, it must be time for the annual Le French May Arts Festival. We’ll be bringing you highlights of the festival in coming weeks but today we’re starting with something that many consider a quintessential part of any French meal: wine and spirits. Later, violinist Kenneth Li will be with us to tell us about an upcoming concert taking place at a distillery in Quarry Bay. In April, The Works featured the Picasso exhibition at M+ which is curated as a conversation between works by Picasso and the museum’s collection of works by Asian artists. One of the artists whose works are shown alongside those of the Spanish master is Sin Wai Kin.

To mark the 100th anniversary of artist Ha Bik-chuen’s birth, Parasite is currently presenting an exhibition focused on his printmaking practice. Ha used to describe his collagraph plates, plates to which materials had been glued or sealed to make prints, “motherboards”. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ha created over 100 of these “motherboards” and produced over 3,000 collagraphs.

Dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev had an extraordinary life. The Tatar-Russian dancer, born in the Soviet Union on a Trans-Siberian train, defected to the West in Paris in 1961. He was a cultural icon, widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers of all time. In late March, the Hong Kong Arts Festival featured a gala tribute to Nureyev. Eleven stars from six international ballet companies joined forces to perform some of his iconic pieces. One of the co-producers was Lam Chun-wing from Hong Kong.

Pianist Bowen Li is an active member of the Hong Kong music scene. Apart from performing, he’s a founding member of the jazz collective Fountain de Chopin, dedicated to promoting jazz. He’s also one of three people behind the running of the jazz café, Coda. At the beginning of this month, he and the two other members of his trio launched their debut album, “Unemployed” which consists mostly of original compositions.

Cooking has been transformed into an artistic practice to explore the social dimension of art for over half a century. One of the most recognised artists in the field is New York-based Thai artist, Rirkrit Tiravanija who, in 1990, cooked Pad Thai in a gallery in New York. He later moved on to other Thai meals in a series that continues today.
Closer to Hong Kong, The Works has previously featured the collective Boloho from Guangzhou. Even more recently, in a small café in Kowloon City, something else has been cooking.

Have you ever experienced a sense of deep relaxation or even a tingling sensation while listening to the sound of rain, gentle whispers, hair being brushed, or other slow movements? That “tingling” sensation that some feel, running from the back of the scalp, down the spine, and across the shoulders, is known as the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response or ASMR. If you’re still not quite sure what that is, visit “Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR” at GATE33 Gallery in Airside at Kai Tak.

This year’s edition of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department’s annual local music programme, “Hong Kong Artists”, features one chamber music concert and five recitals by soloists. The series opens with “Soundscape Impressions” which features chamber works by Debussy and Saint-Saëns as well as two pieces by Maurice Ravel to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. The programme also draws parallels between music and painting. Pianists Colleen Lee and Rhythmie Wong are here with painter Fu Man-yat to tell us more.

A visual artist who likes to break down barriers in communication: Xu Bing is known for incorporating words and characters into his art to explore the role of language and text in human life. The Hong Kong Museum of Art is currently featuring a hybrid calligraphic project that he’s been working on for over three decades.

Sarah Sze likes to use create her large-scale installations using ordinary and found objects. Even her paintings are layered with collages made up of different elements.
A professor of visual arts at Columbia University, she recently received a Meraki Artist Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Sze’s first solo exhibition in Asia, at the Gagosian gallery, features recent works, including seven mixed-media paintings and eight hanging sculptures.

Growing up in Göttingen, a small city in the middle of Germany, Felix Kieser chose to play the horn at the age of five. Born without arms, he’s kept up his determination to master the instrument despite the challenges along the way. Today, he's received several music awards, a two-year residency with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, debuted at the BBC Proms two years ago, published a book, and released albums. His stories of life behind the scenes as an artist with his horn “Alex” have also developed a considerable following on social media. He was in Hong Kong on 7th April to perform a one-night concert of Mozart and Strauss horn concertos with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. We spoke to him.

Long before the compounds that make up modern pharmaceuticals were discovered and isolated, cultures around the world relied on the healing powers of herbs. They have long played a vital role in traditional Chinese medicine, and their curative properties are still under study. Herbs and herbal medicine also provide a creative foundation for local artist So Wing-po.

The fifth edition of Asia Society Hong Kong’s “Contemporary Chinese Female Artist” series features the works by Hoo Mojong. The retrospective: “Objects of Play” includes more than a hundred items, among them paintings, prints, drawings and archival materials.

The origins of the Middle Eastern zither known as the qanun lie far back in the past, in ancient Mesopotamia and Persia. The instrument, which has 78 strings, can be played either solo or as part of an ensemble. Turkish musician, Ahmet Baran is a qanun virtuoso. He started learning music at eight and soon developed a passion for the qanun. He began playing with orchestras in his teens and was designated Turkey’s “Youngest Soloist Qanun Player of Symphony Orchestras”. Still, he continued to develop his technique and take on an even wider range of music. He gave his first concert in Hong Kong at the end of last month. While he was here, he came to the studio with Kerim Sercan Evcin, the Consul General of the Republic of Türkiye in Hong Kong, to talk to us.

Few artists have gone through as many changes in style as Pablo Picasso. Despite the frequent transformations in his work, he once said, “Variation does not mean evolution”. At M+ in West Kowloon, you can currently see, on loan from Musée National Picasso-Paris more than 60 of the master’s works that trace those changes.

On March 21st, the Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) held the grand opening ceremony of the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion and the Harold and Christina Lee Gallery. The ceremony also marked the opening of the inaugural exhibition, “Transcending Transience: Art and Culture of Late-Ming Jiangnan”.

The upcoming concert by the chamber choral ensemble NOEMA is inspired by the Japanese word “komorebi” which means “sunlight leaking through trees”. This poetic idea that describes the beauty of nature and the simple things is the theme of the concert which includes the world premiere of new work by a local composer, the Hong Kong premiere of a new work by a British composer, and a selection of French chansons. The artistic director and conductor of the ensemble, Sanders Lau is here to tell us more.

The Works presents the latest art's happening in Hong Kong to our audience.

The theme of this year’s week-long Hong Kong International Literary Festival which opened at the beginning of this month was “Into the Future: Stories for Tomorrow”.
The festival included 68 events, featuring writers creating in a wide range of genres. We talked to one of them, the international bestseller, author and novelist, Alka Joshi.

Right now at The Centre for Heritage Arts & Textile “Lining Revealed – A Journey Through Folk Wisdom and Contemporary Vision” is a group exhibition of works by 14 artists from across Asia that highlights traditional crafts, folk art, and contemporary creations.

The four-member experimental rock group Virgin Vacation got together in 2018. Their music incorporates post rock, math rock, Krautrock, free jazz, electronica and improvisation. Last year, six years after the band was formed, they released their debut album, “Dapple Patterns”. They finished an Asian tour just last month and they’re with us right now.

In part two of this week’s show, it’s time for a “Bedroom Party”, and in case you’re wondering what on earth we’re talking about, we’re introducing Lilong and Tommy. They named the band they formed five years ago “Bedroom Party” because they’d both started making music in their own bedrooms.

One of the sounds that some insomniacs play in their bedrooms to lull them into sleep is the sound of the ocean. One ongoing art project in Hong Kong focuses on the ocean and the sea, and how myths, legends, livelihood, and history connected with the sea have affected different Asian cultures.

Now in its eighth edition since its launch in 2001, the “Hong Kong International Poster Triennial” is currently on show at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
The theme this year is “Multiverse”.

The 17th March is Saint Patrick’s Day, which commemorates the death of Ireland’s foremost patron saint. It’s celebrated, officially or unofficially, everywhere Irish people have emigrated. On the show later, we’ll be discovering more about what’s happening in Hong Kong to celebrate Celtic heritage and culture. The colour green invariably plays a large part in events related to Ireland and St Patrick’s Day but before we hear more about that, we’re taking a look at the “green fingers” of a Hong Kong father and daughter duo who are maintaining the ancient art of Lingnan penjing, also known as Cantonese penjing. Like bonsai, it’s the art of using plants and other natural materials to create miniature representations of nature, and it dates back to at least the 15th century.

Alisan Fine Arts is currently presenting in its Aberdeen art space the debut Hong Kong exhibition by artist and scholar Xie Xiaoze. Xie is fascinated by books, and his works over the past three decades have included paintings, installations, photographs and videos that explore the relationships between knowledge, history and power.