M+ adds big new works

M+ is turning its own building into part of the show. This spring, the Hong Kong museum began screening Shahzia Sikander’s new nine-minute animation, *3 to 12 Nautical Miles*, across its 110-metre light-emitting diode facade overlooking Victoria Harbour. (mplus.org.hk) The work was co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel and is being presented by UBS, tying one of Hong Kong’s biggest art-week partnerships directly to the museum’s exterior rather than only to gallery walls. M+ says the film runs nightly from March 23 to June 21, 2026. (mplus.org.hk, artbasel.com) Sikander built the animation from hand-painted images, then translated them into a moving digital tableau sized for one of the city’s most visible public screens. The title refers to old rules of maritime control, where “three nautical miles” once marked cannon-shot sovereignty from shore and “twelve nautical miles” later became a modern territorial standard. (theartnewspaper.com, mplus.org.hk) That legal history gives the film its frame: trade routes, sea power, empire, and the way maps can hide coercion behind neat borders. M+ describes the project as an exploration of “power and trade dynamics,” while other coverage connects it specifically to the intertwined histories of China, South Asia, and Britain. (mplus.org.hk, theartnewspaper.com) That matters in Hong Kong because the museum is not hiding the work inside a ticketed room. The piece is playing in open civic space, where commuters, tourists, and residents can encounter a meditation on imperial history simply by looking up at the waterfront skyline. (scmp.com, mplus.org.hk) M+ is pairing that public-facing commission with a very different kind of statement inside the museum. Since March 14, it has been showing *Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now*, billed by M+ as the most comprehensive survey of the South Korean artist’s career. (mplus.org.hk) The exhibition runs through August 9, 2026, in the West Gallery on Level 2 and spans three sections covering major works from Lee Bul’s studio and collections across Asia and beyond. M+ says a monograph is being published alongside the show with Leeum Museum of Art and Thames & Hudson. (mplus.org.hk, mplus.org.hk) Outside coverage has described the retrospective as a large-scale presentation of roughly 150 works, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and performance documentation. That gives M+ an anchor exhibition with the weight of a career survey, not just the faster tempo of fair-week spectacle. (artforum.com) Taken together, the two projects show M+ using Art Basel week to do two jobs at once. Sikander’s film turns the museum facade into a public screen for arguments about trade and empire, while Lee Bul’s retrospective offers a slower museum experience built around decades of work by one of Asia’s best-known contemporary artists. (artbasel.com, mplus.org.hk) That combination is also a signal about how M+ wants to position itself in Hong Kong’s cultural calendar. Instead of treating Art Basel as a temporary fair that passes through town, the museum is using the moment to connect city-scale media art, institutional scholarship, and long-run exhibitions under one roof. (mplus.org.hk, mplus.org.hk) In practical terms, visitors to Hong Kong this season can see two very different bets on what a major museum should be. One is a nine-minute animation on a 110-metre exterior screen seen from the harbor edge, and the other is a months-long retrospective that stays on view until August 9. (mplus.org.hk, mplus.org.hk)