What the future holds for M+ as the Hong Kong museum celebrates fifth anniversary

Ahead of the fifth anniversary of M+ on November 12, the directors of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Paris’ Centre Pompidou touched down in Hong Kong to finalise a tripartite alliance with the young museum. The formal pact will see two of the world’s pre-eminent modern art museums share collections and programming with M+ on equal footing.

On October 31, it was signed, sealed and toasted with high-wattage glamour at the museum’s fundraising gala.

The Halloween-themed party saw screen icon Chow Yun-fat, auteur Ann Hui and other cultural figures mingling with MoMA board members and trustees, lending that extra va-va-voom to the benefit.

Then it was time for the community celebration. On the weekend of November 6-8, M+ was packed with visitors drawn by free exhibitions, special film screenings, talks and music performances.

The sold-out “M+ At Night” experience, headlined by Cantopop band RubberBand, kicked things off on November 6, before the museum offered free admission to the public on November 8 for its permanent galleries.

The anniversary week also features the inaugural “M+ Restored Film Festival”, supported by Chanel, showcasing 4K restorations of Hong Kong cinematic milestones.

Forging an international alliance

The ability of the Hong Kong museum to pull crowds seen during the birthday celebrations would have been hard to envision when it first opened to the public on November 12, 2021. Back then, Hong Kong was sealed behind mandatory 21-day hotel quarantines that kept international guests away.

The long-delayed museum debut also became an ill-timed lightning rod for political scrutiny following the enactment of Hong Kong’s national security law (NSL), with pro-Beijing figures criticising contemporary Chinese works at the museum that they deemed controversial.

Sceptics questioned whether an ambitious museum of visual culture could ever find its footing in such a fraught political climate.

For M+ director Suhanya Raffel, the MoMA and Pompidou pact is an affirmation of the museum’s international standing.

“The alliance is, for me, evidence of that,” she says. “You know, these institutions won’t come to us unless they feel that there is an equal voice that they can work with. And the respect is earned. It’s not demanded.”

Under the agreement, works from M+’s holdings will be prominently displayed at MoMA and at Centre Pompidou’s new facility in Massy, France, alongside other reciprocal arrangements.

A massive draw for mainland tourists

Such exchanges will build on the 12.7 million visits M+ has recorded since opening – an average of 2.6 to 2.8 million annually, with roughly 45 per cent of visitors from Hong Kong and 30 per cent from mainland China.

Curators from mainland China have been among M+’s main cheerleaders given the absence of any home-grown institution of this scale and quality there.

“Every visit to an M+ exhibition proves rewarding,” says Shanghai-based art critic and curator Shen Qilan. “I particularly enjoyed the I.M. Pei exhibition – the exhibition design was excellent! – as well as ‘Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s-Now’, where every installation offered a delightful surprise.

“I also greatly appreciated the screenings of Yang Fudong’s work on the M+ facade during Art Basel Hong Kong in 2024. M+ is a must-visit destination for me whenever I travel to Hong Kong, which is why I became a member.”

Navigating financial and cultural headwinds

In Hong Kong, M+ exhibitions have continued to stir lively discussions among critics and members of the public who have come to expect the museum to put forth original viewpoints given its mandate as Asia’s leading voice in cross-disciplinary visual culture.

Yet the finances of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) – and by extension M+ – remain perilous and could hold back further ambitions. With an operating deficit of HK$998 million (US$127 million) in 2026 and its HK$21.6 billion government endowment about to run dry, WKCD’s survival hinges on selling residential land rights in a sluggish property market. And there are always unexpected outlays.

The fact that M+’s LED facade was out of action put a dampener on the fifth-anniversary celebrations. The display – one of the largest outdoor museum screens in the world – stopped working in October 2026, just as a major new commission by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol was set to premiere.

According to museum sources, the display has been dark since a power disruption affected Kowloon and parts of the New Territories on October 13, and M+ is still trying to arrange for contractors to repair the damage.

Raffel points to M+’s 47 per cent cost recovery rate – which compares favourably with leading museums worldwide – while explaining that the museum is careful not to duplicate what government-run institutions such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA) are doing.

“Our Hong Kong colleagues are also doing very important work,” she says. “We can’t be doing the same things. That would be a waste of resources. So that’s what we are continually balancing and looking at very carefully.”

Managing political red lines and censorship concerns

Such institutional rebalancing may explain the recent change regarding the Hong Kong exhibition at the Venice Biennale – a premier international showcase for local artists that M+ ran to general acclaim from 2013 to 2024.

HKMoA took over the presentation in 2026, prompting speculation that this demarcation of mandates might see M+ focus less on contemporary Hong Kong art.

Raffel counters: “It is fantastic that HKMoA is taking on the responsibility in Venice. We both do things with Hong Kong makers in different ways. Twenty-two per cent of our collection is by Hong Kong makers. That’s a very high percentage.”

She points to the upcoming “Hong Kong Here and Beyond 2027” exhibition and the recent hiring of local curator Ying Kwok as M+’s senior curator, head of visual art, as examples of how the museum remains committed to the local art scene.

Yet on the question of whether M+ will build on its past Venice showcases by mounting a comprehensive solo exhibition for a living Hong Kong visual artist – something long sought by the local creative community – Raffel will not commit.

“We do many things across the board, you know, and we have to let the Venice [exhibition] settle for Hong Kong Museum of Art,” she says. “We just have to manage that very carefully.”

Navigating the broader curatorial environment presents a far more intricate challenge. While politicians are no longer threatening to call the police over their NSL complaints about M+’s collection – which they did in 2021 – critics continue to decry the museum’s perceived elitism.

And in September 2026, the museum cancelled a scheduled performance by Hong Kong singer-songwriter Wong Hin-yan at the eleventh hour without explanation, stirring concerns within the arts community over political vetting.

M+ has always maintained that censorship is not an issue for it. The museum insists that the removal of three artworks with a political theme from a 2022 exhibition of the Sigg Collection of contemporary Chinese art was a curatorial choice. And Raffel has never commented publicly on the fear that has swept across Hong Kong’s wider cultural sphere, prompted by frequent instances of books, theatrical productions and films being withdrawn or denied permits.

Addressing past threats by lawmakers to report museum exhibits to law enforcement, Raffel says: “That hasn’t happened at all. There’s a sophistication around [the NSL] and an understanding. Everywhere in the world has an NSL, by the way. It’s not just Hong Kong, it’s a fact. And we all work within the law.” Managing red lines, she argues, ultimately comes down to “trust in the end”.

As for her own future at M+, Raffel emphatically dismisses any talk of succession. “I’m here!” she says, declining to entertain further speculation.

There remains considerable work ahead. “If we’re going to be the global city that we aspire to be, we need to have that strong, big [presence] of culture in place,” she says.

While international partnerships bring prestige, visibility and reciprocal access to collections, Raffel maintains that the solidarity of the local cultural sector remains M+’s most vital anchor.

“I have been living here for 10 years, and one of the most wonderful aspects of Hong Kong is the collegial environment of our arts and cultural world,” she says. “Together we can achieve so much more.”