“Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2025”

“Art Macao” is a city-wide event where the Macao SAR Government joins forces with various sectors to unleash global creativity, converging global creativity into a kaleidoscope of civilizations and intellectual currents. The Biennale is also a major initiative to simultaneously promote cultural and tourist development. Curated by renowned international curator Feng Boyi, “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2025” revolves around the theme, “Hey, what brings you here?”

The Biennale comprises six exciting sections: the Main Exhibition, Public Art Exhibition, City Pavilion, Special Exhibition, Local Curatorial Project, and Collateral Exhibition. Together, these will present nearly thirty exhibitions highlighting cutting-edge artists from more than ten regions and countries. Featured artists include contemporary masters such as Xu Bing, Ann Hamilton, and Gregor Schneider. They craft innovative artistic narratives, revitalize historical spaces, explore the community’s cultural tapestry, and ignite the spirit of the humanities.

From this summer to autumn, Macao will transform into a city of inspiration where life and art resonate. Join us and embark on an aesthetic journey that weaves through the cityscape and touches the heart.

Message

Diverse Visions, Shared Horizons.

O Lam
Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region

General Preface

When Macao, a city with over four centuries of Chinese and Western cultural integration, initiates an artistic dialogue with greetings reminiscent of those of a customs officer: “Hey, what brings you here?” it is an earnest invitation to the global art scene and also a resounding response from contemporary cultural workers on the propositions of the times.  

this year, the chief curator of the Biennale, Mr. Feng Boyi, upholds the curatorial concept of “questioning means action” and unfolds a reflective space about existence as well as time and space in the main exhibition venue. Xu Bing reflects upon the human civilization through satellite images of lakes. Bart Hess captures the subtle interplay between fashion and the human body with waxed clothing. Gregor Schneider reconstructs the physical laws of spatial awareness with architectural installations. Tobias Rehberger leverages the systematic construction of social spaces to explore the dialectical relationship between humanity and its physical environment that speaks of the mutual permeation of subject and object… Many boundary-breaking masterpieces have created a poetic realm from the tension between reality and hyperreality, guiding the audience to explore the profound meaning of the symbiosis between individuals and the world through ultimate questions: “Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?”  

Themed “Waves & Ways,” the Public Art Exhibition centers around fluidity, presenting a series of conceptual experiments on social aesthetics. Ann Hamilton extracts artistic symbols from folk religions and unleashes the narrative potential of a World Heritage building as a historical and cultural stage, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Macao’s inscription of the Historic Centre on the World Heritage List. Yin Xiuzhen sublimates the mechanical cycles of luggage conveyors into a philosophical metaphor of life trajectories, deconstructing the linear view of time with the coexistence of movement and stillness. Jason Ho constructs a social microscope with participatory arts through a “neighborhood living room,” extracting the humanistic spirit from the social fabric of Macao. With Macao designated as a “Culture City of East Asia,” artists from China, Japan, and South Korea are invited to jointly create a public art installation centered on the Oriental philosophy on time and space, commemorating the deep cultural bonds among East Asian cities. 

The City Pavilion section is curated in close association with the Macao SAR Government’s administrative policies. It features two city pavilions, one from China and one from Portugal, fortifying Macao’s strategic positioning as a “cultural exchange center for China and Portuguese-speaking countries,” which aligns with the city’s development toward a “base for exchange and cooperation where Chinese culture is the mainstream and diverse culture coexist” (referred to as “One Base”).

The Special Exhibitions organized by the six integrated resort operators are a distinctive section of Art Macao. This year’s Special Exhibitions form a kaleidoscopic art fair, featuring contents ranging from the Picasso’s prints, which were inspirational to modernity, and Cai Guo-Qiang’s AI-driven multi-dimensional fireworks theatre, to Bruno Moinard’s the deconstruction of French Art Deco’s poetic of space; from The Hass Brother’s the light installations storing industrial memories and Craig & Karl’s dopaminergic aesthetic fantasy, to a digital nirvana of Jingdezhen kiln fire in 4K projections… Compared to previous editions, the section this year boasts the most dazzling lineup of artists and the richest array of art forms.

The Local Curatorial Project have expanded from four to six entries compared to the previous edition and the shortlisted teams will automatically be qualified for the Preliminary Selection for the “International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – Collateral Event from Macao, China.” This not only reflects the Macao SAR Government’s strategic vision of “fostering talent through exhibitions” but also opens a pathway for “incubating locally while connecting the world,” facilitating the dialogue between the works from Macao and the global context.

There is an open call for proposals for the Collateral Exhibitions starting this year. This is aimed at gathering the creative power from all sectors of local society and enriching industrial diversity, with a focus on the landscapes of art education and commercial galleries.
 
Overall, Art Macao 2025 achieves breakthroughs in several aspects: further supporting local works while bringing together more masterpieces created by world-acclaimed artists; reaching out to the community and World Heritage buildings while also encouraging cultural collaborations in East Asia; and devising an innovative mechanism to interface with the international stage. As such, this biennale established in recent years is growing in strength and explorative spirit, injecting powerful momentum into Macao’s development toward “One Base.”

I hereby extend my great respect to chief curator Feng Boyi, the co-curatorial teams, participating artists from around the globe, and all our partners. In the summer and autumn of 2025, let us wield the arts to paint a chapter of our times together in Macao, a city embodying the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures. 

Leong Wai Man
President of Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR Government
 

Chief Curator’s Note

“Hey, what brings you here?”

“Hey, what brings you here?” is an informal and simple everyday expression used to inquire about the reason and purpose of a visit.

The appropriate answer to this question in normal interpersonal communication needs to be based on specific contexts and scenarios. In a friendly context, it often conveys greetings or the intention to learn about the visitor’s state, as well as curiosity and interest in the visitor. Otherwise, it may suggest an unwelcoming attitude, an impatient tone, or even indifferent refusal.  

Taking this question as the theme, “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2025” aims to explore and address the history and memories of Macao as well as its actual situation against the current backdrop of globalization. The theme can also be directly associated with the ultimate questions of “Who am I? Where did I come from, and where am I going?”  

What brought us here when we came into this world? Life’s confusion, perplexity, helplessness, and chaos only intensify as the times grow more complex. The present epoch, filled with unknowns, is unlike any before. Taking these uncertainties as a guiding thread, we seek interconnected pathways, supports, and resolutions through posing questions and giving answers. Or, when confronted with the forceful emergence of digital existence in an Internet-based culture and the artificial intelligence era, it is even more important for us to keep evolving our thoughts, perceptions, and awareness of them, and try to find directions and future possibilities and impossibilities in a situation with no origins or destinations. This question-oriented curatorial concept is therefore a way of exploring questions proactively and artistically, manifesting self-judgement, choices, and expressions in exploring the meaning, value, and responsibility of life.

In 1582, Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci travelled across the oceans to Macao, beginning his missionary work in China. His arrival back then may have sparked the question both inside and outside the Chinese imperial court: what brought him here? Reflecting on Ricci’s twenty-eight arduous years in China, we can see that his starting point was essentially his destination. As the first person to introduce Western knowledge to the East, with Macao as his starting point, he laid the groundwork for Western science and technology to take root in China. By establishing a true and practical cultural exchange between Europe and China, Ricci created a connection that allowed these two great civilizations to meet and collide, creating a legacy that cannot be overlooked. In the book The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, American historian Jonathan D. Spence remarked that “he [went] farther than he expected into unknown terrain and [was] not sure how easy it [would] be to return, should he choose to.”

We live in an era when distant voyages are no longer a prominent topic. The impeded and redirected globalization, the divides caused by geopolitics, and the accelerating cultural cold wars have led to a rampant rise of narrow conservatism, nationalism, and populism, diminishing our curiosity for foreign lands. The limited perspective resulting from the repeated historical cycles fosters isolation and involution. Particularly, the pandemic experience over the past few years and the ongoing trade war have increasingly reduced us to a state of segregation and alienation.

Such a change of the times that confronts all of us is also fully reflected in contemporary art. For either the artistic orientation toward reality and culture or the creation of experimental art, the irresistible magic of globalization has been gradually fading away… Artists are neither gathering here nor departing from here. Under the impact of both internal and external constraints and disoriented subjectivity, contemporary art has been stuck in unprecedented dual challenges and dilemmas, making the need to pursue new breakthroughs and shared paths for development all the more urgent. Navigating the ebbs and flows of development, contemporary art is constantly resetting and adapting to the complexities of “globalization and locality” based on the changes of the times. As Macao became the first point of cultural exchange between China and the West, it marked the beginning of the resulting characteristics and challenges that have emerged from cross-regional cultural and artistic connections since the 16th century. Macao’s sea breeze and tides have nurtured its natural environment and enabled rich cultural exchanges. Using the thematic question of “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2025”, we hope to present the thoughts and creative works of the artists of the Main Exhibition through connected spatial arrangements, embedded structures, and folded forms, initiating a dialogue of differentiation between self and others across different fields and bridging the domestic and foreign peripheries. This will also allow us to explore and identify the culture and art of Macao by transcending geographical boundaries and barriers of cultural identity.

Therefore, such a profound question posed against this background is indeed meaningful, though seemingly simple and informal. It stems not only from cultural awareness but also the inescapable social responsibility of artists. As living beings within a body and hasty travelers on the journey of life, we may perceive the dramatic change in the flow and temperature of the times more sensitively than ever. Hearing the sound of footsteps at the door, we open it to a bright vista which allows us to witness the growth of all things. Through travel, visits, art, cultural exchange, and encounters that blossom into friendships, we revive the splendor of diverse cultures in Art Macao together!

Feng Boyi 
Chief curator