Anne Imhof
Anne Imhof: House of Swan’s
Sep 25, 2026 – Jan 3, 2027
Through the dramatic staging of imposing installations, the exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, sonic experiences and choreography to explore gender, power and bodily discipline.
Tai Kwun Contemporary is pleased to announce Anne Imhof: House of Swans (25 Sep 2026 to 3 Jan 2027), on view across three floors of the JC Contemporary and F Hall galleries. Curated by Ying Kwok and Tiffany Leung, House of Swans marks the Asian solo exhibition debut of 2017 Venice Biennale Golden Lion recipient Anne Imhof. The exhibition features a major commission of monumental new works that construct a powerful multisensory experience through atmospheric scenography, installations, paintings and live performances.
During opening week, the artist’s long-term collaborators, including renowned international musicians and dancers, will join dancers from Hong Kong Ballet for special performances on 25 and 26 Sep. At additional times throughout the exhibition’s run, ballet performances will take place in the gallery. As the latest chapter in Imhof’s pioneering artistic practice, House of Swans offers audiences in Hong Kong and the wider region a rare opportunity to experience both celebrated and new works by one of contemporary art’s leading figures.
Widely recognised for her genre-defying practice, Anne Imhof creates imposing environments that merge choreography, installation and sound into deeply atmospheric experiences. She first broke onto the international stage when she was awarded the Golden Lion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 for FAUST, her immersive performance installation at the German Pavilion.
In recent works such as DOOM: House of Hope at the Park Avenue Armory in New York (2025), her precise choreography of bodies, attention and constructed environments creates events that are at once intimate and monumental. Unfolding across time and space with elements from urban infrastructure, these works prompt viewers to consider how power, vulnerability and presence are staged. It also marked the first time that ballet became a central formal structure of her work, which further develops in her presentation at Tai Kwun.
Set in an imagined future, the exhibition and performance House of Swans follows a heroine struggling on her path to love through a chaotic cityscape. Throughout the show, Imhof juxtaposes the classical forms of oil painting, bronze sculpture and ballet with large-scale sonic installations, physical performances and videos to create charged encounters in the gallery space that explore bodily presence, restriction and authority. The exhibition presents a landmark opportunity for audiences to engage with one of today’s most influential artistic voices not simply as spectators but as inhabitants of the House of Swans.
Learning and Engagement Programmes
Over the course of the exhibition, Tai Kwun Contemporary will present a series of learning and engagement programmes, including TK Conversations and Teachers’ Morning. Held on weekends, Guided Tours: Who’s Next? offer thought-provoking perspectives on the exhibition from professionals and educators across various fields.
For younger audiences and families, Tai Kwun Family Day programmes offer tours and activities designed for participants. Visitors can also explore the Hi! & Seek area on 2/F, a dedicated space for dialogue, discovery and deeper engagement with the exhibition’s themes.
For details on the full range of tours and public programmes, please visit the Tai Kwun website.
About the Artist
Anne Imhof (born in 1978 in Giessen, Germany) has emerged over the past decade as one of the most acclaimed artists of her generation. Today based between Berlin and New York, Imhof spent her formative years in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where she taught herself to draw and make music while working as a bouncer at a local night club before eventually enrolling at the city’s academy of fine arts, the Städelschule (2008 – 2012). Her practice has since expanded to encompass performance and choreography, painting and drawing, music, installation and sculpture, and most recently, film.
Anne Imhof’s projects have been widely presented internationally. Her performance project Angst was staged at the Kunsthalle Basel and Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin in 2016. At the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, she won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation for her installation FAUST in the German Pavilion. Since then, her projects have been presented at leading institutions in Europe and worldwide, including Tate Modern in London (2019), the Art Institute of Chicago (2019), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2021), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2022), Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria (2024) and the Serralves Museum in Porto (2025). Her works are in the collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Sammlung der Nationalgalerie, Berlin and Tate, London. She was previously featured in the group exhibitionPerforming Society: The Violence of Gender held in 2019 at Tai Kwun.
Anne Imhof: House of Swans
Artist: Anne Imhof
Curators: Ying Kwok, Tiffany Leung
Exhibition Architecture: COLLECTIVE Studio
Engineering Design: Arup
Performance Partner: Hong Kong Ballet
Performances:
Opening Week Performances (Hong Kong Ballet and international cast):
25 & 26 Sep
Adapted Performances by Hong Kong Ballet:
3, 4, 10, 11, 24, 25, 31 Oct 2026
1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 Nov 2026
Ticketing:
Tickets are now available online on Art-mate.
HK$50 (Regular Tickets)
HK$40 (Concession Tickets for full-time students, seniors aged 60 or above, and persons with disabilities)
Free entry for children aged 4 or below
Alicja Kwade
Waiting Pavilions
Dec 20, 2024 – Nov 26, 2026
Tai Kwun Contemporary’s latest public art commission, Waiting Pavilions, investigates the passage of time in the setting of a former prison, the Victoria Gaol. Created by the acclaimed Polish artist Alicja Kwade—known for using everyday materials to ask questions about existing realities and social structures—Waiting Pavilions are the artist’s first site-specific installation in Hong Kong, bridging the past and present on Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard.
大館當代美術館最新公共藝術委約項目《等候亭》以昔日域多利監獄為背景，探索時間的流逝。項目由波蘭裔藝術家艾莉斯亞．夸德創作，她擅長運用日常物料來質疑各種現存的真實環境和社會結構。《等候亭》是藝術家在香港的首個場域特定裝置，連結了大館監獄操場的過去與現在。
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