Two years ago, the Xiqu Centre, the Chinese opera venue in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong, was largely a skeleton frame of rebar and concrete. This year its dramatic curvaceousness was officially open for business. Though itself impressively large, the Xiqu Centre is dwarfed by the vast area that is still under development. The hope is that when the Lyric performing arts center, Hon g Kong Palace Museum, Art Park, and Herzog and de Meuron-designed M+ Museum are finally finished, Hong Kong will be Asia's main arts and cultural hub.
In the meantime, besides the prestige project of the Xiqu Centre, the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts (which made Time magazine's "Greatest Places 2018") has world-class contemporary art exhibitions, and the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, one of whose directors is Mizuki Takahashi, formerly of Tokyo's Mori Art Museum and Art Tower Mito, has just opened.
To date, the main cause of the harbor city's success in the global art scene has been Art Basel Hong Kong.
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