Mar 17–Jun 18

Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, Spain

Málaga’s Centro de Arte Contemporáneo will host one of Jia Aili’s most comprehensive exhibitions to date, featuring more than 30 paintings. Jia merges contemporary and traditional figurative styles to comment on the dramatic social and political changes and increasing globalization in China in the latter half of the 20th century. His iconic blend of styles features dark palettes and depictions of desolate, apocalyptic landscapes that provoke questions of humanity’s role and our future survival on earth. The nexus of the exhibition will be the five-panel painting We Are From the Century (2009), which will reach a colossal height of 6 meters and will stretch 15 meters in length, premiering in a public institution for the first time. The work depicts figures—some seemingly dressed in radiation gear—against a wasteland and also contains a large, toppled figure set in the distance, just in front of an encroaching and ominous dust cloud.

Mar 18–Jun 11 

Para Site, Hong Kong

Co-presented by the non-profit Kadist Foundation, and curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero, the traveling exhibition explores the ever-changing discourse concerning broad realities in Asia, such as environment, urbanization, labor, history and politics. The show will make its final stop at Para Site Hong Kong after a successful showing at Manila’s Museum of Contemporary Art and Design. More than 30 artists will examine social shifts in their respective native countries and investigate how these developments have shaped the region. A single-channel video by Li Binyuan probes the issues of the agricultural land rights in China while Edgar Talusan Fernandez’s poster reveals the artist’s participation in the 1979 campaigns against mining in Philippines’ indigenous lands. The new host city will be discussed through local artist Ocean Leung’s investigation of the post-Umbrella Revolution climate, and a special performance by Ho Siu Kee, Sand Cone (2017), which will greet visitors on opening night.

Mar 20–21

Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong

The performing arts research platform Scene/Asia will present their second annual symposium circling curatorial theories and the participatory elements in performance. Organized by Arts Commons Tokyo and supported by the Japan Foundation – Asia Center and Saison Foundation, the two-day forum features Q&As and talks with six artists and six moderators, including Taiwanese guerilla artist and political activist Chen Chieh-Jen, who will pontificate on the relationship between art and democracy in Asia. The headline event will be a panel talk with artists Fahmi Reza, Ho Rui An, Akira Takayama and Hansol Yoon, about the symposium’s theme: “(Un) Doing Democracies in Asia: Performance, Narratives and Silence.”

Mar 24–Apr 9

Various locations, Kathmandu, Nepal 

Derived from the celebrated Kathmandu International Art Festival, the inaugural iteration of the Kathmandu Triennale will open under the curatorial direction of Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director of Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Belgium. The Triennale will take place across the city in a series of exhibitions, educational initiatives and workshops, including the central show, titled “The City, My Studio / The City, My Life” at Siddartha Art Gallery, Patan Museum, Taragaon Museum and Nepal Art Council. Focus is placed on cultivating engagement with the local community, and the event will play host to over 50 artists from 25 countries who will create new commissions in response to the city. Participants include Nepalese artists Hit Man Gurung and Tsherin Sherpa, Lee Kit from Hong Kong and New Delhi-based Mithu Sen.

Apr 1–Sep 24

Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Qiu Zhijie’s upcoming solo exhibition at Van Abbemuseum marks the first comprehensive overview of the Chinese artist’s oeuvre. The exhibition will showcase works from across the artist’s two-decade-long career in a variety of media including sculpture, installation, photography and print. As a witness to China’s rapid economic growth and globalization, Qiu’s work deals with the tensions present in the country’s social identity, aggravated by these developments. Curated by Van Abbemuseum’s Annie Fletcher and Charles Esche in collaboration with China-based curator Davide Quadrio, “Journeys Without Arrivals” proposes that the artist’s work be seen as a series of unending journeys that reinterpret elements of different traditions, as a way to comprehend contemporary, global culture.

Apr 8–Jul 16

Various locations, Athens, Greece

Apr 15–Jun 11

Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China

New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative’s traveling exhibition, “But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise,” will end its journey at Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum (RAM). Organized by Sara Raza and RAM’s curatorial team, the group show of 15 artists highlights contemporary art voices in North Africa and the Middle East. The presentation will include works by Tehran-born, Dubai-based Rokni Haerizadeh, who will show his collage painting series “But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise” (2014) and Beirut-based duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Latent Images, Diary of a Photographer, 177 Days of Performance (2015), an installation based on the film archives and research of a fictitious photographer named Abdallah Farah, who reported on the Lebanese Civil War. As one of the most substantial displays of contemporary art from the region to date in China, the collection will allow for unprecedented exchange between the exhibition’s cross-cultural agendas and Shanghai’s affluent art scene.