Best exhibitions of 2025: Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East

From Thomas Demand in Taipei to Shilpa Gupta in Dubai, plus the reopening of MACAAL in Marrakech, Kings and Queens of Africa in Abu Dhabi, and much more

Best exhibitions of 2025: Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East

Yayoi KusamaNGV International, Melbourne
Until 21 April 2025

Featuring 200 works from across her career, the largest exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work ever presented in Australia offers a comprehensive insight into her life and art, from her experimental years in post-war Japan to her recent collaborations with luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton.

Installation view of Yayoi Kusama's Ceremony for Suicide, 1975-76, as part of the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at NGV International, Melbourne

Installation view of Yayoi Kusama’s Ceremony for Suicide, 1975-76, as part of the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at NGV International, Melbourne until 21 April 2025. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Photo: Kate Shanasy

Organised chronologically and thematically, it contains paintings, sculptures, collage, fashion and film, as well as a selection of immersive installations, including Narcissus Garden (1966/2024), which features 1,400 mirrored silver spheres. First presented at the Venice Biennale in 1966, it is installed in front of the NGV’s ‘Waterwall’, creating a reflective landscape that envelops the viewer. Also on show is Dancing Pumpkin (2020), a towering, five-metre-tall bronze pumpkin sculpture newly acquired by the NGV.

Ethel CarrickNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Until 27 April 2025

Ethel Carrick was born in England but spent much of her life in France and Australia, creating bold and vibrant Post-Impressionist scenes of the leisured middle classes. Her depictions of fashionable society at the beach, in the park or at the market are characterised by a palette of bold, brilliant colours and her close observation of tonal values. ‘It’s people who attract me,’ said Carrick. ‘Crowds are to me what a magnet is to a needle. I love the colour, life, movement and individuality of a crowd.’

Ethel Carrick, Christmas Day on Manly Beach, 1913, at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ethel Carrick (1872-1952), Christmas Day on Manly Beach, 1913 (also known as Manly Beach — summer is here). Oil on canvas. 81 x 100 cm. Manly Art Gallery & Museum Collection

The first exhibition dedicated to Carrick’s art for nearly half a century brings together 140 works from across her career, including the rich and diverse output from her extensive travels through Europe, India, North Africa and Australia. Among the highlights on display are Luxembourg Gardens, Paris (circa 1906) and a luminous beach scene from 1913, Christmas Day on Manly Beach, which masterfully captures an Australian summer, its heat, light and colour so different from England and France.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the courts of Beijing and Versailles were fascinated by one another. Facilitated by enlightened rulers and travelling French missionaries, China and France engaged in extensive exchanges in science, art, culture and philosophy.

The Hong Kong Palace Museum’s winter exhibition traces the rich history of mutual exchange between the two countries, through around 150 treasures drawn from the museum’s own collection and that of the Palace of Versailles. Shown alongside royal portraits, porcelains and textiles are books, scientific instruments and glassware.

The Nanjing Market, 1761. The Palace of Versailles. The work was created by Marie Leszczynska, in collaboration with Henri-Philippe-Bon Coqueret, Jean-Martial Fredou, Jean-Philippe de La Roche and Jean-Louis Prevost, and overseen by Etienne Jeaurat

The Nanjing Market, 1761. Oil on canvas. The Palace of Versailles. The work was created by Marie Leszczyńska (1703–1768), in collaboration with Henri-Philippe-Bon Coqueret (1735-1807), Jean-Martial Frédou (1710-1795), Jean-Philippe de La Roche (1710-1767) and Jean-Louis Prévost (1745-1827), and overseen by Etienne Jeaurat (1699-1789). Photo: © The Palace of Versailles / Christophe Fouin

Highlights from the Palace Museum include a chrysanthemum pot from 1783, created by the renowned French enameller Joseph Coteau and likely offered as a gift from French officials to the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-95). On loan from the Palace of Versailles and on display in Hong Kong for the first time is a perfume fountain dating from 1736-43, formerly in the collection of Louis XV. The porcelain body was produced by ceramic artisans in China, while the bronze mounts were probably made in France — a testament to the exchange of craftsmanship between the two countries at that time.

One Must Be SeatedZeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town
Until 5 October 2025

Working across tapestry, sculpture, photography and video, the Ghanaian-American artist Rita Mawuena Benissan celebrates the rich traditions of Ghanaian culture, with a particular focus on Asante customs. She is perhaps best known for works that reimagine the royal umbrella and stool, symbols of Akan chieftaincy.

Installation view, One Must be Seated by Rita Mawuena Benissan, at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town

Installation view, One Must be Seated by Rita Mawuena Benissan. Photo: Dillon Marsh, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA

This solo exhibition explores the ‘enstoolment’ of a prospective chief, a ceremonial celebration akin to a coronation, with each successive gallery space symbolising a different stage in the process. Curated by Beata America, assistant curator at Zeitz MOCAA, it features significant new works including the film One Must Be Seated (2024), from which the exhibition takes its title, and The Triumphant King Rules (2023), in which portraits of past chiefs are embedded within the fabric of a velvet umbrella.

In December 2024, the executive director and chief curator of Zeitz MOCAA, Koyo Kouoh, was announced as the curator of the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026.

We, the People: 30 Years of Democracy in South AfricaNorval Foundation, Cape Town
Until 22 November 2025

The Norval Foundation’s We, the People examines South Africa’s democratic journey over the past 30 years, framing it as an ongoing process that requires active participation. Curator Liese van der Watt has utilised the lens of ‘countervisuality’, a concept developed by visual theorist Nicholas Mirzoeff, to disrupt dominant narratives and create space for marginalised perspectives.

Keiskamma Altarpiece, 2004-05. Embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture and photography. Created by about 130 members of the Xhosa community, mostly women, living along the Keiskamma River in South Africa's Eastern Cape, the monumental work is a memorial to community members who died of AIDS and a homage to the strength and agency of the women left behind, at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town

Keiskamma Altarpiece, 2004-05. Embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture and photography. Created by about 130 members of the Xhosa community, mostly women, living along the Keiskamma River in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, the monumental work is a memorial to community members who died of AIDS and a homage to the strength and agency of the women left behind

The exhibition is structured around four interconnected themes — ‘To Belong’, ‘To Protest’, ‘To Care’ and ‘To Be Heard’ — and features works by a wide variety of artists working after 1994, among them Candice Breitz, Dineo Seshee Bopape and Wim Botha. Shown together, they reveal that a successful democracy requires individuals to work together and be open to building a shared future.

Thomas Demand — The Stutter of HistoryTaipei Fine Arts Museum
Until 11 May 2025

The German artist Thomas Demand takes source images of historical events circulated in the media and painstakingly recreates them as life-size dioramas constructed entirely from coloured paper and card. These models are then photographed, before being completely destroyed, leaving the ghostly printed pictures as the only record of their existence.

Two of his best-known works are photographs of his ephemeral reconstructions of Hitler’s bombed-out bunker (Room, 1995), and the control room of Fukushima’s power plant following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster (Control Room, 2011).

Thomas Demand, Folders, 2017, C-Print/Diasec at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Thomas Demand (b. 1964), Folders, 2017. C-Print/Diasec. 125 x 195 cm. © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Taipei Fine Arts Museum

This exhibition — a retrospective of around 70 of his works — has been touring the world since 2022. It has been shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and UCCA Edge, Shanghai. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is the tour’s final stop.

Shilpa Gupta: Lines of FlightIshara Art Foundation, Dubai
Until 31 May 2025

Growing up in Mumbai following the riots of 1992-93 profoundly shaped the work of Indian artist Shilpa Gupta, who investigates the role that boundaries — both real and imaginary — play in defining people, places, objects and ideas.

In 2019, she was invited to participate in the 58th Venice Biennale. One of her exhibited pieces comprised 100 poems by imprisoned writers, printed on paper impaled on spikes and recited through dangling speakers and microphones. Another work was a metal security gate that swung from side to side, gradually destroying the gallery wall behind it.

Shilpa Gupta (b. 1976), Untitled (Spoken Poem in a Bottle), 2021. Bottle, vitrine, bulb. 45.7 x 33 x 162.5 cm. Collection of Pooja Jhaver. Courtesy of the artist and the Barbican. Photo: Max Colson

Shilpa Gupta (b. 1976), Untitled (from the Nothing will go on Record series), 2016/2023. Pencil on paper. 42 x 29.7 x 3.4 cm each (set of six frames). Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Vicky Luthra, SV Photographic

This exhibition at Dubai’s Ishara Art Foundation — a non-profit gallery of contemporary South Asian art founded by the entrepreneur, collector and patron Smita Prabhakar in 2019 — is Gupta’s first solo show in the region. Including works dating back as far as 2006, the mid-career retrospective features a range of her site-specific interventions, sculptures, drawings, videos and prints, as well as a brand-new sound installation.

Lubaina HimidUCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
Until 27 April 2025

A Turner Prize-winner and trailblazing member of the Black British arts movement, Lubaina Himid is now having her first solo show in China. Since the early 1980s, Himid has used her art to raise awareness of the Black experience in the UK. This exhibition features many of her most powerful works, such as A Fashionable Marriage (1986) and Six Tailors (2019).

Lubaina Himid, Six Tailors, 2019, at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing

Lubaina Himid (b. 1954), Six Tailors, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. 197 x 271 cm. Courtesy Rennie Collection, Vancouver. © Lubaina Himid. Photo: Gavin Renshaw, courtesy the artist, Hollybush Gardens, London, and Greene Naftali, New York

Himid is perhaps best known for her vibrant ‘cut-outs’: brilliantly coloured, life-size painted figures that resemble the cast on a stage. Her dramatic impulses come from her training in the theatre, resulting in exhibitions with a joyous, circus-like atmosphere. However, they are not without bite: the 2004 work Naming the Money, for example — which she gifted to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool — features 100 cut-out figures giving voice to the overlooked stories of servants and slaves in Western history.

Presented in partnership with Paris’s Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, Kings and Queens of Africa: Forms and Figures of Power shines a light on the material culture of historic royalty on the African continent.

The exhibition is curated by Hélène Joubert, head curator of the African Collections Heritage Unit at the Paris museum. She has been assisted by a team including El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, curator of the Théodore Monod Museum of African Art in Dakar, Senegal; Cindy Olohou, an independent curator; and Mariam AlDhaheri, curatorial assistant at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Ceremonial bow stand, 19th century. Luba, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris. Photo: © Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac / Claude Germain

Ife head, 12th-14th century, Nigeria. Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris. Photo: © Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac / Hughes Dubois

Together they have selected about 300 objects to display, ranging from a 19th-century ceremonial bow stand created by the Luba people of modern-day DRC, to a rare portrait head made some 800 years ago in the former royal kingdom of Ife, western Nigeria, which is incised with vertical lines that are thought to represent traditional scarification.

Reopening of MACAALMuseum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech
2 February 2025

February sees the reopening of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech, after a short hiatus that saw an extensive transformation of its gallery spaces and the installation of a new media library. The museum was established by the Lazraq family in 2016 and is home to one of the most comprehensive collections of contemporary African art in the world. Here you can see blue-chip works by Mohamed Melehi and Farid Belkahia, co-founders of the Casablanca Art School, together with stunningly beautiful paintings by the self-taught Algerian artist Baya and sculptures by M’barek Bouhchichi.

Ahmed Cherkaoui, YA'SIN, Paris 1965 (1965), at the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech

Ahmed Cherkaoui (1934-1967), YA’SIN, Paris 1965 (1965). Oil on canvas. Courtesy of MACAAL and the estate of the artist

The inaugural exhibition, Seven Contours, One Collection, will feature 150 artworks spanning sculpture, painting, textiles, photography, installations and multimedia — a celebration of the creative energy of the African continent and its diaspora over the past century.

The San Diego Museum of Art is sending about 50 of its finest Old Master paintings for a landmark tour of Japan, which kicks off in March at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, Maria a La Granja, 1907, at The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), María a La Granja, 1907. Oil on canvas. 67⅛ x 33½ in. The San Diego Museum of Art. Photo: Ⓒ San Diego Museum of Art

Spanning the Renaissance to the early 20th century, the pictures will hang among some 40 works from the Japanese museum’s own collections to tell a concise story of European art. Highlights making the journey from California include Italian paintings by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Giorgione and Tintoretto, as well as some of the San Diego institution’s most important Spanish pictures, such as Juan Sánchez Cotán’s Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, El Greco’s Saint Peter, Sorolla’s María a La Granja and Zurbarán’s Lamb of God.

It’s the first time the American museum has sent this part of its collection to Asia. In the second half of the year, the show is travelling to the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art.

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City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940sNational Gallery Singapore
2 April to 17 August 2025

During the years of peace between two world wars, a handful of avant-garde Asian artists made a big splash in Paris. Among them were Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, a flamboyant figurative artist from Japan who was adored by Picasso; Georgette Chen, a painter who exhibited at Paris’s Salon d’Automne before becoming a pioneer of modernism in Singapore; and Sanyu, from China, whose celebrated still lifes are indebted to Matisse in their handling of line and colour.

Kanae Itakura, Woman in Red Dress, 1929, at the National Gallery Singapore

Kanae Itakura (1901-1929), Woman in Red Dress, 1929. Oil on canvas. 116 x 80.3 cm. Collection of Matsudo City Board of Education

A new show at the National Gallery Singapore compares the experiences of these artists — alongside some of their peers, including Le Pho, Liu Kang, Xu Beihong and Kanae Itakura — in the French capital during these dynamic decades. Encompassing more than 150 artworks, from paint to ink and lacquer, it charts how ideas and inspirations were exchanged between Asian and European cultures in a city that was renowned as a melting pot of ‘others’.

Main image, clockwise from top left: Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, circa 1602. The San Diego Museum of Art. Photo: © San Diego Museum of Art (at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo). Thomas Demand, Folders, 2017. © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Taipei Fine Arts Museum (at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum). Portrait of the Qianlong Emperor in porcelain plaque, 1776. The Palace of Versailles. Photo: © The Palace of Versailles / Christophe Fouin (at the Hong Kong Palace Museum). Installation view of Yayoi Kusama’s Dancing Pumpkin 2020 at NGV International, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Loti & Victor Smorgon Fund, 2024. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Photo: Sean Fennessy. Lubaina Himid, Cosmic Coral, 2024. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas. 152.4 x 213.36 cm. © Lubaina Himid. Photo: Andy Keate, courtesy the artist, Hollybush Gardens, London, and Greene Naftali, New York (at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing). Ceremonial bow stand, 19th century. Luba, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, Paris. Photo: © musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac / Claude Germain (at the Louvre Abu Dhabi)

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