Asia NOW 2026
Asia Now returns for its 12th edition with a 5-day program of events and exhibitions at La Monnaie de Paris. The fair takes place between October 20-24th.
With a curatorial theme of ‘sentimental value,’ Asia Now opens its 12th edition with a comprehensive program of exhibiting galleries, installations, talks and prizes. “What settles deepest, we call sentimental value: a form of value shaped by what we inherit, what we encounter, and what we choose to carry forward,” states Asia NOW.
Founded by Alexandra Fain, Asia NOW has become more than just an art fair and a place of transaction, but an event focused on being a space of relationships, community and continuity. More than a marketplace, Asia NOW aims to create an experience that carries on throughout the year, bringing awareness to new voices and championing contemporary art from Asia and its diaspora. The borders are not defined in Asia NOW, and they are not meant to be understood through a single cultural lens, rather “it is made through exchanges, migrations and relationships that can reshape its borders.” In this way, the fair welcomes galleries, artists and curators from across the region along with international galleries that support artists from the region or diaspora.
For its 12th edition, galleries including Esther Schipper (Paris and Berlin), Kaikai Kiki Gallery (Tokyo), Sabrina Amrani (Madrid), Loy Contemporary (Singapore), and The Drawing Room (Manila), reinforce the depth and diversity of the fair’s curatorial approach. Along with many returning galleries to Asia NOW, there is a host of new participating galleries including Spazio Nobile, who will present work by Pao Hui Kao and Didi Ng wing Yin, both recent finalists in the LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize. Didi was recently featured in Homo Faber, in Venice, and Pao Hui Kao was part of Dries Van Noten’s inaugural exhibition “Beauty is the Only True Protest,” in his palazzo in Venice. Their exhibition, Pleats, explores the poetic and structural language of folding as a shared gesture across materials and cultures. The exhibition brings into dialogue the works of Taiwanese artist and designer Pao Hui Kao (Eindhoven) and Hong Kong artist and designer Didi Ng Wing Yin (Helsinki). Both of them translate the act of pleating into their respective mediums: tracing and crepe paper for Pao Hui Kao and soft wood for Didi Ng Wing Yin, creating a conversation that bridges East and West through material, technique and sensibility. Pao Hui Kao’s delicate Original & Urushi Paper Pleats and Lacquer Leaf evoke lightness and ephemerality, where folds shape space and capture luminous moments of movement and structure. Didi Ng Wing Yin transforms pine wood through meticulous splitting and carving, translating the fluidity of his Pleats into sculpted form to reveal the organic grain, warmth, and natural rhythm of the material.
Other first-time exhibiting gallerists in Asia NOW including VER Gallery (Bangkok), co-founded by Rikrit Tiravanija, Double Square (Tapei), and Lux Feminae (New York). Tala (Chicageo) presents new works by Jon Cuyson, who represented the Philippines at the Venice Biennale this year, and THE Gallery (Bamberg), will present works by Nomin Bold, who was featured at the Mongolian Pavilion at the Biennale.
In addition to the exhibiting galleries, the fair presents The Third Space, a space for experimentation and encounters that presents a series of installations, moving-image works and visual art as a parkour throughout the historic La Monnaie building. The Third Space was first launched at the 2025 edition, and it offers visitors the opportunity to engage with works in a dynamic and personal way. Select participating galleries and institutions in The Third Space include: Sigg Foundation & Baró Gallery with Mamali Shafahi & Domenico Gutknecht, Galerie Peter Kilchmann with work by Ishita Chkraborty, Reena Kallat and Mon Charpentier, Artuner and Louis Le Kim, Danfe Arts featuring Priyanka Singh Maharjan, Hatch with Area Zahid, Salon 94 with Sawako Goda, VER Gallery with Tuguldur Yondonjamts and Lefebvre & Fils with Shushank Shrestha and Isolina Minjeong, among others.
Asia NOW also launches New Voices, a young curator’s program that is dedicated to emerging curators and collectives whose practice reflects the shifting landscape. Spotlighting six collectives who will present portraits, conversations and highlights of the artists and projects shaping their practice, New Voices includes: Tak Contemporary, Still Other Collective, Plasma Contemporary, 2 Curators 1 Collapse, Brief Shalimar x Zara Sajid.
Select highlights from the Asia NOW public program include the Villa Hegra project titled Tables Around: Perspectives on the Saudi Scene, curated by Gaël Charbau and Basmah Felemban, a program dedicated to the 10-year celebration of Kalhath Institute, a moving-image program curated by Stefano Rabolli Pansera and another cinema program curated by the video platform NOWNESS, Wayang Women brings together an all-women troupe of performers from across Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and Indonesian curator, researcher, writer, and Director of the Biennale Jogja Foundation Alia Swastika also returns to Asia NOW for the third time, presenting a new project Vessels of Memory, bringing together 10 artists from Biennale Jogja.
As the curators write: Asia is not a fixed point on the map. It’s where the excitement is: In the movement between places, in the encounters between perspectives, and in. what becomes possible when different Asia’s’ meet.”
The full list of participating galleries includes: Art and Charlie (Mumbai), Art Nova (Berlin, Shanghai), Baró (Mallorca, Abu Dhabi, Paris), byGRIDA (Paris, Seoul), Dominique Fiat (Paris), Double Square Gallery (Taipei), Esther Schipper (Berlin, Paris, Seoul), Galerie BAO (Paris), Galerie OVO (Taipei), Galerie PJ (Paris / Metz), GALERIE TAMÉNAGA (Paris, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto), HdM Gallery (Beijing, Paris), isart gallery (Taipei), JD Malat Galler y (London, Dubai), Kaikai Kiki Gallery (Tokyo), Katara Art Center (Doha), Prix Matsutani (SHŌEN – Fonds Matsutani), LOY Contemporary Art Gallery (Singapore), Mark Hachem (Paris, New York, Beirut), Martch Art Project (Istanbul), O Art Space (Lahore), BG (Seoul/Paris), POST-FLAMAND x ADM (Dalian, Versailles), quand les fleurs nous sauvent (Paris), Sabrina Amrani (Madrid), Spazio Nobile Gallery (Brussels), Stranger’s House | Goose & Varley (Mumbai), Studio Gallery (Shanghai), Tala (Chicago), Tedō Gallery (Paris), The Columns (Seoul, Singapore), The Drawing Room (Manila), THE FIELD (Beijing), THE HARMONYST (Tokyo), The Tiger Room (Munich), THE Gallery (Mürsbach), Vazieux (Paris), Vision Art Platform (Istanbul)
For more information and to book a ticket visit: Asia NOW.
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