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# M+ Opens Myths and Monsters: The Art of Fantasy in Asia
- URL: https://www.unknowndivide.com/mplus-myths-and-monsters-art-of-fantasy-in-asia/
- Published: 2026-10-19T10:59:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-19T11:12:56.000Z
- Description: M+ in Hong Kong just opened Myths and Monsters: The Art of Fantasy in Asia, a special exhibition with more than 400 works spanning two centuries of myth, Surrealism, manga, anime and contemporary art. It runs through April 4, 2027.
- Author: unknowndivide staff
- Tags: Culture

Hong Kong's [M+](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/?ref=unknowndivide.com) just opened the kind of survey that eats a whole afternoon. [Myths and Monsters: The Art of Fantasy in Asia](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/myths-and-monsters-the-art-of-fantasy-in-asia/?ref=unknowndivide.com) is now on view in the West Gallery through April 4, 2027, with more than 400 works that treat fantasy as a tool for reading the last two centuries, not as escape hatch wallpaper.

## Four chapters, 200 years

The show moves in four sections. It starts with spirits and deities in the 1800s: ukiyo-e, Chinese shadow puppets, Tibetan Buddhist thangkas and a new site-specific mural, Fear Catcher (2026), by Helsinki-based Hong Kong artist Oscar Chan Yik Long, built around Zhong Kui, the King of Ghosts. From there it tracks how Surrealism traveled through Asian artists in Paris and back into the region, putting names like Pang Hiunkin and Okamoto Taro beside European touchstones without flattening either side.

The third chapter is the one most visitors will recognize on sight: postwar Japanese pop culture, from Tezuka Osamu's Astro Boy to Godzilla and on into manga, anime and games, including background art from Ghost in the Shell. The finale, New Mythologies, brings the story into the present with artists including Takashi Murakami, Ho Tzu Nyen, Ayoung Kim, Cao Fei, LuYang, Lawrence Lek and others who bend anime aesthetics toward identity, tech anxiety and remixed myth.

## More than a hang

M+ is pairing the galleries with a real program. Opening weekend included a Living Legends talk on supernatural forces in Asian visual culture. Ghost in the Shell and Innocence are screening in the M+ Cinema Autumn Edition with a post-film conversation, and a winter monster program is already on the calendar. Inside the show, Fantastical Planet lets visitors build their own creatures. The companion book, Myths, Monsters, and Manga: The Art of Fantasy in Asia, is out with Thames & Hudson in English and Traditional Chinese, with exclusive merch drawn from Godzilla, Oscar Chan's mural, KongKee and Ho Tzu Nyen's Night March of Hundred Monsters.

Co-curators Ulanda Blair and Isabella Tam frame fantasy as a way artists have answered shifting politics and daily life across the region. Museum Director Suhanya Raffel ties that to the present tense of avatars, games and AI imagery. It is a big claim, and the checklist is big enough to back it up.

## Plan the visit

Tickets and memberships are on the [exhibition page](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/myths-and-monsters-the-art-of-fantasy-in-asia/?ref=unknowndivide.com) and through West Kowloon's channels. M+ sits in the [West Kowloon Cultural District](https://www.westkowloon.hk/en?ref=unknowndivide.com) on Victoria Harbour, so you can make a full culture day of it. Read the full checklist and program notes in M+'s [opening press release](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/press/myths-and-monsters-the-art-of-fantasy-in-asia-opening-this-saturday/?ref=unknowndivide.com) before you go.

More rooms that swallow a whole afternoon: [Tarek Atoui's HOLD at Tate Modern](https://www.unknowndivide.com/tarek-atoui-hold-tate-modern-turbine-hall/), [Charley Harper at Cincinnati Art Museum](https://www.unknowndivide.com/charley-harper-creatures-wild-and-tame-cincinnati-art-museum/), and the mirror work at [teamLab Borderless Tokyo](https://www.unknowndivide.com/teamlab-borderless-tokyo-breaks-the-mirror-in-new-exhibit-on-the-asymmetry-of-the-universe/).

[Exhibition page](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/myths-and-monsters-the-art-of-fantasy-in-asia/?ref=unknowndivide.com) · [Press release](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/press/myths-and-monsters-the-art-of-fantasy-in-asia-opening-this-saturday/?ref=unknowndivide.com) · [M+](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/?ref=unknowndivide.com) · [West Kowloon](https://www.westkowloon.hk/en?ref=unknowndivide.com)