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The Hong Kong Jockey Club is delighted to support the French May Arts Festival for the 14th straight year, with the Club’s Charities Trust serving as Major Partner once again. This year’s festival will run from March to July and feature a wide range of arts programmes and educational initiatives. The festival’s opening programme, and a key highlight, is The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation exhibition. It will be on view from 15 March to 13 July at M+ West Gallery and is co-organised by M+ and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, with the Club serving as title sponsor. It’s among celebratory activities to mark the Club’s 140th anniversary.

The exhibition’s opening ceremony was held at M+ West Gallery today (13 March). Attending officials included HKSAR Government Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law; Club Steward Nicholas Hunsworth; Consul General of France in Hong Kong and Macau Christile Drulhe; Chairman of the Board of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Henry Tang; Chairman of the M+ Board Bernard Chan; Chief Executive Officer of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Betty Fung; Museum Director of M+ Suhanya Raffel; President of the Musée national Picasso-Paris Cécile Debray; and Co-chairman of the Board of French May Arts Festival Mignonne Cheng and Pansy Ho.

Sports and Culture is one of the priority funding areas for the Club’s Charities Trust. Speaking at the ceremony, Club Steward Nicholas Hunsworth remarked that the Club is dedicated to fostering arts and cultural development in Hong Kong. This aligns with the Central Government’s vision of developing Hong Kong into an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange, as outlined in the National 14th Five-Year Plan. The Club is supporting the festival’s arts education programmes as part of its commitment to make the arts accessible to all, thereby enriching local cultural development.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation is the first major exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work in Hong Kong for more than a decade. It showcases over 60 masterpieces by the Spanish artist from the Musée national Picasso-Paris alongside around 130 pieces by contemporary Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections. It’s the first time masterpieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris are shown in dialogue with a museum collection in Asia. For further details of the exhibition, please visit https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/picasso-for-asia/.

The Club’s Charities Trust is supporting other programmes at the French May Arts Festival under its theme of “Vive L’art” including French Rendezvous@Tai Kwun. The world-renowned French troupe Remue Ménage will present a street parade entitled Le Bal at Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground that marries visual arts, circus, dance and puppetry art. For the duration of Remue Ménage’s stay, a series of workshops will be held for local artists, parents and their children together with an artist-in-residence programme to promote cultural exchange and collaboration between French and local performers.

In addition, the long-established Jockey Club Community Outreach and Arts Education Programmes will continue to provide enriching educational and outreach activities including guided tours, school visits, in-depth talks, screenings and masterclasses. As every year, the Club will provide support for accessibility services as well as complimentary tickets for the disadvantaged in an effort to make the festival accessible to all.

Over the past 140 years, the Club’s partnership with the community has thrived thanks to a unique integrated business model through which racing and wagering generate tax contributions, charity support and employment opportunities for Hong Kong. The Club – under the banner “With You. Then. Now. Always.” – has organised a series of celebratory initiatives to mark this milestone and recognise Hong Kong people’s contribution to its mission to act continuously for the betterment of society. For more information, please visit https://campaign.hkjc.com/140/en/.