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What to Expect at Singapore Art Week 2026

Crowds gather in front of the National Gallery Singapore during Light to Night Festival, with vibrant digital art projections lighting up the colonial facade as part of Singapore Art Week.

PUBLISHED December 17th, 2025 08:11 am

Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2026 is not interested in playing it safe. Instead, the citywide celebration is returning from 22 to 31 January, leans all the way into the contradictions and complexities that define contemporary life in the region. Now in its 12th edition, SAW has evolved beyond an annual showcase. It has become a lens on contemporary visual culture in Southeast Asia. Porous, participatory, and often unpredictable in its reflection of the world we inhabit.

From institutional retrospectives to artist-led interventions in MRT stations and hotels, this year’s programme reminds us that art is less about static viewing and more about active encounter. With over 130 exhibitions, performances, symposia and public activations, SAW 2026 maps a city in flux: one that’s continuously negotiating between tradition and technology, memory and reinvention, intimacy and scale.

Gradient poster for Singapore Art Week 2026 with official branding, dates (22–31 January), and tagline 'Art Takes Over' by the National Arts Council Singapore.

Art That Moves, Literally

One of the clearest indications of this shift is the expansion of public art programming. Bring Your Own Racket (BYOR) reimagines recreational courts as community art sites, inviting audiences to play, interact, and respond. Meanwhile, The Last Tree Was a Building by Singaporean artist ANTZ transforms Gillman Barracks with monumental inflatable monkeys perched on rooftops, totemic yet quietly humorous markers of urban transformation.

At The Warehouse Hotel, Wan Hai Hotel: Singapore Strait presents a hybrid exhibition of site-specific installations, performances, and film programmes in a functioning hospitality space. Curated by Rockbund Art Museum in collaboration with ART SG, it blurs the line between hotel and museum, private and public.

Illustrated poster for 'Bring Your Own Racket'—a public art activation for Singapore Art Week 2026—featuring diverse people playing badminton on a reimagined court in an urban park.
Image: Aaron Lim and Quek Jia Qi

Institutions Reframed

Back in the galleries, 30 Years of Gajah: A Retrospective at Gajah Gallery traces three decades of artistic exchange in Southeast Asia. Rather than a greatest-hits compilation, the show offers a reflective cartography of collaborations and practices that have defined one of the region’s most influential spaces.

Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, a major exhibition at National Gallery Singapore, brings together over five decades of work by Southeast Asian women artists. Connecting themes of resistance, memory, and alternative futures, it marks a significant institutional effort to revisit the canon from a feminist lens.

Interior view of S.E.A. Focus 2025 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, featuring framed Southeast Asian contemporary artworks in a clean, minimalist gallery space.
Photo: Courtesy of S.E.A.

And for those who think print is dead, The Print Show Singapore and Symposium: The Politics of Print proves otherwise. Organised by STPI, it not only assembles work by iconic artists like Louise Bourgeois and Yayoi Kusama, but reimagines the symposium format as a generative space for critique and debate, complete with a performative critique club.

Immersion and Impact: Southeast Asia in Dialogue

ART SG returns with a heavyweight line-up of international and regional galleries, but it’s the co-location with S.E.A. Focus 2026 that signals a quiet tectonic shift. Curated by John Tung, this edition of S.E.A. Focus deepens its lens on contemporary Southeast Asian practices, offering a counterpoint to the market-driven rhythm of the fair.

Also drawing attention is David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at IMBA, Gardens by the Bay. This immersive audiovisual experience narrated by Hockney himself, spans six decades of the British icon’s work, showcasing his playful manipulations of space, photography, and perception. Created in collaboration with Lightroom, it’s a singular invitation to see the world through Hockney’s eyes.

Visitors explore contemporary art booths at ART SG 2025 during Singapore Art Week, showcasing international and regional galleries in a vibrant indoor fair setting.
Photo: Courtesy of ART SG 2025

Presented alongside is Botero in Singapore, a lush celebration of the late Colombian master’s humour and humanity. Featuring monumental sculptures and the world’s first Botero immersive experience, the show animates Gardens by the Bay with exaggerated, larger-than-life forms that are equal parts whimsical and weighty.

A Week That Thinks

SAW 2026 isn’t just about spectacle. It’s also a platform for discourse. Forums like SAW’s own FORCE•FIELDS and STPI’s print symposium engage with critical themes from power structures in the art world to the future of publishing and pedagogy.

In all, Singapore Art Week 2026 resists any single narrative. It’s a constellation of provocations and propositions, threaded together by the question: What does it mean to create and to connect; here, now?

Singapore Art Week 2026 is happening between 22 and 30 January. For more information, visit artweek.sg. 

sharmaine


Sharmaine is a storyteller who follows her curiosity through flavours, cultures, and soundscapes. A selector at heart, she collects vinyls, digs through playlists, and finds the perfect tune for every moment. When she’s not experimenting in her kitchen, she’s exploring nature, ancient healing traditions, or indulging in wellness rituals because she believes the richest stories are those experienced with all the senses.