Singapore’s place on the earth has at all times been a nuanced one, as a Malayan, Nusantaran and Southeast Asian former British colony with a largely Han Chinese language, South Asian and Malayan inhabitants. The multitudes contained inside the city-state obtain full exploration with the 2026 version of Singapore Artwork Week (SAW), with its broad vary of creative choices when it comes to each geography and idea.
“We take immense satisfaction in being the definitive residence for Southeast Asian Artwork and as an area the place the regional arts neighborhood connects,” says Low Eng Teong, the chief govt officer of Singapore’s Nationwide Arts Council, which organises Singapore Artwork Week.
That variety is demonstrated within the second iteration of Wan Hai Resort, tailored from an inaugural Shanghai version at Rockbund Artwork Museum (RAM) in 2024. “The core concepts,” says X Zhu-Nowell, RAM’s director and the curator of each editions, “stay grounded in our authentic proposition: our bodies of water are usually not borders however methods of sensing and inhabiting the world. As in Shanghai, we draw from [the Tongan and Fijian writer] Epeli Hau‘ofa’s imaginative and prescient of the Pacific as a ‘sea of islands’, formed by relations, reminiscence and motion.”
The underlying idea will journey to Singapore’s The Warehouse Resort, operating from 20-31 January. Artists embody Singaporeans like Ho Tzu Nyen, Daybreak Ng and Robert Zhao Renhui, diaspora Singaporean Ming Wong, and regional artists like Thailand’s Wantanee Siripattananuntakul. Concepts of diaspora are expanded with the inclusion of Japan-based Chinese language artist Han Ishu and Guatemalan-Chinese language artist Esvin Alarcón Lam. “We’re inviting artists whose practices assume with tides, straits, migration routes and maritime infrastructures,” says Zhu-Nowell. “Their works permit the Singapore iteration to turn out to be not a repetition of Shanghai, however an growth formed by one other shoreline—one which bears the burden of world circulation and the recollections of those that as soon as lived and labored alongside its waters.”
Artwork SG (23-25 January) is Singapore’s premier artwork truthful and is now in its fourth version Courtesy Artwork SG
Singapore’s artwork scene has seen explicit progress because the artwork truthful Artwork SG’s launch in 2023. This yr, will probably be held alongside S.E.A. Focus, a smaller truthful which has run since 2019. The transfer “supplies expanded market entry and networks by bringing Artwork SG’s considerably bigger customer numbers,” Emi Eu, the founding father of S.E.A. Focus, advised The Artwork Newspaper final yr. The mixed occasion will “cement each platforms as a mega-anchor for SAW, increasing alternatives for Singapore to develop the Southeast Asian artwork market on a world scale”.
In keeping with Jasmine Prasetio, Sotheby’s senior director, Asia, and managing director, Southeast Asia, “autumn 2025 was a incredible second for artwork” worldwide, with “euphoria and power from collectors, and we hope to see this in SAW 2026. Individually from the market facet, there have been numerous worldwide patrons and institutional curiosity in Southeast Asian artwork, from the attitude of each gathering in addition to philanthropy.” Singapore, she says, is experiencing “increasingly more philanthropists and non-profit organisations being established or turn out to be extra vocal in championing the humanities”.
Prasetio says the present local weather has been lengthy fomenting, even earlier than the creation of SAW in 2013 or of Singapore’s Nationwide Arts Council in 1991. “Singapore and the larger Southeast Asia area is just not a brand new market, however one which has been established since as early because the Nineteen Fifties, when Indo-European artists equivalent to Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur travelled and exhibited in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. As early because the 80s, there have been exhibitions of works by Chu Teh Chun, Zao Wou-Ki and Basquiat in Indonesia,” which additionally launched two of Asia’s oldest biennials, respectively in Jakarta and Yogyakarta.
Inside Singapore and its neighbours, “there’s a robust affiliation to help artists from the area, however with an open-mindedness to additionally gather throughout numerous geographies and classes. The market was subtle, with seasoned, educated collectors quietly gathering, and whereas that continues to be true, the scene can also be bustling with new artwork lovers and passionate patrons who care not solely about artwork but in addition the neighborhood.”
Sotheby’s will maintain a contemporary and up to date public sale throughout SAW for the second yr operating, with the preview (21-24 January) and public sale (25 January) each at The Version Resort, and also will maintain a showcase emphasising girls artists.
chapalang, curated by Gunalan Nadarajan and Roopesh Sitharan, is at Artspace@Helutrans, 22 January-1 February Picture courtesy of Gunalan Nadarajan
There are dozens extra occasions throughout the week. There’s nonetheless time to catch this yr’s Singapore Biennale (till 29 March). Titled Pure Intention it contains greater than 100 works unfold over 5 neighbourhoods, exposing the hidden private narratives behind numerous methods, exploring what the curators name “the incidental and the peripheral”.
One focus for SAW is the convergence of expertise and artwork, equivalent to within the exhibition chapalang, curated by Gunalan Nadarajan and Roopesh Sitharan (Artspace@Helutrans, 22 January-1 February). It is the second iteration of an idea that began at Kuala Lumpur’s Ilham Gallery final August, and appears on the other ways through which creatives in Southeast Asia have used expertise. The Singapore present takes its identify from a Singlish phrase which means a mixture of disparate parts and contains ten artists from across the area, together with Witaya Junma (Thailand), Margaret Tan (Singapore) and Giang Nguyen Hoang (Vietnam), and explores how Southeast Asian creatives negotiate applied sciences in on a regular basis cultural contexts.
The exhibition Worry No Energy: Ladies Imagining In any other case at Nationwide Gallery Singapore contains Dolorosa Sinaga’s Solidarity (2000/2025) Picture courtesy of Nationwide Gallery Singapore
Different highlights picked out by Low embody: “Tanoto Artwork Basis’s Rituals of Notion for its profound tactile exploration, and Isang Dipang Langit: Fragments of Reminiscence, Fields of Now, for its highly effective amplification of Filipino voices. Along with the Singapore Biennale 2025, the Nationwide Gallery’s Worry No Energy: Ladies Imagining In any other case, and STPI’s inaugural The Print Present & Symposium Singapore, these exhibitions show that artwork in Singapore is a catalyst for dialogue and optimistic change.”
Low concludes: “Wanting again at the place we have been final yr, the shift is obvious. We have now moved from being a gateway to a nexus for artwork. By integrating world-class festivals, cutting-edge expertise and heartland accessibility, SAW 2026 demonstrates Singapore is a definitive nexus for Southeast Asian artwork.”
Singapore Artwork Week, 22-31 January, artweek.sg
