The best art exhibitions in Bangkok this August

How much of history is fact, and how much comes from the images we inherit? In Gentle Ghosts With Eyes as Fair, Sirawit Chatu revisits the contested legacy of The King and I, using photography, film and installation to question the stories that have shaped perceptions of Thailand and King Rama IV. Mirrors, staged scenes and recurring gazes draw attention to what is shown – and what remains hidden. Rather than supplying neat answers, Chatu examines the overlap between colonial narratives, popular culture and historical records, reminding us that every version of history reflects the teller’s point of view.

July 25-September 6. Free entry. FAZAL Unlimited. 2pm-6pm

Long before ‘City Pop’ became shorthand for a nostalgic sound, Hiroshi Nagai was painting the bright skies, quiet coastlines and palm-lined streets that helped define its visual identity. This August, the celebrated Japanese artist brings Summer Dreaming to River City Bangkok for his first solo exhibition in Thailand. More than 30 original works span the early 1980s to the present, revealing textures, colours and hand-painted details often lost in reproduction. Four new paintings created especially for Thailand also offer Nagai’s sun-soaked take on Bangkok.

August 4-September 4. Free entry. Galleria 1, River City Bangkok. 10am-8pm

The photographer Chaiyos Pinpradab returns with his first solo exhibition in 20 years, bringing together 114 handcrafted film photographs from a 150-day road trip through southern Thailand. Travelling from Pran Buri to Narathiwat between September 2024 and January 2025, he captured everyday life, distinctive architecture and quiet landscapes with remarkable patience. The series takes its cue from ‘Golden Chersonese’, an ancient name for the Malay Peninsula. Shot on a Hasselblad XPan panoramic film camera, each image rewards close inspection, while traditional darkroom printing preserves subtle shifts of light, texture and tone. The result celebrates the region without romanticising it.

Now-August 9. Free entry. Fifth floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. 10am-8pm

George Kongmark’s SUPERNOVA brings together more than 60 installations, videos, performances, paintings and collaborative works in the artist’s largest solo show to date. The body becomes a lens for exploring memory, identity, desire and self-acceptance, with each gallery approaching those ideas from a different angle. The title refers to a star’s life cycle, using dramatic change as a metaphor for personal transformation rather than pure spectacle. August’s accompanying programme includes artist talks, workshops, guided tours and life-drawing sessions, giving visitors more ways to engage with the work.

August 6-29. Free entry. 6060 Arts Space (White and Black Buildings)

Urban Collectibles returns for its fifth edition under the theme Moving City, taking over guest suites and shared spaces of The StandardX, Bangkok Phra Arthit instead of a conventional white-walled gallery. Paintings, limited-edition art toys and collectible design pieces appear among beds, bookshelves and living rooms, showing how art can sit within everyday life rather than behind glass. Galleries and creative studios including Art Zone Asia, gallery. sort of., Boo X Project, Ming Art Space and Street Star Gallery, round out one of Bangkok’s most intriguing showcases of contemporary urban art.

August 7-9. Free entry. The StandardX, Bangkok Phra Arthit. 1pm-9pm

Rain can send everyone running for cover, then slow the city down enough for us to notice pavement reflections or water tapping against a window. Chulalongkorn University’s In the Rain starts with that familiar experience, drawing on the university’s art collection to explore memory, uncertainty, hope and quiet reflection. A suspended rain-cloud installation sets the scene. Visitors can add their own rainy-day thoughts and read short essays on the link between weather and emotion. Thoughtful and gently immersive, it feels made for Bangkok’s wet season.

Now-October 6. Free entry. Chula Museum. 9am-4.30pm

Every Ari regular carries a different map of the neighbourhood: perhaps a long-gone coffee shop, a shortcut down a quiet lane or the house passed each morning on the way to the BTS. Maps of Memories turns those personal recollections into Ari’s first community-made exhibition, inviting residents and visitors to sketch directly onto a shared map. Organised by Puenban Ari, the project draws on psychogeography to explore how everyday experience binds emotion to place. Pick up a blank map around the neighbourhood or download one at home, then return it by August 18 to help createa portrait of Ari shaped by the people who know it best.

August 22-September 2. Free entry. Numthong Art Space. 11am-6pm

Art festivals often ask you to stand back and observe. UNFEST’26 wants you to join in. Returning through a collaboration between Unformat and Cloud 11, it brings artists, designers, developers and technologists together around real-time technology. Expect immersive dome screenings, interactive simulations, live performances, virtual-production sets and LED installations that respond as visitors move through the space. Technology is treated as a creative tool rather than a gimmick, with the festival examining how it is changing the way art is made and experienced. More events and workshops will be announced ahead of the main festival, so keep this one on your radar.

Now-September 13. Check the schedule here. Second floor, room 218, Cloud 11.

A former film studio, theatre and acting school that sat empty for more than 40 years now becomes the setting for Octave Maze Live, a new performance series running from August to October. Hosted inside Asvin's maze-like interiors, the programme brings together musicians, DJs, sound artists and multidisciplinary creators from Thailand and abroad, with each performance responding differently to the building and its history. Expect experimental sound, live improvisation and audiences moving through the space rather than simply watching from a seat. Whether you're curious about contemporary music or performance art, this is a chance to experience one of Bangkok's most unusual cultural venues after dark.

August 1-October 10. B400 via Line Official Account: @ASVIN. Asvin. Check the line up here.

Bangkok's growing digital art scene gains a new permanent home as bit.studio opens on the third floor of Slowcombo Samyan. The debut exhibition swaps hands-off gallery etiquette for a far more playful approach, encouraging visitors to tap, move and interact with the works rather than simply stand back. Spread across four rooms, the experience mixes digital installations with sound, light and nostalgic nods to analogue technology. Give yourself time, this is not the sort of show to rush through before coffee downstairs.

Every Friday-Sunday. B200-450 via here. bit.studio gallery. 2pm-8pm

Filipino artist BLIC returns with HARD SHIFTS, a new exhibition centred on his signature ‘Humand’ figures, using the familiar motif to consider how people adapt when life refuses to follow a tidy plan. Across paintings and mixed-media works, the artist explores resilience, uncertainty and quiet acceptance without dressing struggle up as triumph. Stress balls appear throughout the exhibition as recurring objects, offering moments of pause rather than easy solutions. Expect expressive colours, oversized hands and characters that keep moving despite the setbacks around them, reflecting everyday experiences that rarely come with neat endings.

August 1-September 5. Free entry. Joyman Gallery. 11am-6pm

Japanese craftsmanship has long balanced painstaking technique with a playful streak, and The Superlative Artistry of Japan shows how little that has changed over the past 150 years. After touring internationally since 2017, the exhibition finally arrives in Thailand, bringing together Meiji-era masterpieces and contemporary design in one thoughtful survey. Rather than separating tradition from pop culture, the exhibition shows how the same careful approach continues to shape Japanese creativity across generations.

July 25-August 23. Free entry. First floor, TCDC Bangkok. 10.30am-7pm

More than two decades after staging exhibitions, publishing books and making art happenings together, four artists reunite for a long-overdue catch-up. The 4 Devils brings P7, Lolay, Tinnakorn Kasornsuwan and Wutigorn Kongka back together after years spent building separate practices across Thailand's contemporary art scene. Shared history sits alongside fresh perspectives as paintings, ideas and memories bounce from one wall to the next. Rather than looking back with nostalgia alone, the show asks what remains after years apart, and what happens when old collaborators return with plenty more to say.

June 27-August 5. Free entry. La Lanta Fine Art. 10am-7pm

South Korean textile and mixed-media artist Julie H.C. turns the spotlight on cloth as a keeper of personal and cultural history in this new solo exhibition, curated by Camilla Russell. Working with archival Jim Thompson fabrics, she stitches, folds and layers vintage textiles into sculptural works that shift between art object and heirloom. A recurring fan motif threads through the gallery, drawing on Korean visual traditions while reflecting a life shaped by time spent across Korea, North America and Southeast Asia. Expect thoughtful craftsmanship, rich textures and plenty of reasons to look twice.

June 10-August 10. Free entry. West Eden Gallery. 1pm-6pm

Hidden along one of Yaowarat's narrow lantern-lit lanes, Adult Material opens its permanent gallery with Against the Grain, a confident first exhibition bringing together artists from Thailand and overseas. Sculpture, photography, installation and design sit side by side, each questioning familiar ideas around identity, masculinity and cultural traditions. Domestic objects, clothing and architectural details reappear in unexpected ways, encouraging a closer look at how everyday life shapes personal experience. Keep an eye out for works by Shen Wei, Oat Montien, Dylan Chan, Gregor Jahner and Thyme Neelaphanakul.

June 18-August 15. Free entry. Adult Material. 1pm-6pm

High above Bangkok, Mahanakhon SkyVerse adds something theatrical to its skyline views. Its latest exhibition turns to Thailand, gathering familiar sights and cultural touchpoints before reshaping them through light, sound and scale. Nine rooms carry visitors through shifting scenes: waterfalls crash, coastlines shimmer and neon-lit streets glow after dark. Landmarks appear and dissolve, while regional crafts and traditions surface in unexpected forms. Projection mapping and lasers build environments that change with every step, making a spectacular case for looking afresh at what has been in front of us all along.

Daily. B350 at the door. King Power Mahanakhon. 10am-9pm

Bangkok Kunsthalle hands over its cavernous industrial halls to Spirits Melt to Flesh, a striking group exhibition bringing together eight Asian artists under the curatorial direction of Sam I-shan. Working across moving image, sound, sculpture and photography, the artists  respond directly to the building’s rough architecture and layered history. Light flickers across concrete, voices drift through shadowy corners and small encounters appear around every turn. Rather than relying only on what the eye can catch, the show asks visitors to listen, feel and move through the former warehouse as an experience, not just an exhibition.

June 5-October 4. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

Life gets noisy. Opinions fly from every direction, notifications never stop and quiet moments slip through the cracks. The Present Haus, a new project by the Thaicom Foundation, offers a chance to slow down and pay attention to what is happening closer to home: your own thoughts. Located in Soi Ratchawithi 24, the experience unfolds across four C-O-R-E zones built around reflection and mindfulness. It begins in the Mirror Zone, where familiar phrases and internal monologues appear across the space, nudging visitors to question recurring thought patterns and reconnect with parts of themselves that are easy to overlook.

From April 4 onwards. B150 at the door. Heart Quarter, The Present Haus. 10am-6pm

An entire Akha house now stands in the middle of Bangkok, carefully dismantled from a village in northern Thailand and rebuilt piece by piece inside an art gallery. Roof panels, woven bedding, timber floors and weathered household objects all carry marks of the people who once lived among them, quietly tracing a way of life that grows more fragile with each passing generation.

The Akha are an Indigenous ethnic group whose communities are spread across the mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and southern China, known for their intricate textiles, spiritual rituals and deep connection to land and ancestry. In recent decades, migration, tourism and rapid development have reshaped many of those traditions. Through memory, craftsmanship and personal histories, The Preservation of Fire by Busui Ajaw keeps those stories alive a little longer.

May 15-November 1. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

Wednesday, the shy little dachshund with a devoted following, stars in a thoughtful exhibition that swaps big spectacle for quieter moments. Spread across five themed rooms, the show traces small acts of courage, self-reflection and the awkward reality of stepping outside familiar routines through illustrations, installations and interactive displays. Better yet, River City Bangkok opens its gallery doors to pets for the first time, so well-behaved four-legged companions in carriers or strollers can join the visit too.

July 9-September 6. B100-150 via here. River City Bangkok. 10am-8pm

More than 100 works from the private collections of Uthen Phatthananiphon and Piriya Vatchajitpan come together for a rare exhibition that pairs Thai masters with leading international names. Paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces by Chakrabhand Posayakrit, Thawan Duchanee, Montien Boonma, Khrua In Khong and Silpa Bhirasri share gallery walls with works by André Butzer, Christian Rex van Minnen, Alexander James, Jason Boyd Kinsella and Matías Sánchez. Rather than following a strict timeline, the exhibition lets surprising conversations emerge, showing how artists from different places and generations often ask remarkably similar questions.

Everyday. B150-250 at the door. Museum Pier. 10am-6pm

Artist Carbonn Black turns personal memories into colourful characters for Arcadia, a solo exhibition that mixes playful imagery with stories drawn from everyday life. Bright paintings and installations borrow the language of children's books, yet each work quietly reflects moments of uncertainty, hope and growing up. Rather than spelling everything out, the exhibition leaves room for visitors to make their own connections as they move through the gallery. Spend a little time with each piece and the cheerful surfaces gradually reveal a more thoughtful side to the artist's world.

Until August 8. Free entry. KICHgallery. 10am-6pm

An entire Akha house now stands in the middle of Bangkok, carefully dismantled from a village in northern Thailand and rebuilt piece by piece inside an art gallery. Roof panels, woven bedding, timber floors and weathered household objects all carry marks of the people who once lived among them, quietly tracing a way of life that grows more fragile with each passing generation.

The Akha are an Indigenous ethnic group whose communities are spread across the mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and southern China, known for their intricate textiles, spiritual rituals and deep connection to land and ancestry. In recent decades, migration, tourism and rapid development have reshaped many of those traditions. Through memory, craftsmanship and personal histories, The Preservation of Fire by Busui Ajaw keeps those stories alive a little longer.

May 15-November 1. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

First staged in Cheongju Craft Biennale, this group exhibition arrives in Bangkok following a debut as the Invited Country Pavilion in Cheongju, South Korea. The project grows from an ongoing exchange between Thailand and the Republic of Korea, setting craft alongside contemporary art across Southeast and East Asia. At its core sits ‘Elastic Time’, a curatorial thread that questions how time behaves across the region. Forget neat timelines. Here, past, present and future overlap, repeat and quietly reshape one another. The Cheongju edition sets the tone as a cross-cultural conversation, where material, process and memory carry equal weight. Artists approach craft not as something fixed, but as a way to consider what unfolds now, and what might come next.

Until August 16. Free. Jim Thompson Art Center. 10am-6pm