The best art exhibitions in Singapore

This solo exhibition by renowned Singaporean artist Jane Lee explores and highlights the artist's long standing experimentation on the possibilities of what a painting exhibition can offer, delving into the limitless possibilities of the medium. 

Jane Lee's inaugural solo exhibition, Lila: Unending Play, at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) truly embodies its Sanskrit namesake, representing playfulness and spontaneity. Visitors can expect to fully immerse themselves in Lee's artistic realm and her playful approach to creating and presenting her works. 

This inaugural presentation of a new biennial project showcases the works of six Singapore-based artists – Yeyoon Avis Ann, Anthony Chin, Fyerool Darma, Priyageetha Dia, Khairulddin Wahab and Moses Tan. Each examines how new technologies shape our perception, experiences, and understanding of the world. Some of the works include Yeyoon Avis Ann’s A Collisional Accelerator of Everydays (A.C.A.E.) – an arrangement of common objects including cups, toothbrushes, and chairs, are used to contemplate everyday experiences, Anthony Chin’s From Silver to Steel – a display of swords reflecting on the ironic exploitation and weaponisation of steel from Malaya – and more. 

Internationally acclaimed German filmmaker and artist Hito Steyerl debuts her first Southeast Asia exhibit, Factory of the Sun, a landmark video installation that connects audiences to the artist’s virtual world made up of YouTube dance videos, drone surveillance footage, video games, fictitious news segments, and actual documentation of student uprisings pieced together. Through this immersive installation, Steyerl bridges the physical space of the gallery and her virtual world, encouraging people to contemplate the role of contemporary media in our reality.

By embracing the diverse perspectives of individuals, the exhibition delves into the profound meaning of home for queer individuals. It invites members of the queer community, allies, parents, and the general public to contemplate the essence of home and its significance in the lives of queer individuals. Through a transformative display at Projector X: Picturehouse (The Cathay), visitors can explore a walk-through home setting, encompassing various rooms that represent different ideas of what a home is. With the aim of sparking important dialogues, the exhibition specifically addresses the challenging topic of parental acceptance of queer individuals in Singapore.

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London-based artist Elspeth Vince explores the fine line between comfort and discomfort, and the relationship between mind and body through her reflective and captivating paintings of the female figure. In The Exchange Of Small Gifts, Vince uses self-portraiture to explore the relationship our “inner” and “outer” worlds have with each other. Through reflective and almost melancholic images, she encourages us to ponder questions of belonging, connection, morality, and purpose. It prompts us to confront the subtleties of our existence and invites us to engage in a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

With an archive of over 100 garments on display, Asian Civilisations Museum’s latest exhibition explores the fashion journey of Paris-based Singaporean designer Andrew Gn, taking us through his roots and global influences. The show touches on the specifics of material, technique, tradition, art historical movements from both East and West, blending them all together to uncover Singapore’s cultural identity in the form of dress.

Days go by, and sometimes we lose sight of the little things. This exhibition at Shanghart Gallery focuses on capturing those unnoticed everyday moments and scenes through the paintings of artists Han Feng, Liu Weijian, Pu Jie, Sun Xun, Boedi Widjaja, Wu Yiming, Zhang Enli, Zhou Tiehai, and Zhou Zixi. By shedding light on the transient nature of our surroundings, the artworks aim to encourage us to pause, reflect, and observe the often neglected moments in our daily lives with a deeper sense of appreciation.

Presented by Eyeyah, this entertaining bi-annual festival showcases a collection of – you guessed it – gifs, an underrated tool widely used for both entertainment and communication. This year, the festival’s theme Imperfect invites over 50 emerging and professional artists from both Singapore and overseas to push the boundaries of the gif as a medium of expression. There are also workshops, talks and panel discussions that one can sign up for here.  

When you step into a contemporary art exhibition nowadays, it's usually decked with moving visuals. But prior to the sleek projection technologies we've gotten familiar with were early video installation works that broke out across Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s. Travel back in time and navigate through the rich history of this popular medium at National Gallery Singapore’s latest exhibition. Stroke your chin as you observe the video artworks from pioneering artists including Apinan Poshyananda’s How to Explain Art to a Bangkok Cock, Dr Baharudin Arus’s Medium is the Message, and Chng Nai Wee’s Sin of Apathy. Plus, keep your eyes peeled for an egg-citing performance by some cock-a-doodle-doos!

The term "going digital" assumes a new significance as we delve into a parallel realm that is all the hype these days – yes, it is the one and only "metaverse." The Singapore Art Museum's latest initiative, Open Systems, enables people to examine the connection between real and virtual worlds, revealing the influence of digital culture on present-day artistic expression. The program showcases a range of pieces featuring creative coding, software, videos, and other mediums. The online exhibition is not confined to local artists, but also reaches out to international artists and thinkers. New exhibitions will be released throughout May to August on their platform here.

This exhibition is a bloody exciting one, literally. At Mucciaccia Gallery’s new exhibition, artist Jan Fabre showcases thirty red coral sculptures of Vanitas skulls, anatomical hearts, crosses and liturgical objects and – wait for it – a series of unpublished drawings using the crimson fluid that flows through his own veins. Yes, we mean blood. Using raw flesh to link the coral sculptures and blood drawings, the artwork showcases the element of humanity through the artist's son’s ultrasounds and invites viewers to contemplate vulnerabilities and needs of humans. 

Photography was first introduced to the world in 1839 and has since changed the way we view and document things. The exhibition Living Pictures zooms in on the impact photography has had on Southeast Asia. Follow the journey from when it first made its entrance into our region via the European colonists and used as a tool for archival, to the role it played in capturing portraits in the early 20th century. Then, fast forward to now, as it slowly advances into a medium for art and conceptualisation and eventually evolving to adapt to our current smartphone era into the kinds of photography we know today.

You don’t want to miss the largest exhibition by a Singaporean public museum yet, dedicated to ink master Liu Kuo-sung’s 70 year old artistic career spanning from the 1950s to the 2020s. Painter Liu spent his career discovering and advocating the modernisation of traditional Chinese ink painting through his art practice and writings. Showcasing 60 selected works that trace his journey and evolution as an artist, the exhibition highlights his innovations in modern Chinese ink painting and how he went beyond the brush to explore the physicality of ink and paper.

Calling all art history junkies, this one’s for you. With over 300 works housed in the Supreme Court building, Between Declarations and Dreams looks back on the artistic impulses of Southeast Asian art, dating back all the way to the early mid-19th century. The curatorial narrative explores four main themes in chronological order – Authority and Anxiety, Imagining Country and Self, Manifesting the Nation and Re:Defining Art.

Ever yearned for a virtual walkthrough on Singapore’s history? An Old New World offers such a trip, from its founding days in 1819 as a bustling hub for trade, journeying through over 200 years of rich history and events that built the country as we know it today. Witness for yourself the materialisation of Singapore through over 200 artefacts from both institutions and private collections, including personal treasures from top international museums. The best history class yet.

Immerse yourself in these digital installations at the Marina Bay Sands made by Japan-founded art collective teamLab. View new installations in the new gallery at Future World at the ArtScience Museum, called Exploring New Frontiers.