Singapore Art Week 2025 marks its 13th edition from 17 to 26 January 2025, celebrating 60 years of independence with a vibrant showcase of Singapore’s dynamic visual arts scene.
Singapore Art Week 2025
Photo Credit: @sgartweek / Instagram
Venue: Various locations
Date: 17 to 26 Jan 2025
The 13th edition of Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2025, held from 17 to 26 January 2025, celebrates Singapore’s 60th year of independence. Organized by the National Arts Council (NAC), SAW is the region’s longest-running art week, featuring diverse visual arts programs across the island. The event brings together the private, public, and people sectors to support and promote Singapore’s vibrant arts scene through collaborative and innovative exhibitions, fairs, and talks.
Here’s a closer look at some of the exciting programmes to expect at SAW 2025:
Programmes
Seeing Forest
Venue: Level 3, Gallery 3, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Date: 15 Jan to 18 May 2025
Following its presentation at the Singapore Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2024 in Venice, Seeing Forest by Robert Zhao Renhui returns to Singapore.
The observation of the ultimately unknowable in the natural world is a hallmark of artist Robert Zhao Renhui’s praxis. Since 1998, under the auspices of his own semi fictional Institute of Critical Zoologists, Zhao’s many and varied projects have served as lenses that highlight the resilience of nature and the various interactions that occur when such resilience overlaps with human life and society.
Notably, over the last seven years, he has been focusing on secondary forests in Singapore — forests regrown from deforested land due to human intervention such as development and plantation — and the new ecosystems that have developed within it. For the Singapore Pavilion, decades of Zhao’s accumulated observations are condensed and organised into an intensive installation, which returns to Singapore after its exhibition run at the Biennale Arte 2024 in Venice.
Through this exhibition, we see how the island of Singapore has evolved to arrive at the present day, revealing some of the ways in which human urban design can shape the natural world itself, resulting in an ecosystem of migrant species that echoes the trajectories and makeup of the city’s human population. At the same time, Seeing Forest also highlights phenomena that are universally relatable to those living in any urban environment.
Teo Eng Seng: We’re Happy. Are You Happy?
Venue: Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery 1 and The Spine Hall, National Gallery Singapore
Date: now to 2 Feb 2025
Immerse yourself in highly emotive creative expressions by Cultural Medallion recipient and pioneer artist Teo Eng Seng at National Gallery Singapore’s Teo Eng Seng: We’re Happy. Are You Happy? – the largest and most in-depth survey on the multidisciplinary artist to date. Featuring close to 70 artworks that respond to global social-political events of the mid-20th century, visitors can peek into Teo’s own lived experiences and his contributions to the local visual arts scene.
From now to 2 February 2025, visitors are invited to explore Teo’s honest and witty negotiation between self and society. Teo transforms everyday materials into vibrant works of art, embedding humour and irony into his socially engaged practice. His creations, full of spontaneous and vivid compositions, reflect his tongue-in-cheek takes on personal and broader social events. Teo is most known for inventing his own medium in the 1980s, paperdyesculp, which involves shaping dyed papier-mâché, also known as pulped paper, along with other materials of his choosing, into sculptural artworks.
Kim Lim: The Space Between. A Retrospective
Venue: Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries 2 & 3, National Gallery Singapore
Date: now to 2 Feb 2025
National Gallery Singapore celebrates the life and work of Singapore-born sculptor and printmaker Kim Lim (1936 – 1997) with Kim Lim: The Space Between. A Retrospective. Running from 27 September 2024 to 2 February 2025, this landmark exhibition presents over 150 works, marking Lim’s most comprehensive major museum exhibition to date.
This retrospective underscores the role of Lim’s cultural in-betweenness in shaping her artistic style and her resistance to pressures of identity determinations. Trace the evolution of her practice, and see her unique approach to Minimalism, influenced by material cultures encountered during her extensive travels. Experience an in-depth showcase featuring key sculptures and prints spanning four decades, along with maquettes, never-before-seen photographs.
Gain new insights into her artistic journey, philosophy, and creative relationships, and see how she relied on the power of suggestion and metaphor, to masterfully balance space, light, and rhythm to great effect.
Light to Night Singapore 2025, “Do You See Me?”
Venue: National Gallery Singapore and across Singapore’s Civic District
Date: 17 Jan to 6 Feb 2025
Light to Night Singapore makes its annual return as a marquee event of SAW, illuminating the Civic District area where key events that bookmarked Singapore's history took place. With this year’s thought-provoking theme “Do You See Me?”, Light to Night Singapore 2025 features mesmerising light projections, art installations and engaging programmes that invite audiences of all ages to uncover unexpected ways of seeing ourselves and others, and to be inspired for the future – a timely call for a year of milestones as Singapore celebrates its 60th birthday and the Gallery celebrates its 10th anniversary.
Running from 17 January to 6 February 2024, Light to Night Singapore 2025 is organised by National Gallery Singapore in collaboration with the Civic District’s most iconic cultural institutions: Asian Civilisations Museum, The Arts House, Victoria Theatre & Victoria Concert Hall, and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.
Light to Night Singapore 2025 will shine a spotlight on Singapore artists through diverse art presentations which honour the legacy of seminal figures in the local visual arts scene and showcase the artistic excellence of younger contemporary artists. This builds on the Gallery’s ongoing SG Artist series of solo exhibitions dedicated to local trailblazers Teo Eng Seng, Kim Lim and Lim Tze Peng, which will be free for all visitors as part of the Gallery’s Open House on festival weekends.
ART SG
Venue: Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands
Date: 17 to 19 Jan 2025
ART SG, the leading international art fair for Singapore and Southeast Asia, will present its third edition in Singapore from 17 to 19 January 2025 (VIP Preview on 16 January), with an exceptional line-up of exhibitors from across Asia and around the world, alongside a dynamic programme of film, large-scale installations and conversations. Presented by Founding and Lead Partner UBS, the fair will spotlight once again Singapore’s vibrant local art scene from galleries to emerging and established artists.
Amplifying Singapore’s role as an emerging art capital and its pivotal position as a hub for the broader Southeast Asian art ecosystem, ART SG in 2025 will platform four visionary cultural partners. Art Outreach, Delfina Foundation, Bangkok Kunsthalle, and M Art Foundation will lend their curatorial expertise to ART SG’s cultural programme.
Throughout the week, an ambitious visitor programme organised by ART SG will also unfold with exclusive events, museum and gallery openings, private collection visits, and unique art and culinary experiences.
S.E.A. Focus
Photo Credits: Singapore Art Week 2024 (unless otherwise stated)
Venue: Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Date: 18 to 26 January 2025
Disconnected Contemporaries explores the shift between Modern and Contemporary art in Southeast Asia. Recognising the unclear boundaries between these art historical periods, and the dynamic changes occurring within the region then, this edition of S.E.A. Focus brings into focus the overlaps and contrasts in our understanding of art emanating from that time. The curated platform brings into question the role of cultural relativism in our understanding and appreciation of art, and suggests a more intricate and multi-layered understanding of Southeast Asia's artistic developments. It prompts a reflection on what being contemporary really means, and how our own biases inevitably influence our interpretation of both art and history.
The Pierre Lorinet Collection: Space
Venue: New Bahru, Factory
Date: 10 Jan to 2 Feb 2025
The Pierre Lorinet Collection exhibition, titled Space, will take place at New Bahru in Singapore from 10 January to 2 February 2025, as part of Singapore Art Week. This exhibition is a follow-up to Lorinet’s well received debut showcase in 2023.
The exhibition will feature works by internationally acclaimed artists such as Frank Stella, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Kenneth Noland, Tracey Emin, Mark Handforth and Christo.
Of Dreams and Contemplation: I Am All but a Story - Collection of Richard Koh
Venue: The Private Museum
Date: 9 Jan to 9 Mar 2025
The Private Museum will be presenting Of Dreams and Contemplation: I am All but a Story – Collection of Richard Koh which delves into the complex and transformative world of art collecting through the lens of veteran gallerist Richard Koh.
The exhibition will offer a fresh selection of artworks that reflect Richard Koh’s evolving relationship with art. Each piece in this exhibition represents a personal chapter in Koh’s journey, showcasing his deep connections with the artists and the stories behind their works. Building upon the collection’s debut at the museum's former location in 2019, this exhibition explores the often unseen, intimate side of collecting, inviting viewers to engage with the works and interpret them through their own perspectives.
The World of Studio Ghibli
Venue: ArtScience Museum
Date: now to 2 Feb 2025
Opened in October, The World of Studio Ghibli is Singapore’s first-ever Studio Ghibli exhibition. This large-scale exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to encounter some of their favourite characters from 11 films by the renowned Studio Ghibli. Allow yourself to be spirited away into magical scenes from My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and more. Through theatrical sets, interactive art installations and activities, learn about the extraordinary characters and stories created by one of the world’s leading animation studios.
Founded in Japan in 1985 by directors Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, and producer Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli is a ground-breaking animation studio known for producing some of the most beloved and critically acclaimed animated films of all time. Their work has captivated audiences around the world and has been acknowledged with multiple awards. Seven of their films have received Academy Awards® nominations, including The Boy and the Heron which won the 96th Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature. In the same year, 2024, Studio Ghibli made film history by becoming the first group to be awarded an Honorary Palme d’Or at the legendary Cannes Film Festival, an accolade that recognises their outstanding work over the last 40 years.
This is not an exhaustive list and serves as a first look at the line-up of programmes to be expected at SAW 2025. For the latest updates, visit the SAW website, and follow @sgartweek on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.
