SINGAPORE, Nov 10 — Next year’s Singapore Art Week (SAW) will feature more than 120 different art programmes that bring galleries, institutions and artists of various disciplines together to create a bigger impact on the art industry here.
The 10-day event, which starts from January 22, will also be a celebration of SAW’s 14th anniversary.
Organised by the National Arts Council Singapore (NAC) and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SAW 2026 will once again continue to offer accessible and unique art experiences in the form of exhibitions, art fairs and installations all across the island.
‘Light to Night Singapore 2025’. —Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore
NAC Arts Ecosystem Group (Visual Arts) director Tay Tong said SAW started with only 16 programmes in its inaugural year and now it has grown to offer more than 120 programmes spread out across the city.
”Initially, more than 80 per cent of SAW comes from the visual arts community but this year, we are going all out to include various disciplines so that art enthusiasts and the public will get to experience the creative energy of the artists,” he said in a recent media conference on SAW 2026.
He added that even MRT stations have been transformed into art spaces, the result of an ongoing partnership between NAC and the Land Transport Authority (LTA), to feature artists with disabilities and contemporary practitioners.
S.E.A. Focus 2025 exhibition. — Image courtesy of S.E.A. Focus 2025
SAW will also feature key international showcases such as the staging of “Wan Hai Hotel: Singapore Strait” that is being presented by international art fair ART SG and Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum, and curated by X Zhu-Nowell.
This will exclusively feature South-east Asian artists in The Warehouse Hotel, a restored heritage property on Robertson Quay.
Another major presentation on South-east Asian art and artists in SAW’s line-up of programmes is “Isang Dipang Langit: Fragments of Memory, Fields of Now”.
‘Isang Dipang Langit/ Fragments of Memory, Fields of Now’ Bahay ng Mangingisda. — Image courtesy of Oca Villamiel
This exhibition showcases 10 contemporary Filipino artists while chapalang, co-curated by Gunalan Nadarajan and Roopesh Sitharan, explores the contemporary works of 10 regional artists that intertwine art and technology.
”The Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention” will also continue into SAW 2026 while over at the soon-to-open IMBA Theatre at Gardens by the Bay, there will be “David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not Smaller and Further Away)” in partnership with Lightroom, alongside Botero in Singapore.
The David Hockney presentation will span six decades of his work while the Botero exhibition, jointly presented with the Fernando Botero Foundation, features the largest exhibition of paintings and sculptures from the family’s collection and some of the sculptures will also be displayed all over the garden.
Chapalang. — Image courtesy of Gunalan Nadarajan
The annual “Light to Night Singapore 2026”, by the National Gallery Singapore, which starts from January 9 will be extended to be part of SAW 2026.
Themed “The Power in US”, it will be the festival’s 10th edition.
There will also be ongoing exhibitions at the National Gallery Singapore, including “Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise” and “Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston”.
For more information on the programme line-up for SAW 2026, go here: https://www.nac.gov.sg
Installation view of ‘Light to Night Singapore’. — Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore
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