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Shaped by many voices, told across seven centuries: The Singapore History Gallery at the National Museum of Singapore reopens its doors
Singapore Odyssea, A Journey Through Time, Singapore History Gallery Entrance The National Museum of Singapore reopens its flagship Singapore History Gallery on 10 October 2026, presenting a fresh, people centred narrative that explores the formation and continued evolution of a Singapore identity. Visitors are invited to engage with over 700 years of history through thoughtful presentations of historical artefacts and narratives, elevated by immersive, interactive multimedia spaces.
The reopening anchors the Museum’s 139th Anniversary Celebrations: Stories of Everyday – with festivities and activities running from 10 to 18 October and the debut of Stoney, the Museum’s new mascot inspired by the storied Singapore Stone. The occasion also marks the completion of the Museum’s three-year restoration works while it continues with the phased revamp of the rest of its permanent galleries, slated for completion in early 2027.
“The reopening of the Singapore History Gallery is a milestone that carries deep meaning for us. It is the culmination of years of work, shaped by the voices of our communities and grounded in our belief that Singapore’s story belongs to everyone who has lived it,” said Chung May Khuen, Director of the National Museum of Singapore. “Opening on the weekend of our 139th anniversary, it is a reflection and affirmation of our enduring mission as the People’s Museum – a place where every visitor, regardless of background, new and returning alike, can find themselves in the living tapestry of Singapore’s story.”
Singapore Odyssea, A Journey Through Time, Singapore History Gallery Timeless Tales Told Anew: Our History Through the Voices of Those Who Lived It
The revamped gallery continues the story that begins in the Shaw Foundation Glass Rotunda’s immersive installation, Singapore Odyssea: A Journey Through Time, forming an integrated narrative experience. After travelling back in time through regional myths and historical maritime milestones, visitors will continue into the Singapore History Gallery for a chronological and in-depth exploration of Singapore’s story that traces how the nation’s identity has been shaped over seven centuries and reflects on what it means to be Singaporean today.
At the Gallery’s entrance, dynamic soundscapes and visual previews set the stage for the journey ahead – one that unfolds across seven zones and brings together new and never-before-seen artefacts, and fresh research alongside immersive multimedia spaces and interactive touchpoints.
Woven throughout the Gallery are voice input stations, a new addition that invites visitors to share their reflections on the presented stories and perspectives. At each station, visitors are invited to record their personal responses to a question relevant to the main theme of each section of the exhibition. These visitor contributions come together to shape the concluding experience at the end of the Gallery.
The experience begins with Fluid Beginnings (1300s–1800s), where a newly commissioned jongkong boat model welcomes visitors into the Gallery, drawing a thread between Singapore’s maritime heritage and the living communities who carry it forward today. The section invites visitors to explore a region defined by the sea, where ships, goods and people moved constantly through Singapore’s waters, weaving the island into a vibrant maritime network that shifted with trade, politics and power. Visitors encounter artefacts that speak to the island’s deep cultural roots and its place within the Malay world, from sacred figurines and manuscripts to treasures recovered from a 14th-century shipwreck in Singapore’s own waters. Taking pride of place is the iconic Singapore Stone, whose layered and still-unfolding history can be discovered through an accompanying digital interactive.
Fluid Beginnings, Singapore History Gallery Colonial City (1800s–1930s) charts Singapore’s shift from a fledgling trading post into one of Asia’s most dynamic port cities. The section opens by grounding visitors in the world that preceded British arrival, before tracing the rapid growth that followed Raffles’ declaration of Singapore as a free port, drawing merchants, migrants and labourers from across Asia whose toil and enterprise built the colony’s prosperity. Maps, early photographs, prints and more capture the physical transformation of the island, while everyday objects and stories of traders and immigrants who made Singapore home provide insight into a city both cosmopolitan yet marked by inequality. Visitors can try their hand at lifting and pulling a recreated rickshaw through a phygital interactive, before the section turns to the political awakenings taking shape as global currents of nationalism reached Singapore’s shores and its diverse communities began to imagine a future beyond imperial rule.
The narrative turns to Fall of the Fortress (Late 1930s–1940s), which examines the rupture of Singapore’s social fabric during the Japanese occupation alongside the resilience it forged. The section opens with the mounting tensions of the Sino-Japanese War, with propaganda posters and war photographs capturing how distant conflict drew residents into opposing camps. Visitors can trace the arc of that tension through an interactive display of a painting by Force 136 veteran Tan Chong Tee, presented next to the original. The painting chronicles key events of the Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1939 and the mounting pressures that brought the war to Singapore’s shores. The section then follows the swift collapse of Britain’s “impregnable fortress” through personal effects, military artefacts and letters that bring the human cost of the campaign into sharp relief. Visitors can then step into the moment of surrender at an interactive Morse code station, before the section concludes with the aftermath of the occupation and the stirrings of a Malayan identity.
The push for self-determination is detailed in Towards a New Identity (1950s–1960s), which captures the hard-fought journey toward self-governance while also exploring the artistic awakening that formed the backdrop to the birth of a sovereign nation. The section opens with post-war Singapore society grappling with poverty and colonial discontent, where artists and activists channelled their aspirations into woodblock prints, literature and theatre that gave voice to the ordinary people. These energies spilled onto the streets through student demonstrations and labour strikes, while a new generation of local leaders emerged to contest competing visions for Singapore’s future. Anchoring the era’s civic heartbeat in this zone is Zubir Said’s piano, the instrument on which he composed “Majulah Singapura”, displayed in the Gallery for the first time. The section culminates in a multimedia recreation of Lee Kuan Yew’s televised press conference announcing Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, inviting visitors to sit with and contemplate this pivotal moment.
Towards a New Identity, Singapore History Gallery Becoming Singapore (1960s–1980s) traces how Singaporeans built new lives alongside major government reforms to the economy, housing and education. The industrialisation of Singapore is brought to life through everyday artefacts from Fairchild Semiconductor that capture what it meant to be part of a generation of workers – many of them women – who found new livelihoods in the factories that transformed Singapore’s economy. This spirit of adaptation extends to the experience of high-rise living, embodied in a restored HDB lift accompanied by a poem that captures the mix of enthusiasm and anxiety that came with leaving kampongs behind. As rising incomes brought modern conveniences and a new generation came of age under a revised bilingual education system, a shared Singaporean identity gradually took shape. The section closes with a recreation of a typical void deck where visitors are invited to take a seat and read Arthur Yap’s poem “2 mothers in a h d b playground” – an intimate snapshot of everyday life in a nation finding its footing.
The journey concludes with Looking Global (2000s–Present), tracing how Singapore grew into a major financial and maritime hub and world-class metropolis defined by its diverse and dynamic people and a cityscape in constant reinvention. Visitors first encounter The Lion City 2012–2026, a timelapse by photographer Keith Loutit that compresses nearly 15 years of Singapore’s development and redevelopment into two and a half minutes, before moving to an interactive mural charting Singapore’s place in global networks of trade, travel and communication. The section traces how Singaporeans have engaged with the world, from technological innovations with global impact to efforts in sustainability and humanitarian aid, while turning to the more personal question of what it means to belong to a city that never stands still. The section closes with Who Are We Today?, a film featuring candid conversations with residents of diverse backgrounds that poses the Gallery’s central question to the visitor, inviting them to reflect on their own place in Singapore’s ever-evolving story.
The journey culminates in a cinematic concluding experience that carries visitors from Singapore’s past into its future. An immersive visual draws together Singapore’s past to present in the form of a connected landscape, while a projected river sends glimmers of voices contributed by visitors drifting toward the walls. Shaped by the values, beliefs and aspirations gathered at the voice input stations throughout the Gallery, this collective vision produces a unique skyline of a future Singapore, accompanied by a reflection crafted from visitors’ own words.
Voices to the Future, Singapore History Gallery Beyond the Gallery: Celebrate 139 Years of National Museum of Singapore
The spirit of shared conversation extends into the halls of the Grand Dame through Stories of Everyday, the Museum’s 139th anniversary celebrations running from 10 to 18 October 2026, with programmes and activities themed around the lived experiences of everyday Singaporeans across generations.
A highlight of the festivities include The Living Archive: A Living & Design Market by Of Wonder Wander with a curated selection of ceramics, stationery, accessories, food and more. Guests can also look forward to a refreshed vendor line-up on 14 October. A special interactive installation, The National Living Room at the Museum’s Platform space, recreates a living room of the past, featuring objects and stories from Singaporeans that breathe life into a house and transform it into a home.
Setting the celebratory spirit in stone is the official debut of Stoney, the Museum’s charming new mascot inspired by the Singapore Stone, a National Treasure on display at the Museum. Stoney’s story begins as he awakens on the banks of the Singapore River with no memory of where he came from. Longing to find his true kin, he embarks on an islandwide trek through modern Singapore – a journey that ultimately leads him home to the National Museum of Singapore, just as the doors of the revamped Singapore History Gallery swing open to welcome him.
Stoney, National Museum of Singapore mascot Visitors to the reopening celebrations can look forward to meet-and-greets with Stoney, photo opportunities with a larger-than-life Stoney installation on the Museum’s lawn and even take Stoney home in the form of a keychain plush, available at the Museum Martket by Abry store for $13.90 from 10 October onwards.
The celebratory mood continues throughout the Museum with a diverse slate of programmes for all ages, including contemporary dance performance Searching Blue《寻蓝》 by T.H.E Dance Company, HistoriaSG heritage talks, roving historical figure performances and community music jamming with Ann Siang Sounds.
This milestone opening serves as a prelude to the Museum’s complete unveiling, with the full reopening of the Level 2 Life in Singapore Galleries slated for early 2027 in time for the Museum’s 140th anniversary.
Venue
93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897Exhibition Dates
October 10 to 18, 2026Museum Hours
Open daily | 10 AM – 7 PMWebsite
https://www.nationalmuseum.nhb.gov.sgInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/natmuseum_sg/Contact
NHB_NM_Programmes@nhb.gov.sgAbout the National Museum of Singapore
With a history dating back to 1887, the National Museum of Singapore is the nation’s oldest museum with a progressive mind. Its galleries adopt multi-perspective ways of presenting history and culture featuring important artefacts that tell the stories of Singapore and the world to redefine the conventional museum experience. The Museum is home to thought-provoking exhibitions and hosts exciting events all year round including the Singapore Night Festival.
(Text and images courtesy of National Museum of Singapore)
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Gajah Gallery Singapore Presents Source Code, a Solo Exhibition by Jemana Murti
ANASTYLOSIS (BAROQUE), 2026, 3D Printed ABS and Acrylic Gajah Gallery Singapore presents Source Code, the second solo exhibition by Balinese artist Jemana Murti, opening in October 2026. The exhibition presents a focused examination of Jemana’s evolving practice in response to his Balinese identity within modernity, exploring the tensions between cultural heritage and technological advancement.
Raised in a family of artists and deeply influenced by Balinese Hindu traditions, Jemana’s practice is rooted in an ongoing engagement with the cultural forms and knowledge systems of his home. His work is informed by his interest in ethnomathematics and by the use of proportion, repetition, and spatial relationships within Balinese artistic and architectural traditions.
In Source Code, Jemana brings these inherited forms into dialogue with technologies of the present, using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence to create sculptural works marked by deliberate distortions and “glitches.” These visual disruptions signal the inherent limitations of technology in replicating the cultural and spiritual significance embedded within these forms. At the same time, he draws a parallel between the reverence once accorded to divine figures and the growing authority given to technologies that are increasingly perceived as “all-knowing.”
FUTURE RELIC: CHIDRA, 2026, Bronze, 40 x 31 x 28 cm, Ed 2 of 6 This tension takes on a new material dimension in a recent expansion of Jemana’s practice, through a series of bronze sculptures created in collaboration with Yogya Art Lab. The works begin as digitally reconstructed and warped forms, which are then translated into bronze, carrying the distortions of the virtual realm into physical form. The resulting sculptures bring together the instability of digital manipulation with the weight and permanence of bronze, a material long associated with durability. Through this process, Jemana brings a central tension within his practice into sharper focus: the fluidity of technological systems alongside the persistence of cultural forms, and how technological transformation might nevertheless carry forward or reconfigure something of their cultural and material continuity.
Venue
39 Keppel Rd, #03-04, Singapore 089065Artists
Jemana MurtiExhibition Dates
October 1 to 25, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMMonday – Friday | 11 AM – 7 PM
Saturday, Sunday & PH ｜ 12 PM – 6 PMWebsite
https://gajahgallery.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/gajahgallery/Contact
art@gajahgallery.comAbout Yogya Art Lab
Co-founded by Gajah Gallery Director Jasdeep Sandhu and Indonesian artist Yunizar, Yogya Art Lab (YAL) was established to provide artists with a dedicated space to experiment with new mediums and to ensure access to high-quality materials. Under the direction of Foundry Director James Page, YAL has evolved into a world-class foundry and production house, enabling artists to realise new dimensions in their practice.
About The Artist
Jemana Murti (b. 1997, Bali, Indonesia) explores the relationship between cultural heritage and digital technologies through his practice. In 2022 and 2023, Murti participated in the National Gallery Singapore Benefit Auction and was awarded the bronze prize in the 2023 UOB Painting of the Year. His works are held in both private and public collections across Europe, Asia, and Australia, with notable placements at the Tentrem Hotel, the Louis Vuitton flagship store in Jakarta, and Morgan Stanley Singapore. Jemana lives and works in Bali, Indonesia.
(Text and images courtesy of Gajah Gallery Singapore)
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Yeo Workshop Presents Group Exhibition: Scenes from Another Life: Imagined Narratives Inspired by Film, Art and Pop Culture
Poster credit: Yeo Workshop In conjunction with Singapore Gallery Month, Yeo Workshop is pleased to present Scenes from Another Life, a group exhibition curated by Chelsea Pettitt, Director of the Bagri Foundation at Gillman Barracks.
The mise-en-scène, a well-known French term that encompasses ‘what is put into the scene’, comes alive in this group exhibition. Featuring four artists Noor Mahnun (Anum), Hoa Dung Clerget, Justin Loke and Shayne Phua, the exhibition invites the visitor to explore a series of scenes which hint at recognisable cultural moments. From famous films to detective novels and pop ballads to Bollywood, each artist manifests a scene from another life.
Shayne Phua, Fragments of Performance, 2025, Ceramic, 26.5 x 18 x 19 cm.
Commissioned for Checkpoint Theatre gala dinner 2025. Image courtesy of the Artist.Ceramics, paintings and film are brought into new dialogue with their surroundings, combining historical and personal moments with expanded visions that emanate from the wall and onto the floor. Widely used in cinema, a mise-en-scène is made up of sets, people, lighting and props, arranged in a specific way to tell a story. The artists here were invited to share their cinematic world and allow us to populate their fictional tale. What is the narrative they are trying to convey through this method of ‘setting the scene’? Each object has its place, but what do the colours and patterns tell us? Can we imagine each artist’s state of mind as they materialise this space from their inner world?
Noor Mahnun (Anum), An Evening, 2025, Oil on linen, 84 x 76 cm. Image courtesy of the Artist and Yeo Workshop. Much like a Stephen King novel, Loke’s paintings keep you guessing, from the wayward shoe to the smears of blood – evoking a sense of ‘whodunnit?’. Whilst Phua’s ceramics and curtains invite you to liberate yourself from the confines of a fictional, apathetic Truman Show-like world into one where we take action, as seen in the reconstructed photo of her idealist grandfather with fellow activists.
Anum and Clerget’s worlds are inspired by song and dance, and of celebrations of the women and communities of which they are a part or imagine they can be. Sit with Anum’s joyful domestic colours, patterns and textures whilst enjoying a Bollywood moment or sing along to a Vietnamese anthem in a nail salon whilst celebrating community halls, theatres and restaurants of its diaspora.
Hoa Dung Clerget, Amazing nails, 2025, Single-channel digital video, 6 mins 53 secs, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Image courtesy of the Artist.The story is only just beginning to be written. As American poet J.D McClatchy said, “Our prose was, well, / versed in poses no less real for being / mimic rushes of scenes from another life to come.”[1]
This exhibition is part of Yeo Workshop’s annual summer programming, which provides a platform for guest curators, foundations and artists to showcase alternative perspectives in contemporary art. The programme invites audiences to discover and engage with experimental voices outside the gallery’s roster, some of whom have never been exhibited in Singapore before.
[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=130&issue=1&page=34
Justin Loke, Blue of Noon, 2026, Mixed media, 169 × 110 cm, Image courtesy of the Artist. PUBLIC PROGRAMME
ESPRESSO TOURS
Espresso & Conversation: Curator & Artist-Led Tour of Scenes from Another Life
Saturday 15 August 2026, 2 – 4 pm
Yeo Workshop, Gillman Barracks
Enjoy an espresso while artists Shayne Phua, Justin Loke, and Noor Mahnun (Anum) lead an intimate tour of Scenes from Another Life, sharing the stories, inspirations, and processes behind their works.
ARTISTS TALK
Scenes from Another Life: Artist talk with curator Chelsea Pettitt, Noor Mahnun (Anum), Justin Loke, Shayne Phua and Hoa Dung Clerget
Thursday 27 August, 8 – 9 pm
Online
ARTISTS AND CURATOR BIOGRAPHIES
NOOR MAHNUN (b. 1964, Malaysia), also known as ANUM, is known for adapting the traditional technique of oil painting into a style that has been praised for its simplicity and meticulousness. Beneath their guide of naivety and delicacy are carefully crafted compositions that weave subtle psychological narratives with dark wit and emotional depth. Born in Kelantan, Anum trained in architecture in the United States before pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in painting at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig, Germany in 1996. Anum was artist-in-residence at Rimbun Dahan in Kuang, Selangor (2000-2001) and received a scholarship from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a printmaking course at Il Bisonte, Florence (2002-2003). During her time in Europe, she held solo shows in Florence and across Germany, and upon returning to Malaysia, became an active figure in the local art scene—not only as an artist, but also as a curator, educator, and arts manager. This year, her works were showcased at Painting Itself, ANU Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra and in Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘ANUM’, Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2025); ‘September’, The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur (2021); ‘Disco Lombok Still Life’, The Edge Galerie, Kuala Lumpur (2017).
JUSTIN LOKE (b. 1979, Singapore) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator known for his storytelling-driven works, which blend installation, painting, theatre, and curatorial practice. He is the director of Vertical Submarine, an art collective acclaimed for its interdisciplinary projects.
Loke’s notable achievements include receiving the JCCI Japan Foundation Arts Award in 2009. He was also the creative director and writer of Cathay Hotel: The Curse of the Missing Red Shoe, the highlight act of the 2022 Singapore Night Festival. In 2023, he curated Benchmarks, a placemaking initiative commissioned by the Civic District Alliance. More recently, he completed an artist residency and exhibition at the Points Center for Contemporary Arts in Shanghai-Suzhou, organised by the Troy Foundation, London. He also curated Creative Intersections: Traces of Dragons at Funan Mall, as well as 8-Bit Word Cloud, a public art installation for the National Gallery Singapore’s Light to Night Festival during Singapore Art Week 2024. Vertical Submarine has received numerous awards, including the President’s Young Talent Award (Singapore, 2009), the Celeste Prize (New York, 2011), and finalist recognition for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong, 2015). Featured in ROUNDTABLE at the 9th Gwangju Biennale, the collective’s work is distinguished by a distinctive visual narrative style that has garnered international recognition and acclaim. Loke will present a solo exhibition at Yeo Workshop in January 2027, coinciding with Singapore Art Week.
SHAYNE PHUA (b. 1997, Singapore) uses the medium of clay to narrate stories and turn a critical eye on everyday realities. Her ceramic objects employ history, myth and literature to reflect on the world around her. She graduated with a BA(Hons) in Communication Design from The Glasgow School of Art, Singapore. Phua enjoys observing the forms and functions of utilitarian objects. Her work focuses on these aspects of ceramics as the vehicle for exploring a host of discourses, including oral traditions, folklore, historical anecdote and socio-political ideologies. In a world increasingly flattened out by social media and cultural homogenisation, her practice is premised on a keen interest in the local and often overlooked – a register of things and tales that flicker beneath public attention. In 2019, Shayne was an Artist in Residence at Zentrum für Keramik in Berlin and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark. She participated in ‘Blended Tongue’ in Paris, featuring works of artists based in Singapore and France, along with botanical installations by This Humid House in 2022. The following year, she exhibited her works in a group show, ‘New Makers,’ in Bangkok, featuring Thai and Singaporean artists. She held a first solo exhibition with Yeo Workshop in 2024.
HOA DUNG CLERGET (b. 1985, France), creates films, installations, and painted objects that explore the labour and lives of immigrant women and the Nail Art subculture. Her Vietnamese heritage and education in France have shaped her research into how immigrant women construct their identities and find their place in society, especially through their work. Her practice reflects her own diasporic experience. At the heart of her work is the ongoing process of identity reconstruction. Clerget draws on Homi Bhabha’s concept of the liminal space, an in-between where diasporic identity is constructed through hybridisation, through the refusal of fixed categories, and through the subversion of imposed norms. The artist sees this constant negotiation in the lives of immigrant women, whether in domestic or professional spaces. The materials and objects Clerget integrates into her work come directly from the everyday lives of Vietnamese families: brooms, plastic stools, durian, folk songs, seemingly mundane elements that carry deep cultural significance, passed down through generations. By repurposing these objects, she challenges their meaning and status, using art as a tool to reverse situations.
CHELSEA PETTITT, a curator originally from California, is Director of the Bagri Foundation in London where she cultivates space for Asian arts and culture. Recent and forthcoming curatorial projects for the Foundation include the Springboard Exhibition with Nomin Zezegmaa at Sy Cyprian’s, Myths, Dreams and New Realities at the Saatchi Gallery and the Bagri Samaya Series. After living in Beijing in 2005, she graduated from Goldsmiths College London with an MA in Visual Anthropology focussing on contemporary Chinese arts and culture. Pettitt was previously the Bagri Foundation’s Head of Arts where she initiated or supported many arts and cultural projects such as the Bagri Commission at the Hayward Gallery, Chang/ce, Untold: Write Afghanistan, Rebel Rebel by Soheila Sokhanvari at Barbican, Asia Forum and Object, Story, Wonder: Museums Collections Revealed. Prior to this she was Head of Partnerships at Wysing Arts Centre where she curated and assisted on national and international exhibitions and projects and Assistant Curator at the Hayward Gallery and Hayward Touring for many years, producing and curating such touring exhibitions. She speaks widely on panels, has contributed to exhibition catalogues and art magazines and is a board member of Untold Narratives, a development programme for writers structurally marginalised by community or conflict.
ABOUT YEO WORKSHOP
Yeo Workshop is a gallery committed to contemporary art in Singapore. Based in the Gillman Barracks district, it champions a diverse roster of artists whose practices reflect deep engagement with our contemporary socio-cultural landscape, to stimulate dialogue and critical discourse, including several Southeast Asian artists who are producing cutting-edge works. Covering a multi-disciplinary approach and collaborative spirit, the gallery defines itself by its progressive engagements that strive to shape the trajectory of contemporary art in Southeast Asia and beyond.
ABOUT THE BAGRI FOUNDATION
The Bagri Foundation, established in 1990 in London, UK, is a family foundation driven by curiosity. Through grants and strategic partnerships, the Foundation champions unique ideas that weave the traditional and the contemporary of Asian culture. Recent and forthcoming projects include Myths, Dreams and New Realities featuring 13 emerging Asian artists co-curated with the Saatchi Gallery (2025); a co-production, Thikra: Night of Remembering, by Akram Khan Company (2025-27); Bagri Springboard commission by Nomin Zezegmaa at St Cyprian’s Church, London (2026) and the Bagri Commission by Gulnur Mukazhanova at the Whitworth, Manchester (2026). Additionally, the family continues to support education, relief work, development and healthcare.
ABOUT SINGAPORE GALLERY MONTH
Presented by the Art Galleries Association Singapore (AGAS), Singapore Gallery Month 2026 is a citywide celebration of contemporary art, and a great way to explore the world of collecting. Bringing together over 30 leading galleries over 5 weeks, this year’s edition features an exciting line-up of exhibitions, talks, tours, workshops, performances, and more – alongside exclusive experiences such as Collectors’ Home Tours and opportunities to meet artists and fellow collectors.
>> AGAS I Singapore Gallery Month
Venue
Gillman Barracks
47 Malan Road
#01-25
Singapore 109444Artists
Noor Mahnun (Anum) (MY), Hoa Dung Clerget (VN/UK), Justin Loke (SG), Shayne Phua (SG)Exhibition Dates
August 15 – October 11, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Sundays | 12:00 PM – 6:00 PMWebsite
https://www.yeoworkshop.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/yeoworkshop/Contact
info@yeoworkshop.com(Text and images courtesy of Yeo Workshop)
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Singapore Art Museum Presents A Solo Exhibition: Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage
Exhibition view of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. Singapore, 21 July 2026 – Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage, the first monographic exhibition of the renowned artist at a Singapore museum. Opening on 24 July 2026, the exhibition brings together nearly two decades of Taniguchi’s multidisciplinary practice, featuring her signature “brick paintings”, modular Runaways sculptures, and four video works, including the newly commissioned A painter, if black were a place. Together, these works offer audiences the most comprehensive presentation of Taniguchi’s practice in Singapore to date.
Taking its title from visual sensations that linger in a viewer’s field of vision, Afterimage explores the recurring themes of repetition, time and labour that have shaped Taniguchi’s practice over nearly two decades. Through painting, sculpture and moving image, the exhibition invites audiences to slow down and reflect on the quiet processes that underpin both artistic creation and everyday life.
The exhibition comes at a significant moment in Taniguchi’s career, following her major survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila. It also reflects SAM’s continued commitment to presenting ambitious exhibitions by leading contemporary artists from Southeast Asia while supporting new commissions that advance artistic practice in the region.
Installation view of Maria Taniguchi’s Untitled (2017–2026) as part of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. At the heart of Taniguchi’s practice lies an unwavering dedication to repetition as both method and meaning. Her “brick paintings” (2008–ongoing) feature uniform rows of pencil-drawn rectangles, each carefully filled in with paint over days or weeks. Rather than a deliberate response to the art-historical legacy of minimalism, they capture the sheer time and effort invested in creating each work. This ongoing series of paintings remain untitled and unnumbered, as Taniguchi treats each new canvas as part of a single, continuously growing artwork. The series has evolved subtly with shifts in colour and scale, tracing the progression of her artistic practice over the years. Leaning against the gallery walls, Taniguchi’s large “brick paintings” blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture and architectural space.
“Maria Taniguchi’s art asks us to slow down and consider how time, labour and material decisions become form. Across painting, sculpture and moving image, her practice is quiet but exacting, transforming repetition into a way of thinking about perception, process and the conditions of making. SAM is proud to present her first monographic museum exhibition in Singapore and to support a new commission by one of the most rigorous artists working in Southeast Asia today,” said Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Chief Curator of SAM.
Installation view of Maria Taniguchi’s Runaways (2026) as part of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. Runaways (2026) features site-responsive sculptures—some standing several metres tall—that merge personal memory with traditional craft. Using the gallery as a canvas, Taniguchi transforms simple circles and lines, the most fundamental elements of drawing, into three-dimensional compositions. This sparse formal vocabulary evokes computational language like the 1 and 0 of binary code to suggest infinite possibilities within the gallery space. Carved from Java plum wood, known in the Philippines as duhat, these sculptures carry intergenerational memory: Taniguchi’s mother craved the tree’s dark violet fruit while pregnant with her. By embracing handcraft over industrial production and embedding personal history, Taniguchi challenges the seemingly detached nature of minimalism. At SAM, Runaways serves as a series of spatial markers guiding visitors through Gallery 3, including new site-responsive iterations created specifically for this exhibition.
Installation view of Maria Taniguchi’s Mies 421 (2010) as part of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. Four video works extend Taniguchi’s longstanding interest in repetition, duration and process into moving image, exploring themes of history, memory, and modernist architecture. Mies 421 (2010) documents her attention to structural details throughout the 1929 Barcelona Pavilion designed by influential German architects Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. Black-and-white still photographs focus on the building’s minimal lines and varied surface textures, echoing the architectural quality of her “brick paintings”. Synchronised with an accelerating metronome, the mechanical progression of images generates a sense of mounting tension while emphasising how repeated fragments accumulate into a larger whole.
Installation view of Maria Taniguchi’s Figure Study (2012) and Figure Study (2018) as part of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. Subsequently, Figure Study (2012) and Figure Study (2018) trace Taniguchi’s evolving investigations into the body, space, and time. The 2012 work, also shot in black-and-white, captures two workers in a dense jungle extracting clay from the earth and filling white bags. Filmed from multiple angles, the repetitive labour unfolds to the irregular rhythm of their tools—a sonic counterpoint to the metronomic precision of Mies 421.
Figure Study (2018) prioritises process over narrative through tightly framed, richly saturated red and blue images. A sequence of stills captures the artist’s hands shaping raw clay, making visible subtle traces of labour invested over time. These are followed by a single shot that tracks the length of the finished object, though the narrow framing prevents viewers from grasping how the individual parts relate to the whole. This fragmented approach recalls Taniguchi’s formative exercises at the Philippine High School for the Arts, where students experimented with materials without a predetermined outcome.
Installation view of Maria Taniguchi’s A painter, if black were a place (2026) as part of Maria Taniguchi: Afterimage at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. The newly commissioned video, A painter, if black were a place (2026), explores Taniguchi’s artistic lineage through an intimate look at her relationship with her mother, Christina “Kitty” Taniguchi, who is a painter and literary scholar. Mirroring the structure of Mies 421, the film moves through a series of grainy, pixelated still images, captured in the artist’s hometown of Dumaguete City in 2012. The digital photographs feel warm and intimate, but their quality evokes nostalgia and the gradual fading of personal memories. The closely cropped images of a garden filled with terracotta sculptures in this newly commissioned video counter the modernist lines of the Barcelona Pavilion present in Mies 421. At the same time, several paintings by Kitty are woven throughout the film, emphasising the intergenerational connection that informs the younger Taniguchi’s use of material in her Runaways sculptures. The flow of images is disrupted by fields of black which, upon close inspection, reveal themselves as hand-painted surfaces with subtle variations—much like Taniguchi’s own painted canvases.
The exhibition runs from 24 July to 22 November 2026 at Gallery 3, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Admission is free for all Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents, with standard general admission charges applying for international visitors.
Venue
Gallery 3, Level 3, SAM at Tanjong Pagar DistriparkArtists
Maria TaniguchiExhibition Dates
July 24 – November 22, 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Sunday | 10:00 AM – 7:00 PMWebsite
https://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/singaporeartmuseumContact
enquiries@singaporeartmuseum.sgAbout Singapore Art Museum
Singapore Art Museum opened in 1996 as the first art museum in Singapore. Also known as SAM, we present contemporary art from a Southeast Asian perspective for artists, art lovers and the art curious in multiple venues across the island, including a new venue in the historic port area of Tanjong Pagar.
SAM is building one of the world’s most important public collections of Southeast Asian contemporary art, with the aim of connecting the art and the artists to the public and future generations through exhibitions and programmes. SAM is working towards a humane and sustainable future by committing to responsible practices within its processes.
About the Artist
Maria Taniguchi works across a diverse range of media, including painting, video, sculpture, pottery, printmaking, drawing and writing. Central to her practice are questions of labour, repetition, and temporality, which she explores through an ongoing engagement with materiality and process. Her works invite audiences to experience material culture sensorially, connecting it to broader notions of time, space, labour and technology.
Taniguchi is the recipient of the 2015 Hugo Boss Asia Art Award. Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), the Gwangju Biennale (2018), the Biennale of Sydney (2018) and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2015). Her solo exhibitions include presentations at MCAD Manila (2024) and the Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Quezon City (2011), among others.
(Text and images courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)
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ShanghART Singapore Presents 13 Nightmares, a Solo Exhibition by Taiki Sakpisit
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Singapore, August 2026 — ShanghART Singapore presents 13 Nightmares by Taiki Sakpisit, opening on 15 August 2026. Over the past two decades, Sakpisit has developed one of Southeast Asia’s most distinctive practices, dissolving the boundaries between cinema and contemporary art. Frequently drawing upon Thailand’s histories, folklore and political imaginaries, Sakpisit’s works are rooted in the unstable terrain where personal memory and collective consciousness continually intersect.
The premise of this exhibition can be traced back to a nightmare Sakpisit experienced in Singapore in 2018. A phone call from his brother awoke him from the nightmare, informing him about the passing of a family member. Since then, Sakpisit has become increasingly drawn to the intersections between dreams, memory, grief, and premonition, culminating in this exhibition.
In his first solo exhibition with ShanghART Singapore, Sakpisit transforms the gallery into a labyrinth of moving images, photography, sound and spectral presences. A series of photographic works appear as snapshots and fragments from different realities, layering upon one another. Drawn from the artist’s collection of photographs shot over the past few years as a core part of his working process, the images form a quiet yet intense distillation of Sakpisit’s memories and encounters with place and history.
Anchoring the exhibition, the two-channel installation transforms cinematic language into a spatial, sculptural, and psychological encounter. Within this shifting landscape, animism, supernatural presences, and altered states appear as recurring motifs through which Sakpisit evokes fear, vulnerability, and the persistence of the unconscious. Together, they construct a landscape haunted by historical trauma and contemporary anxieties.
Working across experimental film, photography, and installation, Sakpisit continues to expand cinema beyond the conventions of projection, inviting audiences to inhabit images physically and experience the moving image as an environment rather than a sequence of projected frames. Rather than following a linear narrative, visitors navigate the exhibition as they might recall a dream: through fragments, repetitions and sudden dislocations.
The Seer, 2026, Archival inkjet print, 75 x 100 cm, Edition of 3 + 2 AP Venue
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Taiki SakpisitExhibition Dates
August 15 – October 4, 2026Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Sunday | 12:00 PM – 6:00 PMWebsite
https://www.shanghartgallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singapore/Contact
tianlim@shanghartgallery.comAbout the Artist
Taiki Sakpisit (ไทก ศกดพสษฐ, b.1975) is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Bangkok, renowned for his innovative approach to storytelling and his profound exploration of Thailand’s complex history. Through the lens of cinema, Sakpisit unpacks the nation’s turbulent past, infusing his experimental films with a subtle yet resounding political commitment.
His works delve into the underlying tensions, conflicts, and anticipations of contemporary Thailand, meticulously crafted through precise and sensorially overwhelming audio-visual assemblage. Utilizing a diverse array of sounds and images, Sakpisit creates immersive experiences that challenge conventional narratives and provoke thought.
About ShanghART
ShanghART Gallery was established in Shanghai in 1996. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital player in the development of contemporary art in China, working with over 50 pioneering and emerging artists, including DING Yi, LI Shan, LIN Aojie, Arin RUNGJANG, SUN Xun, Melati SURYODARMO, TANG Da Wu, Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, XU ZHEN®, YANG Fudong, ZENG Fanzhi, and ZHAO Renhui Robert.
ShanghART Singapore was established in 2012 as the gallery’s Southeast Asia wing, located in the contemporary art cluster Gillman Barracks. The gallery’s first overseas space serves as a platform to introduce Chinese contemporary art to the region while developing collaborations with Southeast Asian artists, facilitating cross-cultural dialogues and enriching artistic exchanges within the global art community.
(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
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iPreciation Presents Beyond Adversity: Irene Chou’s Small Works In her Later Years, A Solo Exhibition By Irene Chou
Life is a Many Splendoured Thing, 2007, Ink and color on paper, 38 x 30 cm, 58 x 50 cm (with border) iPreciation is delighted to present Beyond Adversity: Irene Chou’s Small Works in her Later Years. The exhibition’s theme is inspired by Chou’s unwavering vitality and resilience, putting a spotlight on her ability to confront and transcend the many personal challenges she faced throughout her life. Slowly recovering from her immense anguish through the healing practice of painting, colours finally made its return in Chou’s works in the 1980s. Unfortunately, Chou suffered a severe stroke in 1991, which temporarily halted her artistic practice. Nevertheless, rather than feeling defeated, she became a proactive patient who maintained a healthy lifestyle and was resolved to regain her mobility and eventually return to painting. Chou persevered through rehabilitation and was moved to Brisbane, Australia, where she continued to create works from 1993. These works possessed an otherworldly quality, exploring themes of the universe and celebrating the rebirth of a new self that was imbued with a profound gratitude for life. The motif of an embryo or fetus often appeared in her works, acting as universal symbols of rebirth and spiritual transformation. Suffering from cerebellar atrophy which greatly restricted her mobility, Chou still determinately tried her best to stand whilst splashing bold ink strokes to create larger artworks, she would even crawl around the large paintings and painted around the edges of the individual paintings to attend to finer details.
Irene Chou, standing in front of her art with her walking frame In the early 2000s, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) commissioned Chou’s works for Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane projects. JTC Biopolis likewise commissioned five works of Chou under their permanent collection.
Irene Chou, Works under permanent collection at JTC Biopolis, Singapore Considering the enormous uncertainties and health challenges she faced in all aspects of her life at the time, it would have been much safer for Chou to continue to paint on a familiar medium. Instead, she chose to take a great risk on her career by experimenting with new mediums, using acrylic paint, canvas, silk, satin and boards, among many others. Her exploration stemmed from her great desire to learn and this also helped restore her emotional balance. At the same time, Chou revisited and synthesised many of her signature techniques, bringing them together in her late paper works. Initially an admirer of Chou’s works, Zhu Qi, a Chinese art historian criticised: “You are now bringing out every single sign and symbol you have developed over the years into your present work. It is too much”. Yet, it is precisely this abundance that embodies Chou’s vitality and rush of emotions. Among these recurring techniques and motifs are circles, which represent the circle of love, and her queyue cun (a vortex-like pattern), rendered by colourful short strokes and layering was named as such by Chou to express the motif’s representation of a “joyful mind”. British art historian and professor Michael Sullivan, who first met Chou and encountered her works on a visit to Hong Kong in the late 1960s, likewise describes Chou as embodying a “serenely cheerful attitude to life” where her ideas and feelings become “so charged with the vitality and joy of her own character that they spring to life”.
No71, Life is a Many Splendoured Thing, 2007, Ink and colour on paper, 14.5 x 16 cm Chou relocated to a nursing home in 2007 till her passing in 2011. During those years, she painted smaller works due to space constraints and her physical deterioration. In spite of such restrictions, these works still remarkably displayed Chou’s signature techniques and her renewed vitality, resilience, spiritual reflection, and a strong will to continue creating — the bright colours endured, the motif of circles and embryos, and the red aspects against the striking bold black strokes. Moreover, Chou persisted in her use of mixed media, creating playful works with overlapping and impasto layers. Despite all the adversity Chou faced, her groundbreaking series Life is a Many Splendoured Thing reveals a soul that remained deeply grateful and appreciative of life.
No.124, Life is a Many Splendoured Thing, 2007, Ink, colour and acrylic on Paper, 30 x 30 cm Irene Chou’s Early Influences:
Irene Chou (b. 1924, Shanghai, China – d. 2011, Brisbane, Australia) is widely regarded as one of the most influential exponents of the New Ink Painting movement in Hong Kong during the 1960s and 1970s. She completed a modern education at the renowned St. John’s University in 1945 before working as a journalist for Peace Daily Shanghai. That was where she met her husband, Evan Yang (also known as Yi Wen), a renowned Hong Kong director. Relocating to Hong Kong in 1949 due to political upheaval in post-war China, Chou encountered many influential figures and overcame countless personal challenges that have recognizably shaped her artistic journey.
Chou’s work began to mature in style in the 1960s under the tutelage of Lui Shou-Kwan (b. 1919 – d. 1975), the leader of the New Ink Painting movement. Lui inspired her to delve deeper into self-expression and striking ink styles. He also introduced Chou to philosophical concepts drawn from Daoism and Zen Buddhism, which became central to Chou’s practice.
When her beloved mentor, Lui Shou-Kwan, passed away in 1975, followed by that of her husband’s in 1978, it was a huge blow to Chou. Swamped with grief, she channeled this overwhelming sorrow into her mid-1970s paintings. Chou later developed one of her most known “piled ink” technique. She termed these paintings layered with slabs of black ink as the “dark paintings” where darkness became her loudest silent cry and bleak lines traced her agony. These paintings were characterized by the profuse and concentrated use of ink, with gradual gradation that occupied four fifths of the painting.
However, Chou concurrently established a contrasting technique she termed “impact”. The broad sweeps of black ink, yet with a significant amount of blank spaces to diffuse a bit of light-heartedness. This was derived from the “splashed ink” technique of Chinese ink combined with Zen and philosophical theories. Her new style of “[hitting] the ink on the watery paper surface forcefully”, also known as the “impact” technique, quickly evolved into “impact structure strokes”. These were distinguished by bold, dynamic strokes of ink that radiated strength and passion.
Venue
50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724Artist
Irene ChouExhibition Dates
Private Preview: 25 July 2026, 2 – 5PM
Exhibition Opens to Public: 27 July – 15 August 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM
Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
www.ipreciation.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciationContact
enquiry@ipreciation.comAbout the Artist:
Irene Chou (b. 1924, Shanghai, China) was widely regarded as one of the most influential exponents of the New Ink Painting movement in Hong Kong. In 1945, Chou graduated from the renowned St. John’s University, Shanghai, with a BA in Economics. Despite her academic training in a field far removed from the arts, she later emerged as a pioneering Hong Kong ink painter during the 1960s and 1970s. Chou is celebrated for her exploration of spirituality and the cosmos which are evoked by her dynamic compositions, vibrant explosions of ink, colour, and movement. Her works often incorporated philosophical ideas from Zen Buddhism and Taoism.
Chou’s works have received prestigious awards such as the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild Painter of the Year Award in 1988. She is under the permanent collections at esteemed institutions worldwide, including Museum Fine Art Award, Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford, UK), Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA), British Museum (London, UK), Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong), City Gallery (Manila, Philippines), Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Land (Hong Kong), The Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection, M. K. Lau Collection (Hong Kong), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), National Art Gallery (Manila, Philippines), National Museum of History (Taipei, Taiwan), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taichung, Taiwan), Norman W. M. Ko Collection (Hong Kong), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane, Australia), Raya Gallery (Melbourne, Australia), University Museum, Art Gallery of The University of Hong Kong (Formerly known as Fung Ping Shan Museum), Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Brisbane, Australia), and JTC Biopolis (Singapore).
(Text and images courtesy of iPreciation)
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Gajah Gallery Singapore Presents Days That Slip Away Untouched, A Solo Exhibition by Indonesian Artist Uji “Hahan” Handoko Eko Saputro
Uji ‘Hahan’ Handoko Eko Saputro, Verification Devouring Itself, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 250 x 200 cm Singapore, 29 June 2026 – Gajah Gallery Singapore presents Days That Slip Away Untouched, a solo exhibition by Indonesian artist Uji “Hahan” Handoko Eko Saputro. Following its debut in Jakarta, the exhibition continues Hahan’s investigation into the shifting relationship between physical reality and its digital mediation.
Working across painting, sculpture, and sound, Hahan examines how perception and meaning are conditioned within digitally mediated environments. His work probes the terms by which images and experiences are encountered, tracing how distinctions between the real, the constructed, and the circulated are produced, and how authenticity is negotiated in their wake.
Installation View of Days That Slip Away Untouched, Courtesy of Gajah Gallery Singapore In contrast to the immediacy of digital systems, Hahan’s practice emphasises slowness and material engagement. Developed in close dialogue with the Ace House collective and his studio artisans, the works emerge through what he describes as an “aesthetic kinship”, a process rooted in shared labour and collective exchange. Across the exhibition, Hahan appropriates imagery from works by Raden Saleh, Tomás Sánchez, and Walter Spies, using these references to reflect on how knowledge, power, and ways of seeing have shaped historical narratives. In doing so, the works draw attention to the instability of images in an era governed by algorithmic visibility, where depth and context risk being flattened.
Within these compositions, moments of disruption appear through hybrid figures and altered landscapes, introducing a sense of dissonance that unsettles familiar visual frameworks. These gestures operate as subtle “glitches”, interrupting dominant modes of representation and opening up alternative ways of seeing and understanding.
The exhibition title, Days That Slip Away Untouched, speaks to an awareness of time that often passes without full attention. Across his practice, Hahan foregrounds attentiveness —to history, process, and everyday experience— as a means of resisting this condition. Here, authenticity is approached as something continually negotiated within the conditions of contemporary life.
1997, 2024, Aluminium and Duco Paint, 35 x 19 x 78 cm Venue
39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, #03-04, Singapore 089065Artists
Uji “Hahan” Handoko Eko SaputroExhibition Dates
July 9 – July 26, 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 11 AM – 7 PM
Saturday – Sunday | 12 AM – 6 PMWebsite
https://gajahgallery.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/gajahgalleryContact
art@gajahgallery.comABOUT THE ARTIST
Uji Handoko Eko Saputro (b. 1983) , widely known as Hahan, creates works that navigate the tensions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, combining the visual language of popular youth culture and underground comics with the aesthetics of traditional Javanese mythology. His works are held in several major museum collections, including the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT).
Hahan is a founding member of Ace House Collective, a Yogyakarta-based artists’ initiative and creative space. He currently lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
ABOUT GAJAH GALLERY
Founded in 1996, Gajah Gallery has developed a sustained, critically engaged commitment to Southeast Asian contemporary art, shaped through long-term collaboration with artists and the region’s leading academics and art historians. Operating across Singapore, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Manila, the gallery presents a rigorous year-round exhibition programme and maintains a strong presence across major regional and international platforms. Its activities extend to long-term research and scholarly engagement, as well as supporting the production of extensive printed publications on seminal artists and collectives, contributing to the scholarship and historiography of Southeast Asian art.
(Text and images courtesy of Gajah Gallery Singapore)
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ShanghART Singapore Presents Simplified, a Solo Exhibition by Tang Maohong
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Singapore, May 2026 — ShanghART Singapore is delighted to present Simplified, a solo exhibition by the Chinese artist Tang Maohong, opening on 16 May 2026 at 4pm. This exhibition brings together a selection of the artist’s latest paintings, developed extensively over the past year following his relocation to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It also marks his return to Singapore after his 2019 solo exhibition, and twenty years since his participation in the first Singapore Biennale.
Tang’s new body of work reflects a significant development in his practice, centered around explorations into the process of painting, and its relationship with the result. The act of painting typically results in two outcomes – the image on the canvas and the mixed colours on the palette. The works stem from the approach of mixing colours directly on the painting surface instead of using a palette. This simple gesture collapses two planes into one, creating a mutually-influencing relationship within the same pictorial space.
Originating from a period of constraint, this approach has been refined over the past year into a more distilled visual language. Tang pares down his compositions to focus on the relationship between the intended image and the residual colour. Deceptively simple, the underlying tension is withheld from the apparent harmonious coexistence of the two elements, experienced only upon prolonged inspection.
Installation view of Simplified, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Tang’s practice has consistently engaged with the nature of images and how we perceive them. He initially opted to work with animation for its ability to explore the instability of images through time. Forms derived from the real world would morph, dissolve, and reassemble, remaining familiar yet resistant to fixed interpretations. Over time, this temporal process became increasingly condensed, leading him back to painting. What once unfolded sequentially is now internalised, with shifts and transformations embedded within a single, suspended surface.
Operating between abstraction and figuration across different mediums, Tang’s works often resist immediate recognition. His forms appear familiar yet elusive, inviting sustained attention rather than instant interpretation. At the core of his practice is an ongoing inquiry into perception – how images are formed, how meaning emerges, and how both remain inherently unstable.
Across two decades, Tang has continued to refine and distill his approach, pursuing the same fundamental questions with increasing precision. This presentation marks a pivotal moment in that trajectory. The new paintings bring together image, material, and structure into a tightly resolved yet open-ended condition, where process and result are held in balance. For Tang, painting is not a means of searching for fixed answers, but a reciprocal process in which meaning emerges from the act of painting itself.
“At the end of 2020, I returned from Seoul to Guilin. Due to the pandemic, I was quarantined in a hotel in Shenzhen for two weeks, during which I made some small acrylic paintings on paper. Working under limited conditions, I mixed paints directly on the surface of the work, using it as a palette. As a result, two things remained on the surface: the image I intended to paint, and the colours that would otherwise have stayed on the palette. Every colour thus appeared in duplicates.
This led me to consider reversing the process. If colours are mixed to create a painting, then painting itself can also become a way of mixing colours. In that sense, it becomes natural for the colour patches to remain on the surface and take part in the composition—the painting becomes a palette, where one paints on the palette itself. In the process of painting, the painted image and the color patches shape and complete each other, mutually causal, each with its own integrity.
This is not a new technique, but a way of presenting new relationships on the painted surface: the painted image and the paint that produces it together form a complete composition. These reflect my thoughts on “what to paint” and “how to paint“.
Why do I paint in this way? Because it makes me feel grounded.
What is painting? It is not about solving problems, but about holding myself accountable to time.”
Installation view of Simplified, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Venue
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Tang MaohongExhibition Dates
May 16 – June 28, 2026Website
https://www.shanghartgallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singapore/Contact
tianlim@shanghartgallery.comAbout the Artist
Tang Maohong (b.1975, Lingchuan, Guangxi; lives and works in Kuala Lumpur) explores the nature of images and perception across animation and painting. His simultaneously references and subtly unsettles art history and popular culture, integrating diverse visual elements that blur the boundaries between fine art and the everyday. His early animations feature morphing, unstable forms, while his recent paintings condense these transformations into single, suspended surfaces. Absurd, humorous, and quietly confrontational, his works reflect an image-saturated psyche while continually loosening the relationship between representation, material, and visual experience.
He has exhibited across the U.S.A., South Korea, Singapore, India, Germany, Italy, China and has participated in the 7th Shanghai Biennale (2009), the Asian Art Biennial (2007), as well as the inaugural Singapore Biennale (2006).
About ShanghART
ShanghART Gallery was established in Shanghai in 1996. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital player in the development of contemporary art in China, working with over 50 pioneering and emerging artists, including DING Yi, LI Shan, LIN Aojie, Arin RUNGJANG, SUN Xun, Melati SURYODARMO, TANG Da Wu, Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, XU ZHEN®, YANG Fudong, ZENG Fanzhi, and ZHAO Renhui Robert.
ShanghART Singapore was established in 2012 as the gallery’s Southeast Asia wing, located in the contemporary art cluster Gillman Barracks. The gallery’s first overseas space serves as a platform to introduce Chinese contemporary art to the region while developing collaborations with Southeast Asian artists, facilitating cross-cultural dialogues and enriching artistic exchanges within the global art community.
(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
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iPreciation Presents Ink Unbound – Wang Dongling · Chaos Script
Poster credit: iPreciation iPreciation is pleased to present Ink Unbound – Wang Dongling · Chaos Script. The exhibition’s theme originates from Wang’s rich creative practice and his diverse experiences that transcend national borders, paying tribute to Wang’s reimagining of traditional calligraphy with his signature chaotic script.
Grounded in the discipline of classical Chinese calligraphy — not limited to seal script, regular script, and official script — Wang studied under influential masters including Shen Zishan and Lin Sanzhi. Their rigorous instruction instilled in him not only technical precision but also a philosophical understanding of calligraphy as an embodied practice rooted in temporality, discipline, and spontaneity. Wang extends from this lineage, eventually developing his signature chaotic script. This style he pioneered retains structural integrity while loosening formal constraints, opening calligraphy into an expanded field of gestural intensity, spatial dynamism, and improvisational freedom.
Su Shi – When It is Clear, the Ripples Gleam on This Beautiful Lake 蘇軾 – 水光瀲灩晴方好, 2023, Ink, Photography on paper, 63.5 x 83 cm Central to Wang’s contemporary relevance is his reconfiguration of calligraphy as a visual and phenomenological system rather than a strictly linguistic one. His chaotic script resists stable legibility, unfolding instead as a field of energy in which ink disperses, accumulates, and collides across the surface. Meaning emerges through rhythm, density, and spatial tension, inviting viewers into an active process of perception. In this sense, Wang’s work aligns with broader conceptual shifts in contemporary art that privilege experience over interpretation, process over fixed meaning. The dissolution of boundaries between text and image, reading and seeing, is further intensified in his works, where calligraphy becomes a durational, immersive act that extends beyond the confines of the page into lived, embodied experiences.
Li Bai-Farewell at Jingmen Ferry 李白《渡荊門送別》,2019, Ink on paper, 69.5 x 69.5 cm Wang’s chaotic script pioneered an entirely new art form in the realm of contemporary ink art, reflecting ancient wisdom and philosophies tied to Chinese intellectual traditions. Influences from Daoist spontaneity and Zen Buddhist notions of intuition and immediacy are evident in his embrace of improvisation and the relinquishing of rigid control. Rather than viewing chaos as the absence of structure, Wang frames it as a higher form of harmony — an echo of the Daoist idea that apparent disorder can embody a deeper, natural order. In this sense, his chaotic script becomes a visual manifestation of qi (i.e. vital energy), capturing Wang’s state of mind in the moment of creation.
Lao Tzu-Tao Te Ching the Principles of Naturalism 老子《道德經·道法自然》, 2018, Ink on paper, 99 x 66 cm Wang Dongling’s chaotic script contain within them ancient Chinese wisdom and poetry. Through his unique expressive style, Wang expresses reverence for the ancients and engages in dialogue with them. His works have the potential to ignite the viewer’s curiosity, leading them to a deeper appreciation of Chinese culture, revealing that these are not merely abstract works for their own sake. Wang’s works deserve further in-depth understanding and study from our generation!
Installation view of Ink Unbound, Courtesy of iPreciation Venue
iPRECIATION, 50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724Artists
Wang DonglingExhibition Dates
18 May 2026 – 5 June 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM
Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
www.ipreciation.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciationContact
enquiry@ipreciation.comAbout the Exhibition:
Ink Unbound brings together a selection of 29 smaller works from recent years, tracing the evolution of Wang’s practice within a global artistic context. His works draw upon classical Chinese poetry and philosophy while engaging in dialogue with international modernist and contemporary traditions, from gestural abstraction to avant-garde calligraphy. Rather than reinforcing East–West distinctions, Wang’s practice positions ink as a fluid, transhistorical medium of exchange.
In works such as Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching: The Principles of Naturalism (2018), Wang Dongling reinterprets the Tao Te Ching into a visual field shaped by flux and emergence, where ink gathers and disperses to evoke the formless, generative qualities of the Tao. In Li Bai – Farewell at Jingmen Ferry (2019), he reinterprets themes of departure and emotional distance from Tang Dynasty poetry through asymmetrical compositions of dense and open ink fields, where rhythm and brushwork evoke a melancholic sense of longing. In later works such as Su Shi – When It is Clear, the Ripples Gleam on This Beautiful Lake (2023), Wang incorporates photography, layering calligraphic gesture over images of West Lake to create a dialogue between text, image, and environment, foregrounding shifting perceptions of clarity and obscurity, permanence and ephemerality.
Through ink, gesture, and performance, Ink Unbound proposes Wang’s chaotic script as a living, embodied practice, one that continuously reactivates tradition through experimentation, spontaneity, and transformation.
About the Artist:
Wang Dongling (b. 1945, Jiangsu, China) is a world-renowned leading contemporary ink artist, best known for large-scale performances of “wild cursive” chaotic script, characterized by their dynamic and erratic strokes. His works are deeply rooted in ancient Buddhist and Daoist thought, as well as classical Chinese literati poetry. Wang received his Bachelors from the Nanjing Normal University (Nanjing, China) in 1966 and his Masters from the Calligraphy Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (Hangzhou, China) in 1981.
Wang’s works have been prominently exhibited at prestigious institutions worldwide, including Cambridge University (Cambridge, UK), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, USA), Guggenheim Museum (New York City, USA), National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China), the Palace Museum (Beijing, China) and Asia Society Museum (New York City, USA). They can also be found amongst others in the collections of the British Museum (London, UK), Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong), the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA), the Zhejiang Museum of Fine Art, (Hangzhou, China), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, USA), Harvard University (Cambridge, USA), and the University of California, Berkley (Berkley, USA).
(Text and images courtesy of iPRECIATION)
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ShanghART Singapore Presents Group Exhibition: Everyday We Create Histories
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Singapore, March 2026 — ShanghART Singapore is pleased to present Everyday We Create Histories, bringing together works by nine artists who offer different ways of looking at, constructing, and questioning history. Spanning across painting, photography, sculpture, and animation, the exhibition provides multiple entry points into the idea of history, positioning artists as observers of the past and artmaking as an act of both remembrance and resistance.
We often understand “history” as a record of past events. Yet not everything that happens becomes history. Events must be witnessed, documented, and circulated before they are collectively remembered as part of history. At each stage, various factors and decisions determine whether an event gets turned into history, and how it is framed. Under such conditions, history reveals itself as contingent and malleable rather than singular and fixed.
Arin RUNGJANG, Abode of Dignity, 2017, Inkjet print on baryta gold fibre gloss paper, river water, embankment soil, Photograph 90 x 160 cm | Painting 90 x 160 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP It is within this space where artistic practice operates. Artists offer their own readings of the world, attending to the cracks and dents within history through their work. Their efforts range from the everyday to the monumental; from glancing at the recent present to looking at the distant past. Drawing on motifs, crafting narratives, and engaging materiality, the artists created works that invoke intersecting possibilities, suggesting presence as much as absence. What remains unspoken and outside of the frame can at times appear as loud and clear as what is placed before our eyes.
Across diverse contexts and subjects, the artists in Everyday We Create Histories continually examine both present and past, sharing distinctive takes that could shed light on the future as much as reflecting on what has been. The exhibition invites us to look beyond what is visible and read between the lines, encouraging us to reconsider our roles not only as a spectator, but also as active participants in the ongoing making and reading of history, day after day.
Installation view of Everyday We Create Histories Venue
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Lai Yu Tong, Li Shan, Lu Lei, Arin Rungjang, Sun Xun, Melati Suryodarmo, Boedi Widjaja, Xu Zhen, Yang FudongExhibition Dates
14 March – 30 April 2026Website
https://www.shanghartgallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singapore/Contact
infosg@shanghartgallery.com(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
