As Singapore Art Week approaches once again, the 2026 art season is already shaping up to be a major one, with anticipation and curiosity as to what lies ahead in the coming months. And across the calendar, National Gallery Singapore’s season is already shaping up to be one of its most ambitious years yet. This year, the Gallery brings together landmark international collaborations, reappraisals of modern Asian artists, and bold contemporary commissions that activate both its galleries and public spaces.

There is a clear sense of confidence in the programme: exhibitions unfold over long durations, ideas are given room to breathe, and Southeast Asia is consistently positioned in dialogue with global art histories rather than at their margins. From immersive installations that spill into courtyards and rooftops, to major surveys of women artists, war, modern ink, and Pop Art, the year ahead signals a Gallery fully leaning into its role as a regional and international anchor institution, and certainly one of the ports-of-call for art in the region. Check out their full lineup below:

SINGAPORAMA by Navin Rawanchaikul

9 January – November 2026

First on the list is a large-scale installation, where SINGAPORAMA transforms the Gallery’s transitional spaces into a sweeping portrait of Singapore’s social fabric. Known for his billboard-scale paintings and cinematic storytelling, Navin Rawanchaikul captures the textures of everyday life: its communities, migrations, and contradictions, through painting, video, and travelogue-style narratives. Part of the OUTBOUND series, the work invites visitors to encounter the city as moving panorama, brought to life by the variety and diversity of people and lives all within it.

Light to Night Singapore 2026: The Power in Us

9–31 January 2026

Returning for its milestone 10th edition, Light to Night expands across four weekends for the first time, filling the Civic District with large-scale installations, performances, and crowd-favourite façade projections. Under the theme The Power in Us, the festival foregrounds collective experience; how art becomes a catalyst for gathering, reflection, and shared imagination, with a focus on folklore, storytelling, and experiencing together. With a strong regional and local line-up, this year’s edition promises both spectacle and moments of intimacy.

Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise

9 January – 15 November 2026

A major long-term exhibition, Fear No Power brings together over 50 works by five trailblazing women artists from Southeast Asia, namely Amanda Heng, Dolorosa Sinaga, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Nirmala Dutt, and Phaptawan Suwannakudt. Spanning painting, photography, sculpture, and performance, the exhibition foregrounds how these artists have challenged power structures, advocated for marginalised communities, and reimagined artistic agency across decades. Drawing from their humble beginnings, realising their talents in expressing themselves and society through art, and their ability to bring communities together, many works are being shown in Singapore for the first time, making this a significant moment for regional art histories and feminist practice.

He Xiangning: Ink and Intent

1 April – 23 August 2026

This landmark presentation marks the first time the largest travelling exhibition of He Xiangning’s works is shown in Singapore. Featuring more than 50 ink paintings and extensive archival materials, the exhibition reframes He as both a pioneering modern ink artist and a formidable political figure. Tracing her artistic education, transnational networks, and historical ties to Southeast Asia, Ink and Intent offers a rare opportunity to reconsider the role of ink in shaping modernity.

After the Monsoon: Art & War in Southeast Asia

22 May – 18 October 2026

Anchored by the Second World War and the Vietnam War, this exhibition examines how artists across Southeast Asia have grappled with the realities and afterlives of conflict. Art emerges here not just as documentation, but as a means of critique, remembrance, and healing. Featuring historical and contemporary works, After the Monsoon draws powerful connections between war, modern art, and the region’s shared histories.

Suspension by Tammy Nguyen

May 2026 – April 2027

Floating above the City Hall courtyard, Suspension is both visually seductive and quietly unsettling. Tammy Nguyen’s installation of 24 kite-like forms shaped as military jets forms a navigational map suspended in air, drawing from celestial and environmental motifs tied to the site. Commissioned as part of the OUTBOUND series, the work encourages viewers to pause, look up, and reflect on systems of power, surveillance, and movement.

Dalam Singapore: Lai Foong Moi – Crossings

14 August 2026 – 3 October 2027

This focused exhibition repositions Lai Foong Moi’s practice through the lens of “crossings”; moments of transition, encounter, and becoming. Working within portraiture, still life, and landscape, Lai’s paintings offer a distinctive view of modern life in 1960s Singapore and Malaya, shaped by questions of gender, labour, and urbanisation. The exhibition adds depth to ongoing efforts to surface lesser-known yet vital figures in Singapore’s art history.

Pop Art Exhibition, in collaboration with Guggenheim Museum

11 December 2026 – 4 April 2027

Closing the year on a high note, this highly anticipated exhibition marks National Gallery Singapore’s first collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Bringing together iconic Pop Art works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Jeff Koons alongside artists such as Barbara Kruger, Takashi Murakami, Ronald Ventura, and Yayoi Kusama, the exhibition treats Pop Art as a global phenomenon. Expanded specially for Singapore, it opens new conversations between Southeast Asian practices and international modernisms—playful on the surface, sharp beneath.

Several significant exhibitions continue into the year, offering sustained engagement alongside new openings. Highlights include the spectral installation Eidolon by Vong Phaophanit & Claire Oboussier, the politically charged Diplomacy and Desire: Basoeki Abdullah in Singapore, the immersive Gallery Children’s Biennale 2025, and Temple by Tuan Andrew Nguyen, a participatory rooftop work that transforms the remnants of war into sound and reflection. Also not to be missed is Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, bringing Impressionist masterworks to Singapore for the first time.

Taken as a whole, National Gallery Singapore’s 2026 line-up reflects a programme that is both assured and expansive. It moves fluidly between the global and the local, the historical and the contemporary, while consistently returning to questions of power, community, and imagination. Whether through monumental international collaborations, long-overdue regional reappraisals, or quietly transformative public commissions, the exhibitions invite viewers to slow down, look closely, and stay with the ideas they encounter. In a year marked by duration as much as spectacle, the Gallery makes a compelling case for art as a space for sustained reflection, and certainly for multiple return visits well beyond a single afternoon.

Find out more and keep up to date with National Gallery Singapore’s latest offerings here