Singapore Art Week turns 15 from 21-31 January 2027, and the programme is the biggest case yet for treating the city-state as a January art destination. More than 100 exhibitions, installations, tours and parties will be spread across the Civic District, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Gillman Barracks and Marina Bay, with extras popping up in MRT stations and Clarke Quay. Coinciding with Singapore's ASEAN Chairmanship and the bloc's 60th anniversary, Southeast Asian art takes centre stage this year.
The headline-grabber is The Last Sunset by Dawn Ng: a one-night-only, 30-minute live cinema show at brutalist icon Golden Mile Tower on 22 January. A giant sun made of frozen pigment slowly melts on screen, while a live choir performs a score by Welsh composer Alex Mills that mixes heartbeats, lullabies, gamelan and NASA recordings. The narration comes from a cast that includes Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton. Tickets will be hot property.
Pop Art gets a blockbuster moment too. National Gallery Singapore partners with New York's Guggenheim for Pop after Pop: Art around Us, the largest Pop Art group show ever staged in Southeast Asia — 200-plus works by over 100 artists, from Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to Singapore's Ming Wong and the Philippines' Ronald Ventura. It runs from 11 December 2026 to 4 April 2027, feeding into Light to Night Singapore 2027 (15-31 January), which brings installations and a PHUNK facade projection to the Civic District.
Elsewhere: the Padang hosts weareSuper's Rollie Pollie Art Park, with three 2.7m patterned inflatables that glow after dark, plus BYOR — bring your own racket — a playable sculpture playground. UOB Plaza becomes a giant projection canvas for ASEAN's 60th, best watched from the riverfront by the Asian Civilisations Museum. At heritage venue 72-13, Ho Tzu Nyen shows an AI-generated installation following five virtual Singaporean children, while Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak fills the former rice warehouse with plants, scent and live performance. Over at SAM, POST-POST turns a museum space into a doomscrolling-themed audiovisual show that ends each night as a full rave, and Amanda Heng's Venice Biennale exhibition returns home. Around 40 local artists open their studios for free on four dates, and Marina Bay Sands anchors the commercial side with ART SG (from $40, entry to S.E.A. Focus included) plus an Es Devlin retrospective at ArtScience Museum.
Practical stuff: a new SAW app helps you build an itinerary, and SG Culture Pass credits cover some ticketed programmes including ART SG and the SAW Forum. Many installations are free. You don't need a full day either — art trails run through 10 MRT stations, a themed art bus loops the city, and the Asian Civilisations Museum adds a Dunhuang caves show and 100 Louvre masterpieces. Wear comfortable shoes; you'll walk a lot.
For anyone planning a Southeast Asia trip in early 2027, this is an easy excuse to base yourself in Singapore for a long weekend — and pair it with Chinese New Year festivities, which land around the same window.
