ART SG 2027 returns to Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre from 22 to 24 January 2027, with S.E.A. Focus running alongside it. This edition gives Singapore visitors plenty to do beyond looking: there’s a working cafe hosted by an artist, a bracelet installation you can step into, a student-led corner from Pathlight School and a heritage rice warehouse serving communal meals.
It’s the fifth edition of ART SG and the ninth of S.E.A. Focus, the homegrown platform for Southeast Asian contemporary art. Both anchor the 15th Singapore Art Week, the National Arts Council’s annual visual arts season. The organisers say the two fairs together bring over 110 galleries from more than 30 countries and territories, with a VIP Preview and Vernissage (the art world’s word for an opening-night party) on 21 January.
Big Clouds, Small Beads
PLATFORM is the fair’s sector for large-scale installations and performance, and it holds the two headline commissions. Dark Cloud (2026) is a new work by Alfredo Jaar, the Chilean conceptual artist, architect and filmmaker. ART SG says the piece spans six metres and was made in collaboration with STPI. Jaar has spent more than four decades confronting the political and ethical realities of contemporary life, so expect this cloud to come with an argument attached.
The one to get your hands on, though, is What Is Worth Keeping, and What Is Left Behind? by Singapore artist Kray Chen. It’s a participatory installation that turns bracelet-making into a negotiation between desire, chance, labour and access. Inexpensive materials circulate as objects of personal value, and ART SG describes the result as a shifting economy shaped by scarcity, visibility and choice. Anyone who caught the earlier version at Light to Night Singapore 2025 will find it expanded and reimagined here, and it’s the fair’s best test of what you’d bargain for over a bead.
A Cafe That Counts as Art
Over in S.E.A. Focus, the pick for anyone who would rather chat than browse is Putar Alam Cafe by Malaysian artist Noor Azizan Rahman Paiman. It’s a functioning cafe where visitors interact with the artist in person over a drink or a meal, and a selection of his artworks is shown inside the space. The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) first commissioned it for the Singapore Biennale in 2016, so its return more than a decade later is a rare second chance to pull up a seat!
The 2027 theme is Better Worlds, curated by John Tung with artistic consultation from STPI executive director Emi Eu. The line-up runs from established names such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, Vasan Sitthiket, Tammy Nguyen and Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba to emerging artists Ida Lawrence, Weng Rajaie and Singapore’s Siew Guang Hong. Participating galleries include Silverlens, ISA Art Gallery, The Back Room and Mr. Lim’s Shop of Visual Treasures.
That theme lands harder at a shared table, which is why Putar Alam Cafe makes such a fitting centrepiece this year. S.E.A. Focus sits inside the same venue as ART SG for a second year running, and the organisers say visitors can move freely between the two events.
Students Take the Studio
The UBS Art Studio belongs to UBS, ART SG’s founding and lead partner. Through its community initiative UBS Art for All, the bank is working with Pathlight School to present an interactive experience built with students from the school’s Artist Development Programme (ADP). The ADP identifies and nurtures students’ artistic talents through mentorship by professional artists, and the studio gives these young artists a public platform to share their work with visitors.
Make this an early stop. A fair of this size can feel built for collectors, and this corner hands the floor to student artists instead. The same studio holds HYBRID PROMISE, an immersive installation by French-Indonesian artist Ines Katamso, commissioned by the UBS Art Collection, about ecology, resource extraction and contemporary development.
Dinner in a Rice Warehouse
Beyond the fair, ART SG and Artspace Sydney are co-presenting Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak‘s How We Hold What’s Possible. Movement II at 72-13. The heritage former rice warehouse is now home to arts company T:>Works. Curated by Artspace executive director Victor Wang, the project turns the building into a living environment about nourishment, rest and gathering. Works including Noon-Nom, Ma-lai and Gathering Tables sit among plants, performances, conversations, workshops and communal meals.
It runs from 21 to 31 January, with an opening on 20 January, according to the organisers. That’s the longest window in ART SG’s programme, which makes it the easiest stop to fit around school or work. Sanpitak and Wang will discuss her practice and this exhibition at ART SG PERSPECTIVES, the fair’s talks series.
One Night at Golden Mile Tower
ART SG’s FILM programme moves inside the fair for the first time this year, on a double-sided 4 by 4-metre LED screen. It also heads out to Filmhouse for the world premiere of Dawn Ng’s The Last Sunset. The 30-minute live cinema performance pairs Ng’s time-lapse film of a vast hemisphere of frozen pigment, collapsing like a setting sun, with an original score by Welsh composer Alex Mills. A live choir sings from among the audience, and four of the anthology’s 10 chapters will screen, narrated by a global cast that includes Tilda Swinton.
The venue is half the story. Filmhouse is the venue partner. Ng said “a cinema that is facing its own sunset feels like the only place it could begin,” and a film about endings, screened in a cinema facing its own, is reason enough to make the trip.
According to the organisers, the premiere is on Friday, 22 January 2027 at Filmhouse.
Who’s on the Walls
For those who come to look, returning names include White Cube, Thaddaeus Ropac, Galerie Gisela Capitain and neugerriemschneider. First-timers include Nova Contemporary from Bangkok and Ruth Benzacar Galeria de Arte from Buenos Aires. The two newcomers worth hunting down are Chilli (London) and Danfe Arts (Kathmandu) in FUTURES, the sector for emerging artists, where one artist will receive the US$10,000 ART SG FUTURES Prize Presented by UBS.
Singapore-based galleries FOST Gallery, Yeo Workshop and Haridas Contemporary are returning as well, so homegrown names will be on the floor. Our look at the 2025 edition covered the fair’s talks programme. This time, the best moments happen away from the walls.
🗓️ Date: 22 to 24 January 2027 (VIP Preview and Vernissage on 21 January)
📍 Location: Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore
🎟️ Tickets: Available on the ART SG tickets page
🔗 Details: S.E.A. Focus runs alongside ART SG at the same venue
ART SG 2027 is at its best when you stop browsing and pull up a chair: a cafe stool in S.E.A. Focus, a communal table at 72-13 or a seat beside a singing choir at Filmhouse. Fair passes are on the ART SG tickets page, so lock in your January dates and bring the friend who swears contemporary art isn’t for them!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of ART SG and Andrea Rego Barros; photo by Arabelle Zhuang. Courtesy of S.E.A. Focus.
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