“Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art” — National Gallery Singapore Redraws the Map of Art History in its 10th Anniversary Reimagining

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SINGAPORE — July 10, 2025. In a resounding symphony of brushstrokes, pigments, and profound narratives, National Gallery Singapore is about to turn the page of history—not just to a new chapter, but a reimagined manuscript of what Singaporean art has meant across generations.

As Singapore celebrates its 60th year of independence, and the Gallery marks its own decade of influence, the curtain is rising on “Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art” — a sprawling, ambitious, and deeply introspective exhibition that redefines how the island nation’s artistic journey is remembered, reclaimed, and retold.

Opening fully on 18 July 2025, this long-term exhibition is the first major rehang of the DBS Singapore Gallery since its inception in 2015. But it’s more than just a facelift. This is a radical reorientation—one that threads inclusivity, vulnerability, and innovation into the heart of the nation’s creative memory.

The Bold Rethinking of a National Narrative

At its core, Singapore Stories is a defiant departure from linear, sanitized versions of art history. Instead, it dares to wander down the backroads — the side paths of resistance, experiment, marginalization, and rediscovery. The exhibition spans the 19th century to the present day, featuring over 400 artworks and artefacts—some iconic, others obscured until now. What emerges is a living, breathing archive of artists who have made, taught, shared, and lived art in Singapore.

“Art is not just a mirror of progress—it is a map of detours, doubts, and discovery,” says Dr. Eugene Tan, Chief Executive Officer and Director of National Gallery Singapore. “In Singapore Stories, we invite the public to see themselves not just in the final paintings, but in the choices, struggles, and questions that shaped them.”

From Colonial Canvas to Contemporary Voices

The exhibition is rolled out in phases—its first chapter debuted in December 2024, tracing early artistic identities shaped by colonial rule and the tremors of independence. The full reveal this July carries visitors into the post-independence era, where the pressures of urban transformation, shifting policies, and an evolving sense of nationhood provoked artists to break away from tradition and forge bold, new expressions.

Sections like Expanding Horizons and Presence explore how pioneering modernists such as Cheong Soo Pieng and Khoo Sui Hoe interpreted change through semi-abstraction. Meanwhile, artists like Georgette Chen and Ng Eng Teng grounded their work in portraiture and still life, reflecting emotional constancy amid national upheaval.

From the Liberating Form and Colour to Vectors of the New, the exhibition traces how artists like Ho Ho Ying, Kim Lim, and Eng Tow broke conventions with form, materials, and meaning. Even commercial art gets its due, with figures like Kwan Shan Mei and Choy Weng Yang reintroduced not just as illustrators, but cultural influencers who helped shape a visual vocabulary for a young Singapore.

The Body, The Collective, The Future

In Body, Self and Other, art becomes a stage for identity and gender discourse. Figures like Solamalay Namasivayam and Amanda Heng interrogate the body’s presence in public space, memory, and political power.

The pulse of the 1980s and 90s is captured in Coming Together for Art and A Space of their Own — where collectives like The Artists Village and Plastique Kinetic Worms created space for alternative practices, challenging hierarchical structures of the art world. These were the rebels, the risk-takers, the community-builders — all vital to understanding art not as product, but as process.

Where Art Meets Artificial Intelligence

The final gallery, Navigating the Interdisciplinary, leaps into the now — and the next. A highlight is the new commission by performance artist Amanda Heng titled Let’s Chat Further (2025). Here, art becomes interactive, holographic, and AI-powered. What begins as live-streamed conversations evolves into chats with “Retired Singirl”, an AI-based persona that merges memory, technology, and cultural critique.

This is no longer just an exhibit. It is a portal, asking: What does it mean to speak to the past when the future is listening?

Hidden Stories, New Spaces: Dalam Singapore

Also unveiled is Dalam Singapore, a rotating annex series that magnifies forgotten names and quieter contributions. Its inaugural show, Tchang Ju Chi: Tireless Camel, resurrects the legacy of an early 20th-century trailblazer, unseen in public view for over five decades. Through meticulous curation and innovative programming, Dalam Singapore insists that the “minor” stories of art are just as monumental as the celebrated.

A Shared Cultural Inheritance

“This exhibition captures the ever-evolving nature of our nation’s art history,” says Ms. Karen Ngui, Head of DBS Foundation. “It reflects the rich cultural fabric that defines Singapore.” For a bank whose roots are intertwined with the nation’s industrialisation, the partnership in reanimating Singapore’s artistic roots feels like a full-circle moment.

More Than an Exhibition — A Cultural Reckoning

As National Gallery Singapore stands at the crossroads of its first decade, Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art is not merely a look back. It is a clarion call to see beyond timelines and titles — and to embrace a messier, more honest mosaic of what it means to create.

For Singaporeans and Southeast Asians alike, the exhibition serves as an urgent reminder that art is not elite. It is not remote. It is lived. It is layered. And most of all, it belongs to all of us.

“Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art” fully opens on 18 July 2025 at National Gallery Singapore. Entry is free for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents with a General Admission pass. For more details, visit www.nationalgallery.sg/SingaporeStories

Come for the masterpieces. Stay for the conversations.

Because every detour tells a story — and this time, it's Singapore's turn to speak.

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