Singapore

In the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, ART SG opened its fourth edition on January 22, mirroring last year’s scale with over 100 galleries from 30 countries and territories. The atmosphere was notably less guarded and more inquisitive than the cautious tenor of the fair’s 2025 edition.

SEA Focus, now fully integrated into the main event, offered a sharper representation of Southeast Asian practices. Meanwhile, in the Platform section, large-scale installations by Lee Bae, Bingyi, and Jitish Kallat, among other artists, emphasized scale and conceptual rigor. Citra Sasmita’s Bedtime Stories, presented by Yeo Workshop, invited visitors to recline on carpets and cushions to admire two hovering kamasan scrolls. As Sasmita’s hand-shaped textile remnant, Cosmic Dance 2 (2025), sold for SGD 32,000 (USD 25,360) at the VIP preview, there was further institutional interest in the main installation work priced at SGD 120,000 (USD 95,110).

Among the performances, John Clang’s Reading by an Artist (2023– ) at FOST Gallery limned a real-time metaphysical portrait of the sitter and their lived experiences. During the vernissage, Melati Suryodarmo restaged her iconic five-hour endurance piece, I Love You (2007), with ShanghART’s SEA Focus booth additionally displaying photographs of the artist’s 2018 rendition in Beijing.