National Gallery Singapore Celebrates Its 10th Birthday With A Weekend Of Art, Music, And Food!

Celebrate a decade of art and inspiration at the Gallery’s 10th Birthday Bash this November.

Venue: National Gallery Singapore
Date: 15 & 16 Nov 2025
Time: 10am – 10pm daily
Fee: Free Admission (registration required for selected programmes)

National Gallery Singapore’s 10th Birthday Bash: A Weekend Of Art, Music & Food!

Home to the world’s largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art, National Gallery Singapore officially turns 10 this year. Since its opening in 2015, the Gallery has welcomed over 14 million visitors and become a dynamic civic space where people encounter art, exchange ideas, and create shared memories.

Over the years, it has brought to life crowd-pulling exhibitions such as Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow and Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America, while spearheading festivals like Light to Night Singapore and the Gallery Children’s Biennale.

To celebrate this special milestone, National Gallery Singapore will be throwing a big birthday bash on 15 and 16 November 2025! The Gallery will come alive with art, music, food, performances, and fun for the whole family — open from 10am to 10pm each day. Families can also enjoy free admission to more than 10 exhibitions throughout the weekend.

General Programmes

Gallery Turns 10: Celebrating with Cake

Venue: Padang Atrium
Date: 15 Nov 2025
Time: 10am – 11am
Fee: $20 per person (donation to Gallery)

The Gallery kicks off its 10th Anniversary celebrations on a sweet note! Because what’s a birthday without cake? For a small fee which will be donated to the Gallery, visitors can enjoy cake (available till 11am, or while stocks last) and be among the first to soak in the festivities.

In partnership with hospitality chains, as well as familiar favourites and exciting new names in the bakery scene, this celebration is a tasty tribute to the Gallery’s role as a space for art, community, and shared joy over the past decade.

Birthday Bash Market

Venue: Supreme Court Terrace
Date: 15 & 16 Nov 2025
Time: 10am – 7pm
Fee: Free Admission

Discover limited-edition merchandise created in collaboration with 13 renowned brands, specially designed to celebrate the Gallery’s 10th anniversary. From Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie’s artisanal flavours inspired by artworks and Curious Creatures’ jewellery echoing architectural motifs, to Rocket Eyewear’s sunglasses in bold colourways and Orientalist Spirits’ special-edition gin and whisky, each creation reimagines the Gallery’s identity in unique, collectible forms. Joining them are The 1925 Brewing Co., ANS.EIN, Binary Style, Bynd Artisan, CLiZ, Leica, Sea Apple, Still Goods, and Supermama - together capturing a decade of creativity and community. All items can be purchased at the pop-up market, held across two days at the Supreme Court Terrace.

Your Gallery Memory: Community Photography Showcase

Venue: Supreme Court Terrace
Date: 15 & 16 Nov 2025
Time: 10am – 7pm
Fee: Free Admission

As part of National Gallery Singapore’s 10th anniversary, members of the public shared photos capturing their most meaningful moments at the Gallery – from favourite artworks and quiet corners to celebrations with family and friends. Selected entries will be showcased online and onsite, celebrating the Gallery as a space for art, community, and connection over the past decade.

Artsplaining: 10th Anniversary Edition

Venue: Various locations around the Gallery
Date & Time: 

• 15 Nov 2025: 11.30am - Liu Ling Ling
• 15 Nov 2025: 3pm - Shazza
• 16 Nov 2025: 11.30am - Kishan
• 16 Nov 2025: 5pm - Gurmit Singh
  

Fee: Free, registration required

What happens when comedians, cultural personalities, and everyday Singaporeans give their unfiltered take on art? Artsplaining is a light-hearted, dialogue-driven programme that invites well-loved local personalities to share humorous, candid, and relatable perspectives on selected artworks and spaces in the Gallery. Paired with a Gallery specialist, each session blends entertainment with insight, breaking down barriers to art appreciation and showing that art can be for everyone. Think of it as an open, playful conversation where curiosity leads the way.

KCAE After Dark: Grown-Ups Only!

Venue: Keppel Centre for Art Education (KCAE)
Date: 15 Nov 2025
Time: 7.30pm – 10pm
Fee: Free Admission

Because grown-ups deserve to play too! For one night only, the Keppel Centre for Art Education transforms into an after-hours playground just for adults. Step into the immersive installations, let loose with a live DJ set, and sip on an ice-cold drink as you rediscover art, creativity, and the childlike wonder within us all.

Sketch Chapter: 10th Anniversary Edition

Venue: Rotunda Library & Supreme Court Terrace Balcony
Date: 16 Nov 2025
Time: 11am – 12.30pm
Fee: $15 per person (Early bird promotion from 13 – 27 Oct), $20 per person thereafter

Sketch Chapter: 10th Anniversary Edition is an interdisciplinary programme celebrating the Gallery’s heritage architecture through accessible sketching sessions. Set in the Rotunda Library and Supreme Court Terrace, participants explore the building’s history while developing creative confidence. Presented with the NAFA Centre for Lifelong Learning, Sketch Chapter combines guidance and mentorship with the Gallery’s unique environment, offering a vibrant platform for experiential learning, artistic expression, and cultural appreciation.

This pilot edition features a special three-hour session, beginning with a guided introduction to basic sketching techniques before opening into free sketching time across the Gallery’s iconic spaces. Bookings are available through the NAFA’s Centre for Lifelong Learning website.

Gallery Rave: Day Edition by Exposure Therapy

Venue: Supreme Court Terrace
Date: 16 Nov 2025
Time: 2pm – 6pm
Fee: Free Admission

This pop-up music experience turns the Gallery into a cultural playground – where art, music, movement, and matcha culture collide. Expect bold beats, good vibes, and Southeast Asian sounds across genres, with a curated DJ lineup spinning all afternoon.

Come and go as you please – lounge with a drink in hand, dance, or simply soak in the atmosphere. As part of the Gallery’s 10th Anniversary celebration, this is your space to vibe, unwind, and reconnect.

Programmes for the Little Ones

Messy Morning for the Little Ones

Venue: Keppel Centre for Art Education
Date: 15 Nov 2025
Time: 10.30am – 11.30am
Fee: $15 per parent-child

Come celebrate the Gallery’s 10th Birthday with a cake-themed Messy Morning! Little ones aged 3–5 will get to explore, play, and create through hands-on, sensory fun. And yes – it’s going to get delightfully messy! Because what’s a party without a little cake and creativity?

Paws & Paint: Animal Face and Hand Painting Fun

Venue: Keppel Centre for Art Education
Date: 15 & 16 Nov 2025
Time: 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Fee: Free Admission

Did you know there are animals hiding in the artworks of our National Collection? Visit the Gallery to spot them with your family – and then let our amazing face and hand painting artist transform you into your favourite animal for the day!

Exhibitions with Free Admission for Gallery’s 10th Birthday Bash

Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Venue: City Hall Wing, Level 3, Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries 1, 2 & 3

Explore the revolutionary world of Impressionism through iconic works by Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cézanne, and Degas, never before exhibited in Singapore. Developed by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in collaboration with National Gallery Singapore, this landmark exhibition will highlight the continuing relevance of Impressionism through themes of urban life, gender, land and environment, expressing the emergence of modernity from the unique perspective of the artists. Don’t miss the opportunity to witness these groundbreaking artworks up close and experience the enduring impact of Impressionism in the largest exhibition of its kind in Southeast Asia.

Fernando Zóbel: Order is Essential

Venue: Level 4, Wu Guanzhong Gallery and Level 4 Gallery, City Hall Wing

Fernando Zóbel: Order is Essential is National Gallery Singapore's first solo exhibition on the transcontinental artist, thinker and art patron who was active in Asia, North America and Europe. Born in the Philippines to Spanish parents, Zóbel shaped a language in international abstraction that instilled the vital beauty of order in the unpredictable creative process. The exhibition highlights Zóbel’s unique artistic practice and contribution to modernism globally. The exhibition is an iteration expanding on the Zóbel: The Future of the Past exhibition, which was held at the Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain (2022) and in Ayala Museum, Manila, Philippines (2024).

Singapore Stories: Pathways & Detours in Art

Venue: City Hall Wing, Level 2, DBS Singapore Gallery

Singapore Stories: Pathways & Detours in Art presents a layered, ever-changing story of Singapore's art history, continually questioning itself: Whose story is this? Where is home? What is new? Who is looking? What is art for? These stories, told through different perspectives, offer us ways to relook at how Singapore’s art history has been written and what has been left out.

Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century

Venue: Level 3–5, UOB Southeast Asia Gallery, Supreme Court Wing

Starting in the mid-1800s, this exhibition takes you on a journey through Southeast Asian art, showing how local artists continually embraced new ideas and styles. They redefined what art could be while keeping the essence of their cultural traditions alive.

As you explore the exhibit, you’ll follow a timeline that highlights major shifts in artistic expression, revealing how closely art is tied to the region's rich and ever-changing social and political history.

The curatorial narrative explores four main themes in a broadly chronological sequence, each one examining the shared artistic impulse of the region for each period: Authority and Anxiety, Imagining Country and Self, Manifesting the Nation, and Re:Defining Art.

Diplomacy and Desire: Basoeki Abdullah in Singapore

Venue: Supreme Court Wing, Level 3, UOB Southeast Asia Gallery, Dalam Southeast Asia

Diplomacy and Desire is an exhibition about Basoeki Abdullah (1915-1993) and the beautiful women and powerful people he sought to represent through his artworks. The exhibition considers the relationship between Basoeki Abdullah’s mobilization of his artworks as ‘diplomatic’ gifts and his fame as a ‘master’ society painter - a painter of ‘beautiful women’. It is fascinating to consider the dialectic between his work as a 'commercial' painter and his agency as a regional cultural producer, who not only actively sought out his subjects but was also acutely aware of the geopolitical significance of his artworks' circulation.

Dalam Collection: Where Ink Tides Meet

Venue: Level B1, City Hall Wing, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery

National Gallery Singapore presents Where Ink Tides Meet, the inaugural exhibition of Dalam Collection, a long-term exhibition series anchored by works from the National Collection. As part of the Gallery’s experimental Dalam project space, the series offers curators, designers, and fabricators a platform to present and engage with artworks and expand the utilisation of National Collection works.

The exhibition showcases over 50 new acquisitions and rarely seen works, underscoring the Gallery’s ongoing commitment to research and collecting in the field of ink art. Highlights include influential artists such as Chen Wen Hsi, Lim Tze Peng, Liu Kang, and Wu Guanzhong, alongside striking ink works by Richard Walker, Fernando Zóbel, Latiff Mohidin, Tang Da Wu, and Nguyễn Minh Thành, as well as recent donations by contemporary artist Hong Zhu An.

Dalam Singapore: Tchang Ju Chi: Tireless Camel

Venue: City Hall Wing, Level 2, Dalam Singapore

With Tchang Ju Chi (张汝器) being a prominent and pioneering figure in Singapore from 1927-1942, his works were critically acclaimed by many of his contemporaries - Xu Beihong, Chen Chong Swee, and Liu Kang. Likening himself and other artists to a camel trudging tirelessly with slow but sure steps to fulfil a significant mission, this exhibition brings together more than fifteen rarely seen artworks for the first time in over fifty years, alongside archival materials and reproduced cartoons that highlight Tchang’s life and practice.

Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission - Temple by Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Venue: Level 5, Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Gallery, City Hall Wing

Reflecting on the idea of reincarnation, Tuan Andrew Nyugen’s Temple is a continuation of a research project that began in 2020 that investigated the effects and the surplus of UXO in Vietnam’s central region. The large sculpture, almost architectural in size and form, will not only house large “bomb bells” that are defused M117 bombshells dropped by American B52’s, but an ensemble of round plate bells cast from defused UXO. A kinetic mechanism resembling mobiles will harness wind force to activate the bells, creating sounds without human intervention, creating a meditative space.

OUTBOUND II: Angin Cloud by Art Labor

Venue: Padang Atrium

Angin Cloud imagines the rural industrialisation of a hill side from Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Pairing Jrai wood sculptures and suspended pillars that recall farming structures for growing pepper vine, the installation references ‘angin’, a Jrai concept for the dynamic potential for change found in water and air.

Art Labor (founded 2012) including Thao Nguyen Phan, Truong Cong Tung & Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran is an artist collective based in Ho Chi Minh City, who work in between visual arts, social and life sciences in various public contexts and locales.

OUTBOUND II: Eidolon by Vong Phaophanit & Claire Oboussier

Venue: Coleman Street Entrance, City Hall Wing

The title, Eidolon, is derived from the Greek word for phantom, implying an image/idea as one. Eidolon points to a haunting, a spectral occupation of space, how other histories can return to disrupt official narratives.

Lengths of beaded link-chain create an immense layered veil. The double layer of chains will result in a kind of optical interference or moiré effect. Depending on the viewer’s position, the density of the veil changes - from visually porous to denser and less permeable.

Gallery Children’s Biennale 2025: Tomorrow We’ll Be...

Venue: Various locations around National Gallery Singapore

The Gallery Children's Biennale has been a key programme of National Gallery Singapore since 2017, embodying the Gallery's commitment to inspiring young, curious minds with art. It aims to explore the many ways that children can learn and play while also engaging more with the world around them. 

The fifth edition of Gallery Children's Biennale focuses on the sentiments of looking towards the future in the theme, "Tomorrow We'll Be...". Children and adults are invited to explore a world built upon core values of joy, kindness, dream, and love through eight interactive and immersive artworks by both local and regional artists, as well as a series of fun and engaging programmes throughout the Biennale period.

Listening to Architecture: The Gallery’s Histories and Transformations

Venue: Level 4, ArchiGallery, City Hall Wing

Discover the Gallery buildings – comprising City Hall and former Supreme Court – as masterpieces in their own right. These iconic monuments,steeped in culture and history, have witnessed many defining moments in Singapore's journey to nationhood. After an ambitious ten-year renovation, they are now a unified space that houses Southeast Asian art. As you explore this exhibition that spans two galleries and a walkway, consider the evolving architecture of these buildings as a conversation between different generations.

Founders’ Memorial presents Not Mere Spectators: The Makings of Multicultural Singapore

Venue: City Hall Chamber, Level 3, City Hall Wing

The Not Mere Spectators Experience explores the makings of multiculturalism in Singapore. By presenting the tensions faced by the founding generation in becoming one united people, it challenges audiences to reflect on the value of multiculturalism, how it came to be, and continues to be, foundational to Singapore's unity and progress, and their role in shaping it for the future.

Hosted at National Gallery Singapore, within two national monuments, the exhibition underscores the Gallery’s unique place in the nation’s history, connecting Singapore’s founding story to the very buildings that have witnessed its journey.

Tasty Treats and Familiar Flavours for the Whole Family

Families can also enjoy nostalgic treats — like a MILO van, an Old Chang Kee Mobile Food Truck, as well as traditional treats such as tutu kueh and ice-cream served the classic way – inviting visitors to savour familiar flavours while creating new memories. 

The Gallery’s restaurants will also join in the celebrations with special promotions and dining deals throughout the weekend.

Join the Celebration

Whether you’re an art lover, foodie, or family looking for a creative weekend out, National Gallery Singapore’s 10th Birthday Bash promises something for everyone.

Mark your calendars — 15 & 16 November 2025, from 10am to 10pm. Step into a world of art, music, food, and imagination, and celebrate a decade of creativity and connection at the heart of Singapore’s cultural scene.

Visit for the full programme line-up and registration details, visit the official website.