Where to see the best art this week (Nov 13)

Buying your first work of art in 2025 is going to be a little more affordable – if you use the SG Culture Pass to offset the entry price ($28 a ticket; $13.50 for seniors 60 and above and full-time students) into the 2025 Affordable Art Fair.

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, art work prices are capped at $15,000. In 2025, 75 per cent of the art will be priced $7,500 and below, inclusive of 9 per cent GST. With 95 participating galleries, it is the largest edition of the fair since 2019.

There are galleries from Singapore – including artcommune gallery, which focuses on pioneer artists – as well as galleries from Asia such as South Korea, Japan, India and Thailand, and farther afield, from Peru and Cyprus.

Do not miss the Ubah Rumah Art Residency Showcase, its name means “home of change” and the island on nearby Nikoi Island draws inspiration from the nomadic culture of the orang laut and the region’s maritime history. Six visual artists and a collaborative video work from the residency will be on show.

Families with young children can look forward to Children’s Art Studio by Art Wonderland. The hands-on activities will invite children to see themselves as Singapore’s visionary architects and dream up futuristic landscapes. There are also workshops for adults by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, including free ones on collage, silkscreen printing and Japanese pastel nagomi art.

Take your time to look at the art and then pause for a food break. Food vendors at the 2025 fair are Cafe by Group Therapy, Chimichanga, Si Chuan Dou Hua, The Living Cafee, Cult Sliders and Khao.

Where: F1 Pit Building, 1 Republic Boulevard
MRT: Promenade
When: Nov 13, 2 to 10pm (by invitation only); Nov 14, 11am to 9pm; Nov 15 and 16, 10am to 7pm
Admission: Till Nov 13, $24; and from Nov 14, $28; $13.50 for full-time students or seniors 60 and above
Info:

Art collector Justin Low, 48, has overhauled the living room in his home at The Paterson Edge into a by-appointment-only art show. He has invited 18 queer artists – friends he knows, artists he collects – to create new works for sale for this one-of-a-kind exhibition.

Its title, Everything And Nothing Has Changed, is a quiet gesture to what has or has not changed since the announcement of the repeal of the colonial sodomy law Section 377A in 2022. The show’s queer theme primarily features the gay male body – by turns languorous and frisky – and settings of the bar, gym, park and home.

On why he is curating the show at his home, Mr Low – chief communications officer for Omnicom Media Group – tells The Straits Times: “A lot of themes around the show – the themes around identity, around queerness – I feel needs to happen in a space where there’s a lot of intimacy, where people feel safe enough to have conversations in.”

Singaporean artist Alvin Ong was the first artist to jump on the project, says Mr Low. Ong’s portrait work New Friend, Old Songs (2025) features the artist’s signature melancholic disfigurations of the body, as well as a reference to Mandopop singer Tanya Chua.

Another highlight is the still life of a watermelon by Singaporean artist Johann Fauzi – its pectoral of watermelon oozes eroticism and subtly suggests the male form. Singaporean artist Jimmy Ong’s charcoal on paper sketch imagines a utopian conch-like architectural form on Fort Road, where 12 men were entrapped in a raid in 1993.

There are plenty of names to discover here where collector becomes curator. Burmese artist Richie Nath’s cycle of gouache on watercolour paper works are a visual delight – reimagining scenes of Western art history in queer, colourful style. Brazilian artist Renan Estivan’s tufted tapestries of nude men lend a delicate touch to muscular bodies.

One imagines such a show would be difficult to stage in a public gallery. Mr Low and producer Chua Ching Yi hope to make this an annual show, given the resounding interest from the art community.

Where: 26 Paterson Road, unit number will be given after an appointment has been made
MRT: Orchard
When: Till Nov 20; 11am to 6pm (Wednesday to Sunday)
Admission: Free
Info: Make an appointment at

Men pushing wheelbarrows to transport children after low-lying areas in Singapore were flooded in 1956. A tearful Lee Kuan Yew announcing Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965. A Bangladeshi migrant worker’s watery eyes after a nasopharyngeal swab during Covid-19 in 2020. An umbrella wedged between a bus and a bus stop on a rainy evening in 2025.

These are just a few of the more than 250 photos on display at Singapore Stories: The Heart Of A Nation, an exhibition of photographs taken by The Straits Times photojournalists past and present. The show, jointly organised by ST and the Photographic Society of Singapore, is held in conjunction with ST 180th anniversary celebrations.

Divided into three sections – The Early Years, The Birth Of A Nation and From Third World To First – the exhibition offers a visual history of Singapore, taking the viewer through the mundane and the magical. Every frame hides a sharp eye, a decisive finger and a brilliant story in this wide-ranging show.

The stories also move beyond Singapore. Former ST photographer Aziz Hussin’s photo of a flattened Aceh in the aftermath of the deadly 2004 tsunami is also on show.

: “They sent me to take photos. I had to file the pictures in time.”

Where: Selegie Arts Centre, 30 Selegie Road
MRT: Dhoby Ghaut
When: Till Nov 23, 11am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free
Info: