The Private Museum is pleased to present Shadows, Signals, and the Line: Abstract Expressionism in Singapore. The exhibition explores the development of abstraction in Singapore, bringing together works by sixteen Singaporean artists working in that visual language, and chronicling their responses to the cultural and material conditions of a rapidly modernising nation.
The exhibition title recognises abstraction not as a fixed style, but a negotiation between influence and invention, clarity and ambiguity. As a sensibility grounded in subtlety, tactility, and the quiet resonance of form, the line becomes both gesture and structure, and shadow sharpens perception.
Emerging in the 1970s and 80s, abstraction in Singapore developed in dialogue with both regional legacies and international movements. Building on the foundations of the Nanyang school, artists moved beyond representation to explore form, gesture, and material as primary carriers of meaning, engaging global influences while reconfiguring them within local contexts.
Through works informed by calligraphic gesture, geometric discipline, and material sensitivity, the exhibition highlights the diverse approaches that have shaped abstraction in Singapore. It invites viewers to consider how abstraction is inseparable from cultural thinking and lived experience—where form carries memory, and meaning unfolds through the act of looking.
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The exhibition will run from 29 May to 23 August 2026.
In conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2026, The Private Museum is pleased to present Human Being Human: Selections from the Collection of John and Cheryl Chia. Kickstarting The Private Museum’s 2026 programming, this exhibition invites contemplation on the human experience.
The exhibition title, Human Being Human, frames this contemplation as a moment of possibility: our lives are continually defined by the search for identity, the quiet, persistent aspiration for fundamental purity and goodness, even as we navigate a world characterised by upheaval. This exploration is filtered through works that focus on the human body, or the inescapable bodily experience, recognising it as the most immediate and vulnerable site of our existence.
Drawn from the private collection of John and Cheryl Chia, this collector showcase offers a contemplation of the human condition—the singular, inescapable journey shared by all. The exhibition attempts to contextualise this journey through four conceptual chapters, broadly capturing the sub-themes of Stateless, State, Statehood, and Rebirth, thereby analysing the collection of artworks that traces the human trajectory toward identity.
John and Cheryl Chia acquired their inaugural pieces of artwork approximately 25 years ago, while serving as medical officers. What began as an initial, inquisitive engagement swiftly evolved into a profound passion for learning about and interacting with art. Over the ensuing decades, this dedication has culminated in a compelling collection of works that they find both intellectually stimulating and culturally resonant.
As Cheryl Chia aptly states: “We are drawn to art that reflects our times, that reflects our experiences…(Art) it is an extension of our experiences, our thoughts, our ideas. It comes from somebody else, but it makes up the world that we live in. And we live in the here and now…”, inspiring audiences to explore how art can illuminate the complexities of contemporary existence.
The exhibition will run from 19 January to 26 April 2026.
Marking Singapore’s 60th year of independence, The Private Museum closes its year with a landmark exhibition bringing together 60 Singaporean and Singapore-based artists in a profound reflection of the Singapore spirit, in conjunction with Singapore’s 60th year of independence. The title draws from the closing words of the National Pledge, written in 1966 to unite a young and diverse nation. In this exhibition, “happiness, prosperity, and progress” are not fixed destinations but open questions. What do these words mean in 2025, and how do they resonate in our daily lives?
Shaped by a myriad of curatorial perspectives by six curators, the exhibition unfolds as a set of artistic conversations. Some works reflect on belonging, care, and vulnerability; others explore histories, stories, and names that shape how we understand ourselves. Everyday culture, sightseeing, humour, and local codes appear alongside more universal expressions of identity and memory. Themes of loss and reconnection surface too, asking what it takes to feel present again. Elsewhere, ideas of home, virtue, and lived experience open space for multiple ways of being Singaporean.
Together, these works do not define the Singapore Spirit but trace its many expressions. They suggest that happiness, prosperity, and progress are not endpoints, but ongoing practices revisited across generations, renewed through art, and shared by all who call Singapore home.
Towards Happiness, Prosperity & Progress: Reflections on the Singapore Spirit is the final instalment of The Private Museum’s 2025 programming—offering a fitting closure to a year of artistic and cultural exploration.
The exhibition will run from 2 October to 7 December 2025.
The Private Museum is pleased to present As One Thing Flows To Another, curated by guest curator Ng Hui Hsien. The exhibition reimagines culture, heritage, and traditions in contemporary contexts—connecting an expansive range of artistic forms through multidisciplinary collaborations. It explores the works of eight visual artists, and features special collaborations with leading Singaporean music charity, The TENG Company as well as Photographer and Author, Dr Chua Yang, daughter of Cultural Medallion recipient Chua Mia Tee. The exhibition celebrates the 20th anniversary of The TENG Company and the launch of the second book in the Women Inspiring Women series by Dr Chua Yang.
As One Thing Flows To Another explores the eight graces within Chinese culture: music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine, flowers, and tea. Each of these elements carries a long history and profound philosophies in Chinese culture, evoking images of leisure, serenity, and refinement. Historically, they served as cultural capital, conferring status on practitioners within the realm of the literati. During ancient China, the term “six arts” developed to encapsulate some of these elements, and later, the term “four arts” emerged. In more recent times, the umbrella term “eight graces” is used.
Such observations highlight the creative evolution of language and culture. Embracing the idea of change and departing from a historical understanding, As One Thing Flows To Another reimagines the eight graces in our contemporary context, drawing inspiration from their modern associations. In this exhibition, artworks intertwine and diverge in their characteristics, forming loose and free connections that weave together broad themes of nature, everyday life, and nationhood in contemporary times.
As One Thing Flows To Another invites visitors to experience moments of inspiration, humour, and contemplation, aiming to foster a renewed appreciation for the fluidity of cultural elements and the bending of conventions that shape our world.
The exhibition will be run from 10 August to 22 September 2024.
Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.
Download our exhibition press release here.
The Private Museum Singapore is pleased to present Make Yourself at Home: A Glimpse into All Welcoming Scenarios, an exhibition at a special interim location, a private residence, since it moved out of its previous home. Having been preparing for its relocation to 11 Upper Wilkie Road, it was also a time for introspection, ruminating on what it means to be ‘The Private Museum’.
The conceptualisation of the exhibition began in part as an existential query into the meaning behind why The Private Museum was founded, and continues to pose similar questions to the public through a multi-focal approach. The exhibition is carved into two parts that correspond to the disciplines of art and design, offering a glimpse of the museum’s upcoming programmes at its new home, which is projected for its inaugural launch in the second half of 2023, on top of its ongoing developments in design and branding.
Revisiting the museum’s key platforms, the exhibition features selected works and practices by artists from Singapore and the Asia Pacific such as Kumari Nahappan, Natee Utarit, Ian de Souza, Andy Yang, and independent curator John Tung. Within the design and branding presentation are an interactive and research-driven showcase presented in collaboration with local design studio Currency as well as a dollhouse model of the museum’s new home, designed by the award-winning WOHA Architects, and produced by Integrus Model.
Drawing from the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s ethics of hospitality, Make Yourself at Home is a double entendre that not only reflects the roots of the museum as a hosting ground for open collaboration with art practitioners and home for private collections, but also the ‘hospitality’ that is shown when a host welcomes guests into their living abode or art space. The locale of the exhibition being in a home is itself an enactment of one such welcoming scenario, serving as an apt reminder of the importance of patronage.
“In order to constitute the space of a habitable house and a home, you also need an opening, a door and windows… a passage to the outside world / to the stranger” says Derrida of hospitality. The exhibition invites viewers to embark on their journey of reflection—whether as a first-time visitor or a devoted museum-goer—to really consider what the words ‘The’ ‘Private’ ‘Museum’ put together as an entity in the arts eco-system could be for them.
This exhibition will run from 7 January to 26 March 2023.
Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.
The Private Museum presents ZUL: SONICALLY EXPOSED, a new body of works created over the past 3 years since ZUL’s last solo exhibition in 2010. The established Singaporean sound artist will be presenting nine sound-reliefs, four sound sculptures, a sound installation and sketches, which are part of his working process, for the first time.
ZUL was formally trained as a sculptor and ventured into sound in 2006, creating multi-disciplinary works that combine visual and sound. He has conceptualized sound installations that define the denuded sense that few dare to explore. The artworks are bare; fixated on the amorphous medium produced. Each artwork also produces a different experience with the integration of the audience.
As part of the 49th National Day Celebrations, The Private Museum presents 舞: A Goh Soo Khim Collection, an exhibition showcasing the works collected by celebrated Singaporean ballet doyenne Goh Soo Khim. She has played a significant role in the development of dance in Singapore and has always been an avid art collector.
Evocative of the beauty and raw emotion of dance, this exhibition features eleven black and white artworks and a sound piece by Singaporean artists Chen Ke Zhan (b. 1959), Chua Ek Kay (1947 – 2008), Goh Beng Kwan (b.1937), Hong Zhu An (b. 1955), Zul Mahmod (b. 1975) and China artist Wang Lin Hai (b.1963). The collection is an expression of Soo Khim’s passion for the dualism of rhythm and movement, the very essence of dance. This dichromatic exhibition encapsulates the beauty and raw emotion of dance, extending beyond the dance stage and to the world of art.
The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present I am a CON artist: Continuous Contemplations of Justin Lee. The exhibition is a special collaboration between artist, collector and space, locating itself in two spaces with a main exhibition and special showcase happening in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2021.
Alongside a selection of past works from The Teng Collection, a new body of works will also be exhibited, building upon Justin Lee’s continuous contemplations on his identity as an artist and member of civil society. The artist employs visual and cultural references to provide social commentary on the perennial issues of consumerism and individualism, which in today’s digital age of instant gratifications and everyday glorifications become exponentially magnified.
Composed of paintings, text-based artefacts, performance and interactive art installation, the exhibition confronts its audience not only with the ceaseless forces of rapid globalisation and hyper digitalisation, but also challenges them to examine their individual complicity in glorifying and immortalising one’s self in the everyday.
Through this special collaboration, TPM expands beyond its scope as a home for private collectors by merging its artist and collector platforms to present the interconnectedness and intimate relationships that form between artists, collectors, art spaces, and their audiences.
Featuring Justin Lee’s monumental installations from The Teng Collection, the one-week special showcase reflects the artist’s expanding oeuvre that explores the themes of identity and socio-cultural norms in Singapore across a variety of mediums. The showcase forms part of the exhibition I am a CON artist: Continuous Contemplations of Justin Lee, happening in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2021.
In conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2020, The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present Emerging: Collecting Singapore Contemporary – Selections from the DUO Collection. As part of TPM’s 10th anniversary celebrations, the museum revisits its foundation of bridging the private and the public; this exhibition is the first in a series of five featuring an array of private collections in Singapore.
The DUO, whose collectors prefer to remain anonymous, started building their collection five years ago with a focus to support emerging artists in Singapore and Southeast Asia, though they have been collecting widely for more than a decade.
Emerging is the inaugural showcase of selected works collected in the past five years featuring 16 Singapore-based artists. These works reflect some of Singapore’s emerging urgencies in recent years by responding to themes of identity, migration, urbanisation, the environment, places and spaces. The exhibition seeks not only to stimulate new conversations on Singapore contemporary art through the lens of private collectors, but also to expand on their role in the art eco-system as imperative patrons of the arts.
“Building, structure, edifice. Home, office, organisation. Community, city, country. Shelter, safety, comfort. Identity, memory, history. 99-year lease, freehold, 3+3+3, Master Plan.”
The Private Museum Singapore (TPM) is pleased to present 3+3+3: On Condition—a group exhibition curated by Andrea Fam. This marks the third edition of TPM’s Guest Curator Platform—collaborating with guest curators to support and experiment with independent curatorial practice through the presentation of different perspectives of our world. This interdisciplinary exhibition will feature both new and ongoing works by five artists and architects including artist duo Finbarr Fallon & Claire Goh, Geraldine Kang, Michael Lee, Mervin Loh and Isabella Teng Yen Lin.
Our governing bodies, architects, invisible labour, civilians, new and temporary residents have seamlessly infused their own histories and intimate memories into the foundational and poignant blueprints of our small island nation. Borrowing its namesake from the commercial lease agreement under the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), 3+3+3 explores these unseen psycho-spatial associations and the complexities of our urban planning while musing on the ephemeral nature of space and place-making in our land-scarce city.
Through preparatory sketches, utopian models, performative engagements and satirical ‘white papers’, this exhibition is an open-ended invitation to reflect on our ever-evolving relationships with our urban environment. Engaging our different senses, these works contemplate notions of nostalgia and transience while considering the overlooked inhabitants of Singapore.
Having served as an independent arts platform for the past 11 years, 3+3+3 marks TPM’s last exhibition in our home at 51 Waterloo Street. Such is the life of built spaces in our metropolis—though they bestow us with character, identity and heritage, we confer them with impermanence and dispensability, provocating the question, “If buildings retain the lived histories imbued into them, shouldn’t we consider their embodied human spirit?”