The best art exhibitions in Bangkok this October

Belgian photographer Alain Callebaut brings two bodies of work to Old Town Gallery in Two Worldviews, One Vision. Bangkok Raw moves beyond the usual temple-and-skyline shots to rain-soaked streets, narrow alleys, markets, bridges and everyday moments caught between the crowds. His second collection, Make Women Happy All Over the World, uses light and shadow to explore the human form. Merchandise sales are billed as supporting local emerging artists, with part of the proceeds going to creative talent.

October 4-31. Free entry. Old Town Gallery. 10am-6pm.

Korakrit Arunanondchai’s Love After Death brings together moving images, performance footage and installation, drawing on earlier projects and scenes filmed in an abandoned cinema in Lopburi, inhabited by the city’s famous monkeys. Its fictional narration loosely follows the Lanna legend of Mang Si Hu Ha Ta, also known as Sihuhata, a mythical creature said to eat charcoal and excrete gold. Grief, rituals and spiritual belief recur, continuing an artistic journey that includes Songs for Living and Songs for Dying, both from 2021. Thermal-camera footage, sleeping bodies, taxidermied animals and ritual scenes are cut together like fragments of a strange film.

Until November 14. Free entry. Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Sathorn Soi 1. Thursday-Saturday 1pm-6pm.

Kitti Narod returns for his first solo exhibition in Thailand in five years with A Place We Share at Tang Contemporary Art. The familiar 9:16 proportions of a phone screen become large canvases filled with everyday scenes, pets, gender diversity, marriage equality and reworked mythology. His elongated figures and soft pastel colours turn ordinary moments and personal vulnerabilities into visions of a more equal society. A painting of life with his partner and cats makes that idea particularly tangible. Represented by Tang Contemporary Art, Kitti has exhibited in London, Manchester, Dublin, Melbourne and Singapore.

Until October 18. Free entry. Tang Contemporary Art Bangkok, second floor, River City Bangkok. Tuesday-Saturday 11am-7pm.

Art Battle Bangkok turns The Fig Lobby into a live painting competition, with artists starting from blank canvases and racing to finish each round in 20 minutes. Move around the easels with a drink, watch the work take shape to music and vote for your favourite when the brushes stop. The audience decides who advances and the finished paintings go up for auction. Keen to take an easel yourself? Apply online for a place rather than assuming you can join on the night.

October 17. B300 early bird, B350 advance, B450 at the door; B99 student tickets. Tickets. The Fig Lobby Bangkok. Doors 7pm; painting starts 8pm.

After more than 20 years working together across art, design, fashion and architecture, the creative duo behind L’Odyssée turns to personal memories. Developed for ATT 19 with an open brief, the exhibition explores moving countries and the things we carry with us, from photographs and objects to cultural references and emotions. Both artists work on the same surface to make the central two-metre-square pieces. They call these works ‘walls’, where colours, gestures and memories overlap, disappear and return.

October 8-November 29. Free entry. ATT 19. 11am-6pm.

The Irish Film Festival returns for its eighth edition, bringing contemporary drama and documentary to Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Organised by the Embassy of Ireland in Thailand, the programme includes Small Things Like These starring Cillian Murphy, Báite, Spilt Milk, Girls & Boys and A Quiet Love. Films screen in their original languages with Thai subtitles; Báite and the Irish Sign Language documentary A Quiet Love also have English subtitles. Bangkok screenings run at House Samyan on October 8-11, followed by SFX Cinema at MAYA Chiang Mai on October 23-25. Admission is free, with a maximum of two tickets per person available at the box office one hour before each screening. Seats are first come, first served, with no advance reservations.

October 8-11 in Bangkok. Fee entry. Full screening schedul. House Samyan, Samyan Mitrtown.

What if you could revisit a memory without changing what happened? Nostalgia Surfer at KICHgallery follows a fictional traveller through old images, sounds, places, objects and colours that still linger. The character reflects the artist’s return to painting after more than a decade away, using an airbrush to look at familiar experiences from a present-day perspective. Some memories emerge clearly, others are faded, distorted or partly imagined. The paintings ask what stays with us and why certain moments keep pulling us back.

October 10-November 14. Free entry. KICHgallery, Soi Ruamrudee 2. From 3pm; check closing time with the gallery.

Kenny Wong’s pouting character takes over a semi-outdoor space at Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park for MOLLY 20th Anniversary Exhibition – Bangkok, themed The Little Galaxy. Early sketches, original paintings and collectible figures trace two decades of MOLLY, alongside contemporary works and interpretations by artists and craftspeople from different cultural backgrounds. The Bangkok display brings Thai craftsmanship into the picture through Benjarong ceramics and lacquerwork. The project links art with education, communities and tourism in Bangkok, though the draw for visitors is the work itself. Wong was advertised for artist meetings on September 26-27; those dates have passed, so plan an October visit around the exhibition rather than a meeting with its creator.

September 24-October 25. Tickets from B300 via Trip.com. Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park. Check current exhibition hours and package options when booking.

Munins’ solo exhibition STILL : ON at River City Bangkok explores the work going on behind our thoughts, memories, emotions and decisions. Three processes shape the show: Emotion Encoding, how emotional experiences are recorded; Signal Selection, what we choose to retain; and Neural Pathway, how we see and make sense of what’s in front of us. Familiar moments of tiredness, confusion and quiet reflection connect those processes to everyday life. The artist also considers the changes happening around us, from accelerating technology and information to the human impact on the environment. The invitation is to slow down and consider what your mind is doing, even when you think nothing much is going on.

October 2-November 15. Free entry. RCB Galleria 5, River City Bangkok. Daily 10am-8pm.

Ever walked into a room and had a particular light, sound or smell suddenly remind you of somewhere else? Piyada Na Badalung’s A Place within a Place at L.O.F. Gallery explores those ‘overlapping spaces’, where physical surroundings meet personal memories, perceptions and feelings. A café, street corner or old building can mean something completely different depending on who’s there and what they remember. The works consider how one place can hold several versions of itself, shaped by the people who pass through it.

Until October 25. Free entry. L.O.F Gallery, Soi Chulalongkorn 50, Samyan. 11am-7pm.

A lotus has to grow through muddy water and survive changing conditions before its flower reaches the surface. Diligent Mind at 6060 Arts Space uses that familiar Thai cultural symbol, sometimes called the ‘queen of aquatic plants’, to consider persistence in everyday life. People begin with different circumstances and face different obstacles; the exhibition draws a parallel between their efforts and the plant’s growth towards the light. It’s a familiar idea, given a recognisable starting point in the lotus.

October 5-30. Free entry. 6060 Arts Space, Black Building. Noon-8pm.

Fine lines, etched marks and layers of ink build strange combinations of people, animals, buildings and symbols in the prints featured in Awakened Being at Union Mall. The images sit somewhere between everyday reality, dreams and imagination, leaving room for your own reading rather than following a fixed narrative. Look closely at scraped surfaces and the traces left during printing: each mark records a stage of making, so the process becomes part of the story. Prophecy here is framed as noticing what lies beneath the surface rather than predicting the future. 

Until January 3 2027. Free entry. Union Co-Art Space, fourth floor, Union Mall. 11am-9pm

Remember doodling in the margins of your school notebooks? Doooodles at bit.studio gallery gives that familiar habit a digital, communal twist. Pick up a marker and add your sketches to an interactive artwork where drawings move beyond the paper and connect with other visitors’ scribbles. As everyone adds something, unexpected relationships emerge. No training or carefully planned masterpiece required – just see what happens when your drawing meets someone else’s. 

Friday-Sunday, 2pm-8pm. B200 for students. bit.studio gallery, third floor, Slowcombo, 126 Soi Chulalongkorn 50, Samyan. Tickets

Feelings are hard to pin down. They appear, change and vanish, often before we can understand them, yet remain tangled up with memory, experience and daily life. When I’m Feeling… brings together 11 emerging artists, each exploring these shifting states through their own practice. Rather than settling on one definition, the works consider emotions that are positive, difficult, confusing or simply hard to name, turning fleeting personal experiences into something visitors can stop and think about.

July 18-October 31. Free entry. Xspace Gallery. 10am-5pm

Polish artist Marcin Białas examines how we live alongside nature, technology and an increasingly digital world. His drawings and intaglio metal prints pair a centuries-old printmaking technique, prized for precise lines and fine detail, with the language of contemporary art. The works probe where the physical world ends and the artificial begins, tracing connections between biology, culture and technology. Białas has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice since 2020 and exhibited widely across Europe, Canada and Japan.

September 3-October 11. Free entry. ARDEL Gallery of Modern Art. 9am-5pm

In less than a year, Dib Bangkok has earned international attention, including a place on TIME magazine’s World’s Greatest Places 2026 list. Its new exhibition ‘Giving Life’ brings together more than 160 works by 33 Thai and international artists, with Alexander Calder among the headline names. Known for his suspended mobiles, Calder turns sculpture into moving forms that respond to air and passing visitors. His work shares the gallery with artists from Thailand and across Asia, alongside pieces tracing key developments in the Thai art scene during the 1970s. It’s a chance to see how different generations approach movement, space and making.

September 26-May 3. B150-700 via here. Dib Bangkok. 10am-7pm

Rain can send everyone running for cover, then slow the city down enough for us to notice pavement reflections or water tapping against a window. Chulalongkorn University’s In the Rain starts with that familiar experience, drawing on the university’s art collection to explore memory, uncertainty, hope and quiet reflection. A suspended rain-cloud installation sets the scene. Visitors can add their own rainy-day thoughts and read short essays on the link between weather and emotion. Thoughtful and gently immersive, it feels made for Bangkok’s wet season.

Now-October 6. Free entry. Chula Museum. 9am-4.30pm

A former film studio, theatre and acting school that sat empty for more than 40 years now becomes the setting for Octave Maze Live, a new performance series running from August to October. Hosted inside Asvin's maze-like interiors, the programme brings together musicians, DJs, sound artists and multidisciplinary creators from Thailand and abroad, with each performance responding differently to the building and its history. Expect experimental sound, live improvisation and audiences moving through the space rather than simply watching from a seat. Whether you're curious about contemporary music or performance art, this is a chance to experience one of Bangkok's most unusual cultural venues after dark.

August 1-October 10. B400 via Line Official Account: @ASVIN. Asvin. Check the line up here.

Bangkok's growing digital art scene gains a new permanent home as bit.studio opens on the third floor of Slowcombo Samyan. The debut exhibition swaps hands-off gallery etiquette for a far more playful approach, encouraging visitors to tap, move and interact with the works rather than simply stand back. Spread across four rooms, the experience mixes digital installations with sound, light and nostalgic nods to analogue technology. Give yourself time, this is not the sort of show to rush through before coffee downstairs.

Every Friday-Sunday. B200-450 via here. bit.studio gallery. 2pm-8pm

Identity, survival and the awkward business of being human sit at the heart of Carry On Being. The exhibition also takes aim at the familiar idea of the tortured, romantic ‘artist’, asking what making art means in everyday life. At first glance, the works feel playful, with bright colours and a visual language rooted in contemporary pop art. Look longer and weightier ideas surface: isolation, uncertainty and the small contradictions involved in making sense of yourself and the world around you.

September 20-October 25. Free entry. Joyman Gallery. 11am-6pm

What happens when you look different from everyone around you? BE ALONE, the first solo exhibition by lek_lek, follows Lu and Al, two birds born with rare colour mutations that set them apart from their flocks. Through paintings birds and wings, the artist explores individuality, freedom and the search for somewhere to belong, as well as how rejection and isolation shape the way we see ourselves. The idea at its heart is simple: the differences that isolate us may also be the ones worth holding on to.

September 12-October 4. Free entry. KYLA Gallery & Wine Bar. 3pm-midnight

What does queer intimacy look like when desire and distance exist?  Intimate Elsewhere brings together five emerging Southeast Asian artists – Lucas Tan, Mark Hernandez, Thom Nguyen, Theerathat Thongbai and ACHI – to consider longing, memory, identity and place. Tan photographs seductive yet vulnerable poses shaped by dating-app culture, while Hernandez shows two people sharing a room but looking in opposite directions. Nguyen reworks traditional Asian painting through queer identities, while Theerathat and ACHI explore loss, nostalgia, spirituality and the body in landscapes and imagined spaces.

September 10-November 14. Free entry. Adult Material. 11am-6pm

Ready for somewhere stranger than the average gallery visit? EXTRA UNIVERSE brings together work by 50 artists from 21/3 Studio at MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, turning familiar things into unexpected forms. Rainbows appear without skies, homes have neither doors nor roofs and repeated paintings record days passing one layer at a time. Some works are packed with flowers, people and polka dots, while others keep things wonderfully simple. Instead of demanding a single interpretation, the exhibition asks visitors to see through the artists’ eyes and notice the small details that catch their attention.

September 10-October 11. B400 for adults and B120 for students with a valid ID. MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art. 10am-6pm

A rare chance to see early sculptures by Professor Silpa Bhirasri arrives with The Spirit of Sculptors, which brings together works he created in Italy before moving to Thailand. Most come from private collections and have never been shown to Thai audiences, making offering a useful look at the artist’s early years. His work appears alongside sculptures by master artist Vachara Prayoonkum and younger artist Wayuphat Rattanaphet, whose practices draw from Thai art traditions. Across three generations, the exhibition traces how Silpa’s influence continues to shape Thai sculpture.

September 8-October 23. B250 for adults and B150 for students. Museum Pier. 10am-6pm

High above Bangkok, Mahanakhon SkyVerse adds something theatrical to its skyline views. Its latest exhibition turns to Thailand, gathering familiar sights and cultural touchpoints before reshaping them through light, sound and scale. Nine rooms carry visitors through shifting scenes: waterfalls crash, coastlines shimmer and neon-lit streets glow after dark. Landmarks appear and dissolve, while regional crafts and traditions surface in unexpected forms. Projection mapping and lasers build environments that change with every step, making a spectacular case for looking afresh at what has been in front of us all along.

Daily. B350 at the door. King Power Mahanakhon. 10am-9pm

Life gets noisy. Opinions fly from every direction, notifications never stop and quiet moments slip through the cracks. The Present Haus, a new project by the Thaicom Foundation, offers a chance to slow down and pay attention to what is happening closer to home: your own thoughts. Located in Soi Ratchawithi 24, the experience unfolds across four C-O-R-E zones built around reflection and mindfulness. It begins in the Mirror Zone, where familiar phrases and internal monologues appear across the space, nudging visitors to question recurring thought patterns and reconnect with parts of themselves that are easy to overlook.

From April 4 onwards. B150 at the door. Heart Quarter, The Present Haus. 10am-6pm

An entire Akha house now stands in the middle of Bangkok, carefully dismantled from a village in northern Thailand and rebuilt piece by piece inside an art gallery. Roof panels, woven bedding, timber floors and weathered household objects all carry marks of the people who once lived among them, quietly tracing a way of life that grows more fragile with each passing generation.

The Akha are an Indigenous ethnic group whose communities are spread across the mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and southern China, known for their intricate textiles, spiritual rituals and deep connection to land and ancestry. In recent decades, migration, tourism and rapid development have reshaped many of those traditions. Through memory, craftsmanship and personal histories, The Preservation of Fire by Busui Ajaw keeps those stories alive a little longer.

May 15-November 1. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

An entire Akha house now stands in the middle of Bangkok, carefully dismantled from a village in northern Thailand and rebuilt piece by piece inside an art gallery. Roof panels, woven bedding, timber floors and weathered household objects all carry marks of the people who once lived among them, quietly tracing a way of life that grows more fragile with each passing generation.

The Akha are an Indigenous ethnic group whose communities are spread across the mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and southern China, known for their intricate textiles, spiritual rituals and deep connection to land and ancestry. In recent decades, migration, tourism and rapid development have reshaped many of those traditions. Through memory, craftsmanship and personal histories, The Preservation of Fire by Busui Ajaw keeps those stories alive a little longer.

May 15-November 1. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

More than 100 works from the private collections of Uthen Phatthananiphon and Piriya Vatchajitpan come together for a rare exhibition that pairs Thai masters with leading international names. Paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces by Chakrabhand Posayakrit, Thawan Duchanee, Montien Boonma, Khrua In Khong and Silpa Bhirasri share gallery walls with works by André Butzer, Christian Rex van Minnen, Alexander James, Jason Boyd Kinsella and Matías Sánchez. Rather than following a strict timeline, the exhibition lets surprising conversations emerge, showing how artists from different places and generations often ask remarkably similar questions.

Everyday. B150-250 at the door. Museum Pier. 10am-6pm