SINGAPORE.- STPI presents Rirkrit Tiravanija: SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, a solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Argentine born Thai artist. One of the most widely celebrated figures in the contemporary art world, Tiravanija has pioneered participatory practices that reshaped how institutions consider audience, social connection, and art objects themselves. Famous for transforming everyday actions into art by centring process over outcome, Tiravanija invites audiences to participate in ordinary social acts such as eating, playing, and talking – placing emphasis on the human connections that arise.
The exhibition marks Tiravanija's largest in Singapore to date, offering local audiences an unparalleled opportunity to engage firsthand with a comprehensive retrospective of his seminal works. As a pillar of Singapore's art scene, STPI extends its legacy of community building in tandem with Tiravanija – who has completed multiple residencies with the gallery – to exhibit interactive works that importantly centre around community engagement.
Bringing together a selection of editioned objects and prints spanning over a decade, Tiravanija’s work explores themes of migration, travel, belonging, and displacement.
“STPI is excited to present SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, a testament to the mutual trust and human connection built between artist, institution, and audience by ‘saying yes’. Through the exhibition, we invite audiences to embark on a journey to connect with one another and, by doing so, encounter the unknown.” -- Nathaniel Gaskell, Director (Exhibition Programming & Content Development), STPI
Unfolding as a mapping of multiple journeys, SAY YES TO EVERYTHING reimagines the gallery as a social and collaborative space where visitors can come together through shared experience: enjoying a meal, playing games, folding origami, or engaging in conversation. The exhibition’s title captures the artist’s working philosophy of approaching and enacting upon situations without a determined outcome and accepting this inherent uncertainty. Tiravanija’s multiple residencies at STPI were borne from this very practice, resulting in a varied selection of works on paper that will be exhibited in the upcoming show.
SAY YES TO EVERYTHING reaffirms STPI’s longstanding dedication to championing innovative contemporary art practices through print and papermaking – as well as fostering community-building in Singapore and beyond – situating Tiravanija’s work within broader conversations surrounding human connection, circulation, and collective experience.
Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961, Bueno Aires, Argentina, based in New York, United States; Berlin, Germany; and Chiang Mai, Thailand) creates work that routinely rejects the primacy of the art object and redefines the exhibition space as a stage for social interaction and communal care. Frequently associated with relational aesthetics, a movement that bases art in human relations and social contexts, Tiravanija has been a pivotal figure in the evolution of contemporary art since the 1990s.
In addition to participatory installations that gather people to share in ordinary rituals such as cooking, eating and reading, Tiravanija also works through other modes such as painting, printmaking, assemblage, video, performance and teaching. Underlying his work is a strong desire to dissolve the barriers between art and the everyday. In an ongoing series beginning with pad thai (1990) in New York, Tiravanija prepares and serves Thai dishes to exhibition visitors—a simple yet radical act that confronts preconceived notions of art spaces and spotlights cultural identity. Since the mid-2000s, the artist has also engaged with broader social and political themes, such as through collaborative efforts to create images of mass protests and movements against oppressive powers in Demonstration Drawings (2006–ongoing).
Tiravanija obtained his BFA from the Ontario College of Art, Toronto in 1984, his MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 1986, and underwent the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1985–1986). His work is found in leading collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Bundeskunstsammlung, Berlin; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Bangkok; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Notable recent solo exhibitions include DAS GLÜCK IST NICHT IMMER LUSTIG (HAPPINESS IS NOT ALWAYS FUN) (2024), Gropius Bau, Berlin; A LOT OF PEOPLE (2023), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rirkrit Tiravanija (2023), Haus der Kunst, Munich; la paura mangia l’anima (2020), Fondazione Converso, Milan; untitled 2019 (the form of the flower is unknown to the seed) (2019), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Green (2019), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including more recently Flowing Moon, Embracing Land (2022), 3rd Jeju Biennale, Jeju Island; DO WE DREAM UNDER THE SAME SKY (2017), 1st ARoS Triennial, Aarhus; CURRENT:LA Water (2016), 1st Public Art Biennial, Los Angeles; and All the World’s Futures (2015), 56th Venice Biennale.
Tiravanija has had a long relationship with STPI, resulting in multiple residences in 2012, 2015, 2020 and 2022. His 2012 residency culminated in the exhibition Time Travelers Chronicle (Doubt): 2014 – 802,701 A.D. (2014), while his 2015 residency led to the group exhibition Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations) (2017) with artists Carston Höller, Tobias Rehberger and Anri Sala. His 2020 and 2022 residencies resulted in the exhibition We Don’t Recognise What We Don’t See (2023), curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
