Bangkok Art Biennale opens October 29: choosing 11 venues and catching BACC’s shorter ninth-floor run
Angels & Mara brings together 72 artists and more than 200 works across temples and city spaces. BACC’s ninth-floor display ends November 25, earlier than floors 7 and 8.
Bangkok Art Biennale 2026 opens on October 29, linking temples, museums, cultural institutions and commercial spaces through Angels & Mara. The overall run continues until February 28, 2027. Its fifth edition brings together 72 artists of 29 nationalities, with more than 200 works across 11 venues. The event has not opened as of today, October 25: this is a moment to plan around your travel dates and interests, rather than squeeze every location into one day.
Why place angels and Mara in the same city?
The theme connects Bangkok’s identity as the City of Angels with Mara, associated with temptation, desire and obstacles to enlightenment. The curatorial argument considers how apparently contradictory forces coexist, rather than staging a straightforward battle of good and evil. On the scale of a trip, temple faith, everyday consumption and art’s questions about memory, technology and identity can meet along one route.
It also offers a way of looking beyond a list of artists: start with how architecture changes the encounter. The official venue image of Wat Pho shows closely grouped stupas, colourful decoration and layered roofs; BACC welcomes visitors with white curves and an open forecourt; One Bangkok introduces the scale of towers and a major mixed-use development. All three photographs here are official venue reference images, not installation views taken after the 2026 Biennale’s opening.
Wat Pho’s stupas and colourful roofs in an official Biennale venue reference image.
Choosing 11 venues: start with the old city or the city centre
This year’s venues include Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Wat Prayoon, the National Museum Bangkok, the Art Centre at Silpakorn University and Museum Siam, alongside BACC, Alliance Française Bangkok, One Bangkok, centralwOrld and Siam Paragon. Rather than collecting stops, choose temples and museums, or cultural centres and commercial spaces, as the focus of a day. Leave time for entering each location and engaging with the works.
One Bangkok is among this edition’s venues; the photograph shows its exterior.
These groups are a way to think about an itinerary; they do not imply a shared ticket or identical opening hours. Visiting a temple and visiting an art exhibition are not automatically the same thing either. If you favour video, performance or large installations, allow room for waiting and watching a work through. Time-based art may not reveal itself at the speed of a photograph taken at the entrance.
BACC’s ninth floor ends November 25: keep the dates separate
BACC will present works by 37 artists, including Bill Viola, Yasumasa Morimura, Sin Wai Kin and Yuan Goang-Ming. The displays on floors 7 and 8 run from October 29, 2026 to February 28, 2027, while the ninth-floor display ends on November 25, 2026. To include all three floors in one visit, plan around that shorter run rather than remembering only the Biennale’s February finish.
BACC is at 939 Rama 1 Road in Bangkok’s Pathumwan district. Its usual hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–20:00, with Monday closure. The event is organised by Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation in collaboration with ThaiBev and TCEB, with public- and private-sector support. Before setting out, choose venues through the official Biennale website and check each institution’s current arrangements. Considering the works, architecture and pauses along the way can be more rewarding than aiming to complete 11 stops.
