Exhibition highlights for July – December
The July to December period kicks off with the national season of winter blockbusters, and sees out the year with a calendar of major exhibition offerings for the summer. Among them are plenty of big-name artists, including Cao Fei, Yayoi Kusama, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Isaac Julien and René Magritte.
What sits in between is really nuanced and strong program across the sector, which will offer plenty of viewing pleasure to map out the rest of the year.
July
NSW: Celebrating our own, and opened this week, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) is presenting Julie Rrap: Past Continuous (until 16 February 2025). A landmark feminist artist, Rrap’s exhibition maps changing times through iconic artworks.
Vic: Pharaoh is the largest exhibition of Egyptian art to be staged in Australia, and has travelled here from the British Museum. It is showing at NGV International until 6 October, and is a masterly presentation. While you are there, be sure to take a look at African Fashion, also showing until 6 October. Ticketed.
Tas: Namedropping is the biggest exhibition project Mona (Museum of Old and New Art) has presented since 2016, engaging five curators to deliver. It has just opened in Hobart, and will continue until 21 April 2025. Free with ticketed entry.
Read: Mona’s big flex – how David Walsh wrote himself into the books
Qld: If you’re after warmer winter climes, head to Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) for the Australian exclusive for the Dutch designer, Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses, offering. It has travelled from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Until 7 October. Ticketed. Every Friday is a late night program of music.
ACT: Just opened at the National Gallery (NGA) in Canberra, Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao is another coup of masterpieces, this time curated by former Louvre director Henri Loyrette. Moving across sculpture, ceramics, printmaking and painting, 140 iconic works chart a new understanding of this complex artist. Until 7 October. Ticketed. It is presented alongside a new installation by the collective SaVĀge K’lub, ensuring Pacific voices are heard in this context. It’s free.
NSW: AGNSW’s winter blockbuster exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the extraordinarily diverse work of Czech illustrator and graphic artist Alphonse Mucha, who was inspired by the Art Nouveau movement. Until 22 September. Ticketed.
SA: Each year the JamFactory celebrates an “icon” of craft and design. This year it is jeweller and metalsmith Julie Blyfield. Her exhibition Chasing a Passion is inspired by marine life and corals. Showing 19 July to 15 September and then touring nationally.
NSW: The first chapter with new Director Sebastian Goldspink at the helm of Hazelhurst Art Centre, New South: Recent painting from Southern Australia, is a biennial exhibition examining painting practice across the region through the work of 28 artists. 6 July to 8 September. Free.
SA: The significant survey Surrender & Catch by Brent Harris opens at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), after its Victorian leg. 6 July to 20 October. Free.
Vic: And one for those who love modernism and abstraction, Grace Crowley & Ralph Balson is a magic pairing at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square. Learn more about this two artists and how they shaped Australian art history. Until 22 September. Free.
Quick diary dates:
The new triennial exhibition, Aotearoa Contemporary, will be presented at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (AAG) from 6 July through to 20 October. Free. Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. CIAF 2024 will be held from 25-28 July. August
NSW: Time Machine, a major retrospective of the internationally renowned photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, spanning his 50-year career and over 100 artworks, will be a sublime visit at the MCA. 2 August to 27 October.
Su san Cohn, HubHead 2002–03, anodised aluminium and mixed media, Lamba Digital print. Photographer: Greg Harris. Collection Anna Schwartz. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery © Su san Cohn with Greg Harris.
Vic: Curated by Victoria Lynn for TarraWarra Museum of Art, (SC)OOT(ER)ING around looks at the work of Australian artists Su san Cohn and Eugenia Raskopoulos, whose practices explore the human body. 3 August to 10 November.
WA: Holmes à Court Gallery @No.10 in West Perth, John Curtin Gallery and Fremantle Arts Centre are exhibition partners delivering the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial IOTA24 with consecutive exhibitions. The theme this year is ‘Futuring Craft 24: The Value of Craft‘. The IOTA conference will take place at Curtin University’s School of Design and the Built Environment from 3-6 September.
Read: Craft as a universal language: IOTA 2024 reveals lead artists and theme
Qld: Presented across two parts and two venues, Duty of Care is a curatorial project in partnership between the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) and Griffith University Art Museum in Brisbane. At IMA from 29 June to 22 September, and at Griffith 15 August to 9 November. The venues say of the exhibition: ‘Care has become a buzzword, and is being used to reset policy and practice. However, too often, the complexity and troublesomeness of care are smoothed over by liberal good intentions.’ This is an international group show.
Quick diary dates:
September
NSW: Commemorating gallery that played a pivotal role in Australian art history, the exhibition The Art World Came to Us: Macquarie Gallery 1938 – 1963 will be presented by Ngununggula, the Southern Highlands Regional Gallery. 14 September to 17 November. Free.
Vic: The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) will present the work of Tennant Creek Brio, an artist collective working on Warumungu Country, including contemporary artists from Northern Central Australia to Melbourne. 21 September to 17 November 2024. Free.
NSW: Isaac Julien, one of the UK’s most critically acclaimed artists and filmmakers, presents his latest powerful five-screen installation, Once Again… (Statues Never Die) (2022), in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)’s Australia’s Macgregor Gallery in spring. Date yet to be announced.
Quick diary dates:
Sydney Contemporary will return to Carriageworks, from 5-8 September 2024, with the sector vernissage on 4 September 2024. Ticketed. The Desert Mob 2024 Exhibition and the Desert Mob 2024 Symposium will return to the Araluen Arts Centre Theatre on 6 September. One of the most successful open studio programs in Australia, Margaret River Region Open Studios returns from 7-22 September. Free. AMaGA National Conference 2024 will be held from 17-20 September in Ballarat, Victoria. Cementa returns to Kandos (NSW) for its sixth iteration, under the curatorial leadership of Dr Daniel Mudie Cunningham and First Nations curator Jo Albany. 19-22 September Canberra Art Biennial returns to activate the city and lake surrounds with contemporary sculpture. 27 September to 26 October. October
ACT: Lindy Lee’s highly anticipated new sculpture, Ouroboros, will be unveiled at the National Gallery of Australia on 25 October. It will be accompanied by an exhibition of her works, which will continue until June 2025. Lee will also give the Gallery’s 2024 Annual Lecture, on 24 October 2024, 6.30pm. Ticketed.
Read: How do you move a 13-tonne sculpture?
NSW: The iconic Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte will be presented in a major exhibition at Naala Nura, Art Gallery of NSW south building. 26 October to 9 February 2025. Ticketed.
Read: Sydney summer blockbusters announced
Qld: Spencer Tunick will return to Brisbane to present an installation across Brisbane’s iconic Story Bridge for the inaugural Melt Open 2024 – the city’s major festival celebrating queer art and culture. Sunday 27 October. Free.
Vic: Heide Museum of Modern Art is taking a look at the history of 20th century Italian design, spanning the era of the first Milan Design Triennale in the 1930s to the influential expressive aesthetics of the Memphis Group in the 1980s. Molto Bello: Icons of Modern Italian Design runs 26 October to 23 March 2025.
Quick diary dates:
The Sydney Craft Week Festival is a city-wide festival hosted by the Australian Design Centre. Its 8th edition will be presented 11-20 October across multiple venues. Sydney Ceramics Market is a major event of Sydney Craft Week Festival 2024 and will be presented at Carriageworks 19-20 October. The iconic Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi will return from 18 October to 4 November. November Atong Atem ‘Maria of Mars’ 2022, Collection National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Image: © Atong Atem.
Vic: Sure to be a crowd drawing exhibition, Cats & Dogs at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia will explore humanity’s deep connection to cats and dogs through more than 250 works of art and design. 1 November to 20 July 2025. Ticketed.
NSW: First Nations artist Jonathan Jones in relationship with the Timbery Family Legacy and in collaboration with Gorawarl/Jerrawongarla storyteller and artist Aunty Julie Freeman and Walbunja/Ngarigo artist and singer Aunty Cheryl Davison, will present a major new commission at Bundanon, Arthur Boyd’s legacy property on the South Coast. 2 November to 9 February 2025. Ticketed entry.
SA: The David Roche Foundation House Museum in Adelaide will present the exhibition Style & Spirit: The Fashion of Chester Weinberg – one of the 20th century’s greatest, yet least known, US couturiers. 8 November to 25 January 2025. Ticketed.
SA: And across town, Radical Textiles unpicks social and political threads of revolution and innovation, protest and hope, and experimental practice at AGSA. Textiles continue to be a hot trend for 2024 and this exhibition will be a must. 20 November to March 2025. Ticketed.
NSW: The last week in November is crazy mad. It kicks off with a major career survey of New York-based artist Julie Mehretu, with an exhibition that looks at expanded painting practice at the MCA from 29 November to 27 April 2025. Ticketed.
NSW: Next is Chinese artist Cao Fei: My City is Yours opening at Naala Badu, Art Gallery of NSW north building. The gallery describes, ‘My City is Yours is an invitation into a world of neon, street dance and pop music – a city both familiar and warped, real and virtual.’ 30 November to 13 April 2025. Ticketed.
Qld: And, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art returns to GOMA for its 11th edition (APT11), featuring 70 projects from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific by over 200 artists and makers. 30 November to 27 April 2025. Free.
Quick diary dates:
December
Vic: Australia’s largest Yayoi Kusama retrospective exhibition will be presented by NGV International, including more than 180 works, and new pieces making their world premieres. It is said that this Kusama exhibition is ‘even larger’ than QAGOMA’s comprehensive show a few years back. 15 December to 21 April 2025. Ticketed.
