Escape the summer heat and dive into the cool, captivating world of art!
We’ve curated a list of six must-see exhibitions to make your summer unforgettable. From the dreamlike surrealism of Magritte to the urban creativity of Rone, the intricate beauty of textiles, and the mesmerizing brilliance of Yayoi Kusama, there’s something to inspire every art lover. So, why not beat the heat, embrace the cool, and immerse yourself in these incredible exhibitions?
This summer, let art be your destination.
1. ~ Magritte
Until 9th Feb.
AGNSW | SYDNEY
Magritte is an in-depth retrospective featuring more than 100 works, most of which have never before been seen in Australia. It journeys from the artist’s first avant-garde explorations and commercial works in the 1920s, to his groundbreaking contributions to surrealism, his surprising provocations of the 1940s, and the renowned paintings of his final years, before his death in 1967.
Encounter iconic paintings that highlight Magritte’s profound influence on contemporary visual culture, and discover rarely seen works that reveal his subversive sense of humour and the fierce independence of his artistic vision.
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2. ~ The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Ghore Fera by Sarker Protick
Until 27th April
GOMA | BRISBANE
Seventy artists, collectives and projects from more than 30 countries feature in the eleventh chapter of the flagship Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) exhibition series, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Bringing compelling new art to Brisbane, the Triennial is a gateway to the rapidly evolving artistic expression of Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Alongside artists and makers whose work has not been previously seen in Australia are a raft of new co-curated projects investigating artforms and cultural contexts rarely encountered outside their home localities.
For the first time this Triennial includes creators from Saudi Arabia, Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan, while First Nations, minority and diaspora cultures hold a central place, as do the collective, performative and community-driven modes of artmaking that thrive in the region. Through nuanced approaches to storytelling, materials and technique the exhibition explores themes that resonate across these cultural landscapes, such as how we care for the natural and urban environments, protect and revive cultural heritage, and how histories of migration and labour shape experience today.
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3. ~ Radical Textiles
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Performance/Punokawan/Chout (The Choreography of Cutting) by Sally Smart
Until 30th March
AGSA | ADELAIDE
The use of textiles by artists and designers has long been associated with moments of profound social change and political rupture. From tapestry and embroidery to quilting and tailoring, in the hands of artists, textiles are defined by tension and transformation, resistance and activism. Textiles are a means of time travel and truth-telling.
Textiles galvanise communities. Through wars, pandemics and disasters, textiles have offered a way to mobilise social and cultural groups and build connections. In the late nineteenth century, British artist and designer William Morris sought to counter the mechanisation and mass-production of the Industrial Revolution by weaving tapestries on a manual loom with hand-dyed thread. Today, many artists are experimenting with the materials and techniques of textile design as a ‘slow making’ antidote to the high-speed digital age.
From William Morris to Sonia Delaunay, Radical Textiles celebrates the cutting-edge innovations, enduring traditions and bodies of shared knowledge that have been folded into fabric and cloth over the past 150 years. Showcasing the work of more than 100 artists, designers and activists, this major exhibition draws on AGSA’s international, Australian and First Nations collections of textiles and fashion, augmented by sculpture, painting, photography and the moving image, alongside several new commissions.
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4. ~ Yayoi Kusama
Until 21st April
NGV International | MELBOURNE
Yayoi Kusama explores Kusama’s unique worldview, starting with artwork created during her childhood and culminating with works made this year. In between, Kusama’s extraordinary career is surveyed, from her experimental years in postwar Japan to her contributions to New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, through to her return to Japan in 1973 and subsequent re-emergence as an artist of international renown.
Comprising close to 200 works, this is the largest exhibition of Kusama’s work presented in Australia and one of the most comprehensive retrospectives of the artist ever presented globally. Featuring painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, film and installation, the exhibition reveals the astonishing breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice.
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5. ~ Time-Rone
Until 2nd February
AGWA | PERTH
Step into a moment suspended in time, and get lost in an immersive art experience like no other.
A multi-sensory installation excavating meaning from the everyday, TIME • RONE projects onto a grand scale the lifelong search for beauty in decay.
Following a sell-out season in Melbourne, TIME is now showing in AGWA’s Centenary Galleries, featuring expanded staging and a new room, exclusive to Perth.
Experience the historic Centenary Galleries like never before, as you walk, breathe and live among remnants of mid-century Australia.
Time has worn away much, and dust has settled over the detritus. But through the peeling paint and cracked ceilings, life persists. Faces search out for something, for all of eternity. Ghostly illusions from the past meld with mirrors into the future. For now, they’re all here with us, frozen in time.
From the mind of the ingenious and awarded multi-disciplinary artist Rone, the exhibition blends soundscape, mural and installation to ask questions about what we leave behind, and honours the otherwise forgotten.
Like all things, is impermanent. But for a season, it invites you to exist in the same moment.
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6. ~ Anne Dangar
Until 27th April
NGA | CANBERRA
Anne Dangar (1885–1951) occupies a unique position in art history as one of Australia’s most important, yet underacknowledged modern artists.
Almost a century ago in 1930, she moved permanently to the artist colony Moly-Sabata in France, established by the cubist painter Albert Gleizes. Over the next two decades, she dedicated herself to Cubism, developing a distinct practice that synthesised traditional French pottery with cubist designs and decorations.
Dangar is one of very few Australian artists to form part of the European avant-garde in the twentieth century, and the only to meaningfully contribute to Cubism in France, her adopted home. She was also a dedicated advocate and promoter of modern art in Australia, the first to teach and arguably to exhibit cubist art in the country, and she directly influenced the development of abstraction in Sydney from the 1930s onwards.
Bringing together ceramics, paintings, works on paper and archival material, this exhibition will explore Dangar’s life and practice, as well as her important position in French modern art as one of most dedicated and truly modern Australian artists of the twentieth century.
The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication led by Rebecca Edwards with contributions from Peter Brooke, Angela Goddard, ADS Donaldson, Elena Taylor and Anne O’Hehir.
Ethel Carrick | Anne Dangar is a Know My Name project, the National Gallery initiative celebrating the work of all women artists to enhance understanding of their contribution to Australia’s cultural life.
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