The Body Electric features ground-breaking photography and video from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, alongside more recent work from Australian and international artists.
Bush Fire At Top Yalgamungken 2015. Collection: Art at Swiss Re.
Image courtesy: Martin Browne Contemporary
Though galleries have since closed their doors, this reviewer got to see Mavis Ngallametta’s works in all their glory. Their birdseye view of Country provides a perspective we’re missing right now.
Artist Lucas Grogan’s quilts use traditional techniques but express modern sentiments.
Supplied
A summer exhibition of man-made craft is a rare thing - but do men really need a leg up when it comes to artistic recognition?
Olafur Eliasson, Denmark, b.1967 Riverbed 2014 (detail) Site specific installation.
Pictured: The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, DenmarkCourtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los AngelesPhotograph: Iwan Baan.
Water can give and water can take. Without it, however, we are nothing. A new exhibition presents a nuanced and gentle provocation as we grapple with drought and climate change.
Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines may well be the riskiest exhibition the National Gallery of Victoria has staged in its more than 150-year history.
Maree Clarke’s Men in Mourning (2011).
Vivien Anderson Gallery
Bringing together innovative and traditional works, the Linear exhibition gives us a new map for sharing land and knowledge.
You would recognise their designs: bright, bold, colours; clothing filled with fun. Step into Paradise gives us a glance at the women, as well as the fashion.
Hugh Stewart/Powerhouse Musuem
With bright colours and a celebration of Australiana, designers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson came to define Australian fashion. A new exhibition traces their nearly 50 years of creation.
Ben Quilty, Australia, born 1973. Margaret Olley 2011. Oil on linen / 170.0 x 150.0 cm.
Collection of the artist. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Mim Stirling
Margaret Olley was known not only for her paintings, but her generosity. An exhibition of her work is currently on in Brisbane, alongside a survey of the work of Ben Quilty, her mentee and friend.
Mella Jaarsma, The landscaper 2013, costume: wood, paint, iron and leather, single-channel video: 3:40 minutes, colour, sound.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 2018. Photo by Mie Cornoedus
The exhibition Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia has many wonderful works. But it is an exception - despite our close proximity, there are few opportunities for Australians to engage with Indonesian art.
Arthur Loureiro, Study for ‘The spirit of the new Moon’ 1888, oil on canvas.
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Purchased 1995. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant with the assistance of Philip Bacon through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation. Celebrating the Queensland Art Gallery's Photograph: QAGOMA
50 years after Apollo 11, a new exhibition considers artistic responses to our celestial neighbour. As we retreat from human space exploration, our relationship to the moon has become virtual.
Photographs of tattooed Japanese women in the exhibition Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World.
Ben Healley
An exhibition at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum explores tattoo traditions from Samoa, Japan and Melbourne, telling stories of culture, tradition and migration.
Dallas Dellaforce, Queer Central, Imperial Hotel, Erskineville, 2018. ‘Queerdom’ presents an archive of queer and trans life in Sydney.
Queerdom/James Eades
Queerdom, an exhibition of photography and poetry, presents a history of queer and trans performance in Sydney that challenges recent narratives about queer life in Australia.
Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits, exhibition view.
Bendigo Art Gallery
Some 50 years after his death, a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales shows why the work of Marcel Duchamp continues to challenge the very idea of what art may be.
The first major loan to Australia from a repository of canonical art works of Chinese culture deserves to be seen by all those interested in Chinese art.
In the early 20th century, two families of collectors brought the best of modern French art to Russia. Many of their paintings - including works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne - can now be seen in Sydney.
All of the big names are present in this show – from Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo to Roy Lichtenstein and Cindy Sherman – and represented by some of their best-known work.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne