The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) has announced its 2026 program, and it is a really balanced take on a state gallery offering.
A look ahead to 2026
The major exhibitions shaping 2026 for AGSA
The year starts with a perennial favourite – the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art – with the 2026 edition. curated by Ellie Buttrose under the title Yield Strength, revealing how materials, selfhood and society are tested and transformed under pressure (27 February – 8 June).
ArtsHub spoke with Buttrose about her theme earlier this year: ‘What I liked about Yield Strength is that it does have a meaning as a phrase, but then also it could be played upon in different ways. And, I think one of the strengths of Australian art is the diversity of practice,’ she said.
The 2026 Biennial will showcase the work of 24 Australian artists.
Read: Curator Ellie Buttrose explains theme for her 2026 Adelaide Biennial
AGSA’s other major 2026 exhibition is a first for Adelaide – a new winter blockbuster series. It will be launched with an exhibition travelling from the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (US). Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition (11 July – 8 November) will trace a groundbreaking period in art history through 57 seminal paintings by artists ranging from Paul Cézanne and Henri Mattise to Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Rauschenberg.
In an earlier exhibition, Tansy Curtin, AGSA Head of International Art working on the exhibition, said: ‘There’s such a diversity. You will get a chance to see those well-known French works that people travel for, but then artists who they probably don’t know so well, but are really significant – obviously Frankenthaler being one, but also Richard Diebenkorn – which help reveal parts of Western art history more generally.’
Read: Synergy between Ohio and Adelaide as ‘Monet to Matisse’ blockbuster heads south
Centering South Australian artists in 2026
on hahnemuhle paper with hole removed to a black velvet void; © the artist, courtesy of N. Smith Gallery.
South Australian artists remain at the heart of AGSA’s 2026 program, including a significant solo exhibition of the work of Kaurna artist James Tylor, titled James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows (31 July – 1 November). Later in the year, the curatorial focus turns onto Guildhouse Fellowship recipient, sculptor Michelle Nikou (5 December – 21 March 2027). This exhibition of new works draws on surrealist techniques to transform everyday domestic objects into ‘sculptures of humour, poignancy and marvel’, the Gallery describes.
Tylor’s exhibition has been developed in partnership with UNSW Galleries – where it was shown earlier this year – and is an importance survey of a decade of his practice blending photography with hand-made cultural objects.
Rethinking the collection in 2026
Nikou’s exhibition coincides with Dressed Up: Fashion & Photography 1850-1920, presenting a rare opportunity to view works from AGSA’s collections of historical South Australian dress and photography, and offering a journey through a period of dramatic sartorial and social change.
Balancing out the program is a major new exhibition showcasing treasures from AGSA’s Indonesian textiles collection in the exhibition Two Islands, One Thread (15 May – 11 October).
The exhibition features previously unseen textiles from the AGSA collection, as well as loans from the West Nusa Tenggara State Museum in Lombok, revealing the artistic exchanges that occurred between two very different Indonesian societies – Hindu Bali and Muslim Lombok – over the past millennium.
