Summer is a great time for planning to visit exhibitions, whether to escape the heat or organise what you are going to do while on interstate holidays.
As the announcements roll in, ArtsHub will keep you up to speed on details and dates. Be the first to know, and bookmark this pillar page to make your life easy.
Table of contents
As they open, our reviews of summer blockbuster exhibitions
13 December: Exhibition review: Yayoi Kusama, NGV International
An overdue retrospective in the name of love, Yayoi Kusama has got little (time) to offer. Her exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is touted the largest ever stage and is testament that she is an emblem of the avant-garde.
13 December: Exhibition review: Pompeii, National Museum of Australia
Off the back of new discoveries and a wave of immersive exhibitions globally, Pompeii is the star of an exhibition at the National Museum, finding a new balance between activation and artefacts.
11 December: Exhibition review: Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar, National Gallery of Australia
Described by a fellow critic as the ‘sleeper blockbuster’, this is the one that will knock your socks off this summer. A definite reason to visit Canberra, and bring yourself up to speed on these two women who significantly shaped Australian art history.
10 December: Review: The Future & Other Fictions, ACMI
How to imagine different and better futures through our screen culture is the challenge thrown down by The Future & Other Fictions, the latest summer flagship exhibition at Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).
9 December: Unpacking the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial, and its bounceback
The last couple of editions of the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT) have struggled to find their footing. APT11 does manage to do that, it does so in a very different way. Sensitivity over the spectacular makes for a more nuanced survey of the region.
3 December: Exhibition review: Cao Fei: My City is Yours, AGNSW
A trailblazer of the digital sphere, Chinese artist Cao Fei’s exhibition My City is Yours explores where reality, fantasy and the cyber worlds become indistinguishable. Our Visual Arts Editor gave it five stars, learn why.
2 December: Exhibition review: Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru, Australian Museum
The Australian Museum turns to bucket list destinations to again draw summer crowds, with an exhibition of Peruvian culture that has an adventure storybook feel as it journeys you through five cultural period of amazing antiquities. It’s a great one for kids and adults alike this summer – this is why.
2 December: Exhibition review: Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory, MCA
Only in part does Julie Mehretu’s exhibition stand up to her reputation as ‘one of today’s most original and thought-provoking painters’, write Visual Arts Editor Gina Fairley. She walks readers through Mehretu’s major blockbuster exhibition, which has opened for the summer at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
26 November: Radical Textiles blockbuster poses hard questions around supposedly ‘soft’ medium
The Art Gallery of South Australia’s blockbuster exhibition doesn’t hold back in showcasing artists who have used textiles to proudly, and at times defiantly, make their mark. With over 150 textile-based works on show, ArtsHub’s Jo Pickup asks just how ‘radical’ is it?
21 November: Exhibition review: Molto Bello: Icons of Modern Italian Design, Heide Museum of Modern Art
It’s clear right off the bat that the Heide Museum of Modern Art has pulled out all the stops for Molto Bello: Icons of Modern Italian Design, an exhibition that refreshingly alters the gallery space with a clear vision and stunning execution, say ArtsHub’s Celina Lei. Why not fill your summer viewing with some icons of Italian design.
8 November: Exhibition review: Chihuly in the Botanic Garden, Adelaide Botanic Garden
24-years after US glass artist Dale Chihuly’s last Australian exhibit, his return to this scene is stratospheric – delivering on what his reputation promises in a spectacular exhibition at Adelaide Botanic Garden, which can be viewed by day or by night.
31 October: Exhibition review: Cats & Dogs, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
ArtsHub’s Celina Lei was on the ground for the opening of this NGV people-pleaser. She writes: “However, despite the intrinsic popularity of the topic, Cats & Dogs has managed to go beyond the cliché in its exhibition design and selection of over 250 works from the NGV Collection, including half a dozen new acquisitions.”
30 October: Exhibition review: Lindy Lee’s Ouroboros and exhibition, NGA
Visual Arts Editor Gina Fairley walks you into the belly of Ouroboros – the new $14 million sculptural commission that has been unveiled at the National Gallery of Australia in time for summer audiences.
28 October: Exhibition review: Magritte, Art Gallery of NSW
Our reviewer gives the Magritte blockbuster five stars – read why, and learn more about this Belgian surrealism icon.
15 October: Exhibition review: Isaac Julien, Once Again… (Statues Never Die), MCA
This spectacular exhibition asks the big questions about how museums collect, and show, artworks with Black histories. Taking his cue from Chris Marker’s 1953 film, Statues Also Die, one of Britain’s foremost artists, Sir Isaac Julien, also looks at the impact of colonial collecting of African art. The conversation of restitution and repatriation, however, has come a long way since then, and Julien updates the topic with a currency of today.
1 October: Exhibition review: Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When, AGNSW
Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When has opened in the Art Gallery of NSW’s Tank gallery, and will continue over the summer and through to 11 May 2025. The multi-channel video installation and soundscape is immersive and arresting, and holds visitors for every second of its 35-minute cycle, making you feel, and think and fall into the cyclic rhythm and reverberating tones of nature. We give it 3½ stars, and it is free to visit.
2024-2025 Blockbuster exhibition announcements
27 November: Free opportunity to see Australia’s largest Banksy collection and over 100 street artworks
Be the first to see Banksy’s new work and Australia’s biggest collection of street art in Melbourne, amassed by Australian collectors Sandra Powell and Andrew King.
19 November: Epic LEGO x Star Wars exhibition to make grand world premiere in Melbourne 2025
Celebrated LEGO artist Brickman sets off on another challenge to recreate iconic ‘Star Wars’ moments in a brand new exhibition.
5 November: Exhibition of NY Fashion icon comes to Adelaide
Opening this week (8 November) and showing through the summer, the David Roche Gallery is presenting the exhibition Style and Spirit: The Fashion of Chester Weinberg, the fashion icon who shaped the couturier landscape of New York in the 1950s and 1960s before being appointed head designer of Calvin Klein Jeans – then the largest fashion brand in the world.
23 October: Vincent van Gogh returns to THE LUME with a new VR format
Hoping that lightning strikes twice, THE LUME is bringing back Vincent van Gogh for another summer run, opening on Boxing Day. Van Gogh Alive marked the opening of THE LUME in Melbourne back in November 2022 and was one of the venue’s most popular shows, breaking box office records and welcoming 1.8 million visitors across Australia and New Zealand during its run. It is expected the new expanded experience, Finding Vincent, will prove just as popular.
15 October: Machu Picchu and Incan treasures come to Sydney
Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru is a double-barrelled experience: visitors can ‘fly through’ the Incan city of Mach Picchu via cutting-edge drone footage delivered as a Virtual Reality (VR) experience of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as physically walking through 134 priceless artefacts, including gold treasure from royal tombs, glittering jewels, intricate masks and objects of worship. Presented by the Australian Museum in Sydney from 23 November to February 2025. Ticketed.
2 October: From Björk to Blade Runner 2049: revisioning the future at ACMI this summer
Running from 28 November 2024 to 27 April 2025 at Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), The Future & Other Fictions is a new exhibition celebrating screen culture’s role in shaping a more optimistic world.
22 August: Textiles are radical – Adelaide matching London rethink
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) is taking a mammoth look at the global history of textile practice, and its currency in contemporary practice here in Australia. But it is not a mothballed timeline. Rather, it is interested in the medium as a vehicle for activism and change. Radical Textiles is a major exhibition showing from 23 November through to 30 March 2025. It is a ticketed exhibition.
13 August: Chihuly to transform Adelaide Botanic Garden with epic glass installation
Arguably the world’s most celebrated glass artist, Dale Chihuly is coming to Australia to transform Adelaide Botanic Garden for an exclusive exhibition, Chihuly in the Botanic Garden, from 27 September 2024 to 29 April 2025. In a formal statement released on 13 August, Chihuly said: ‘Adelaide Botanic Garden offers so many rich colours and textures – the ideal environment for the placement of my work, and I look forward to sharing this new exhibition with the South Australian community.’ Chihuly’s last exhibition in Australia was at the Adelaide-based JamFactory in 2000, and he has not returned since.
8 August: What the APT11 artist list says about now
The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art returns to QAGOMA for its eleventh edition, from 30 November. The list of 70 artists from 30 countries was announced in August, so we took a look at what this next crop of artists have to say.
19 July: Frida Kahlo joins the gold rush at Bendigo Art Gallery
Bendigo Art Gallery announced it will present the exhibition Frida Kahlo: In her own image from 15 March to 13 July 2025. It is an international exclusive with works coming directly from Mexico’s Museo Frida Kahlo located in the revered artist’s hometown of Coyoacán, Mexico.
4 June: Sydney summer blockbusters announced
On 3 June the next summer exhibitions under the Sydney International Art Series banner were announced. They are anything but stale. Three very diverse artists – the iconic surrealist master, Belgium artist René Magritte (26 October to 9 February 2025; ticketed), the cyber futurist videos of Chinese artist Cao Fei (30 November to 13 April 2025; ticketed) will head to the Art Gallery of NSW, and the expanded painting practice of US artist Julie Mehretu (29 November to 27 April 2025; ticketed) will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA).
2 July: Exhibition highlights for July – December
Hate the feeling of FOMO? Or thinking of travelling interstate? ArtsHub’s got you covered for exhibitions to visit during the second half of 2024, from July into the summer months.
14 April: Yayoi Kusama next up for 2024 NGV summer exhibition
Melbourne’s first major retrospective of Japan’s famed nonagenarian artist Yayoi Kusama is heading to the NGV this summer. Comprising more than 180 works, the exhibition will span the entire ground floor of NGV International, entrance waterfall, Federation Court and Great Hall. It opens 15 December, and includes some of Kusama’s most famed works: Flower Obsession (2017), which previously showed in the 2017/18 NGV Triennial, Pumpkin (1981), Travelling Life (1964) and Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (1965). Tickets are now on sale.
