As summer approaches, art enthusiasts have a perfect opportunity to enrich their holiday plans with thought-provoking exhibitions.
Curated for the season, these upcoming exhibitions offer a diverse range of artistic experiences, from contemporary art installations to historical retrospectives. Whether you are drawn to vibrant landscapes, immersive installations, or contemporary artworks, there is something for everyone. Here are my top recommendations to add to your summer itinerary.
YAYOI KUSAMA
15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Yayoi Kusama is renowned globally for her distinctive use of pattern, colour, and symbols to create immersive, provocative and deeply personal artworks. Born in Japan in 1929, Kusama has influenced key art movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including pop art, minimalism, feminist art, and performance art. Celebrated for her playful and recognisable motifs; polka dots and pumpkins.
The exhibition at the NGV includes works that have never been seen in Australia and diverse displays of the artist’s immersive rooms. These include the most recent infinity mirror room, as well as a room which visually entangles viewers within 6 metre-high tentacular forms that are covered in yellow-and-black polka dots. Comprising over 180 works, the exhibition is the largest of the artist’s work in Australia, featuring painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, video, and installation, highlighting the breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice.
QUARANTINE ART FAIR
8 – 11 January 2025
Point Nepean, Portsea
The Quarantine Art Fair returns in January and will again be set within the Commanding Officer’s House and grounds at Point Nepean National Park in Portsea. This setting allows the public to engage with contemporary art, with a backdrop of stunning views of Port Phillip Bay, as well as providing an opportunity to learn about the history of Point Nepean as a quarantine station.
Established in 2021 by Jane Hayman and Luisa Bosci, the art fair shows a summer salon exhibition, creating a boutique experience for audiences to view paintings, sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and photography, with the added opportunity to acquire works. Previous contributing galleries included Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, LON Gallery, Murray White Room, Neon Parc, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Station Gallery, and THIS IS NO FANTASY.
ETHEL CARRICK
7 December 2024 – 27 April 2025
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Comprising of 140 artworks, this exhibition will be the first retrospective of Ethel Carrick’s (1872-1952) work for nearly fifty years. Born in Britain, Carrick lived and worked primarily in France and Australia, breaking new ground in the early twentieth-century art scene with her bold and vibrant post-impressionist style.
Though Carrick’s art is often contextualised alongside that of her husband, the Australian artist Emanuel Phillips Fox, their marriage lasted until ten years before his passing, and she continued to produce work for decades afterwards. This retrospective exhibition spans the entirety of Carrick’s career, bringing to light her diverse body of work from her extensive travels across Europe, India, and North Africa. The show offers a rare opportunity to fully appreciate Carrick’s unique contributions to art in Australia and abroad.
RADICAL TEXTILES
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
23 November 2024 – 30 March 2025
Artists and designers have long used textiles to reflect and respond to significant social upheaval and political disruption. Through tapestry, embroidery, quilting, and tailoring, textiles in art become expressions of tension, transformation, resistance, and activism. In the late nineteenth century, British artist and designer William Morris reacted to the mechanisation of the Industrial Revolution by creating handwoven tapestries with manually dyed thread, embodying an artisanal response to mass production. Today, artists are reimagining traditional textile practices to challenge the pace of the digital era.
Featuring works from over 100 artists, designers, and activists, this exhibition showcases AGSA’s international, Australian, and First Nations collections of textiles and fashion, complemented by sculpture, painting, photography, and moving image.
By Amanda North, Art Specialist
Top Image: Radical Textiles, Art Gallery South Australia. Vivienne Westwood, fashion house, Wedding ensemble, 1993-94, London, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gift of Vivienne Westwood 1994
November 2024