Suggested Reading
Julie Mehretu and the new contemporary
Julie Mehretu’s first solo exhibition in the southern hemisphere, now showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, attempts to harness the urgency and energy of the Ethiopian-born New Yorker’s multilayered painting practice.
Courtney Kidd
Stranger than fiction: Magritte and Cao Fei
In two new exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, René Magritte and Cao Fei speak to each other across cultures and eras about the way that perception can unsettle reality—and the places the real intersects with the surreal.
Sally Gearon
The undeniable power of Josina Pumani’s Maralinga
Josina Pumani’s electric ceramic work Maralinga—recently recognised at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards— deftly excavates a long-hidden past.
Jessica Alderton
Angelica Mesiti’s The Rites of When finally makes sense of the Art Gallery of NSW’s Tank. It is worth the plane flight.
In The Rites of When, Angelica Mesiti considers the rituals that may mark the seasons in our burning planet. The Tank has been waiting for art like this.
Joanna Mendelssohn
Beasts of burden at the inaugural Melbourne Sculpture Biennale
A new event has arrived in Melbourne’s cultural calendar with the inauguration of the Melbourne Sculpture Biennale: an exhibition that aims to showcase the breadth and diversity of contemporary sculpture in Victoria.
Art Guide Australia
The immersive storytelling of Leah King-Smith
rhythm wRites, a new exhibition at QUT Art Museum, spans 30 years of Bigambul artist Leah King-Smith’s manifold art practice, covering painting, photography, sound and animation.