Andrew Stephens is an independent visual arts writer based in Melbourne. He has worked as a journalist, editor and curator, and has degrees in fine art and art history.
As we move toward the end of 2022, another year of many changes and adjustments, one thing for certain is that Australia holds strong in celebrating art and culture. Here’s seven new gallery spaces to visit this summer.
For over a decade John Young has distinctively approached colour and form to highlight overlooked narratives of Chinese people in Australia since 1840. His latest exhibition, None Living Knows, is now showing at Moore Contemporary.
“Even now, after doing it for 40 years, it’s an adventure and it’s terrifying,” says Cressida Campbell of her practice combining painting and printmaking techniques. Now, she has a major survey at the National Gallery of Australia.
From The Fox: NGV Contemporary to the Sydney Modern Project, to major overhauls of regional art spaces, hundreds of millions of dollars are being funnelled into museum buildings. But are these new buildings being privileged over artists, or is this the future investment we need?
When the recent floods hit Lismore in February, artist Claudie Frock endured a terrifying night. She was lucky to survive after she, her partner and dog were rescued by the SES. Everything Frock knew was engulfed in floods: her home, her studio/gallery and her workplace at Lismore Regional Gallery. Now, amid extreme disaster recovery, we speak to Lismore arts locals about where to next.
Working in her Canberra studio, German-born artist Stefanie Schulte listens to music. Many artists do that while working, but Schulte’s listening is different: she sees music as much as she hears it, and that faculty is apparent in her latest suite of paintings, Vivaldi’s Seasons at ANCA.
While the overarching theme of the upcoming PHOTO 2022 Festival of Photography is expansive—“being human”—the headline Helmut Newton exhibition is an intimate look at the artist’s life and trajectory, who’s known for his elegant 1950s fashion images.
In Search of Mohamed at This Is No Fantasy includes multichannel video and photography works that explore the tensions between “the reverent and the profane”.
The acclaimed UK duo Ackroyd & Harvey are two of the most innovative artists working in environmental art today—and for the current Biennale of Sydney, they’ve bought their grass works to our shores, advocating for a sustainable future.
Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra’s three-metre tall larrakitj (memorial poles) are perfect for the soaring interiors of Michael Reid’s new Chippendale gallery, where fifteen of the impressively patterned larrakitj showcase Wunuŋmurra’s spiralling floral motifs and her rigorous geometry.
With its lens aimed at the complexities of how we inhabit and perceive public space, ACCA’s new offering stretches from the gallery to the Melbourne suburbs, with a truly incredible program spanning exhibitions, performances, talks, meeting spaces and installations.
