Six Must-See Exhibitions Happening in Australia This Winter

The weird and wonderful combine in Patricia Piccinini’s new exhibition at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA). Extending across a range of mediums from sculpture to photography, Piccinini presents an augmented vision of reality through an amalgam of science, nature and fiction. Curious Affection features over 70 immersive artworks, and it’s the first time GOMA has exhibited the work of a contemporary Australian artist on such a large scale. It features a variety of new commissions and old works in Piccinini’s unmistakable hyperreal style, including ‘The Field’, an installation of more than 3000 flower sculptures. Accompanying the exhibition is a superb film program at GOMA’s Australian Cinematheque, which run from science fiction through to horror classics. Take a look inside the exhibition.

As school kids, we’re taught to think of art and science as two very different beasts. But neuroscience now shows this dichotomy to be false — when performing most complex tasks, we use both the logical and creative sides of our brain. And this July, at Carriageworks, Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda will smash this division to smithereens by transforming science into art with two epic installations entitled micro | macro.

The work — which Ikeda developed during a residency at the renowned science institution CERN in Switzerland — is divided into two sections. The first, the planck universe [micro], reveals atoms by blowing them up into visible proportions. This mind-bending installation will cover a whopping 172.8 square metres of space inside the Redfern multi-arts institution. The second, the planck universe [macro], is a ten-metre-high projection capturing the natural world in various scales — from the human perspective all the way to the cosmic one.

As you wander through both installations, expect to feel very, very small, while finding yourself asking some big, big questions. What do we know? What can we know? Is what we see really all that it seems?

Not going overseas this winter? Luckily, you’ll still have the chance to take a bite out of some Big Apple arts and culture, as the National Gallery of Victoria plays host to an exclusive exhibition showcasing works from New York’s prestigious Museum of Modern Art.

MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art will feature over 200 modern and contemporary masterpieces, many on their first ever visit to Australia. Taking over the entire ground floor of NGV International, it’s certifiably huge. The exhibition will present pieces from all six of MoMA’s curatorial departments, meaning the works will span Photography, Film, Architecture and Design, Painting and Sculpture, Drawings and Prints, and Media and Performance Art. You’ll catch works from all of the big names of the 19th and 20th century art world, including Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keeffe, Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol.

Capturing the spirit of more recent times, will be pieces from the likes of Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, Olafur Eliasson, Rineke Dijkstra and Camille Henrot. Examining over 130 years of innovation, MoMA at NGV sets out to explore all the major art movements, with the exhibition spread across eight themed sections. Here are a few of the big-name works on display. Needless to say, the partnership with MoMa is a pretty huge coup for both the NGV and Australian art lovers. Take a look inside the exhibition.

If you’re thinking of heading to Tassie for Dark Mofo this year, this could be the clincher. MONA is hosting its next big exhibition, Zero — a celebration of Germany’s radical artists of the 1950s and 60s. The show gets its name from the term the artists used, collectively, to describe themselves. They didn’t identify as belonging to a movement, style or group, but instead felt connected by a “vision of the things”, as explained by Otto Piene, one of the founders.

The show will feature artworks by original Zero artists, as well as those that have since absorbed their influence. These include Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker and Adolf Luther from Germany; Lucio Fontana, Nanda Vigo, Grazia Varisco, Enrico Castellani and Gianni Colombo from Italy; with Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein and François Morellet from France; Henk Peeters from The Netherlands; Christian Megert from Switzerland; Jesús Soto from Venezuela; and Yayoi Kusama from Japan. Given that these artworks were often ephemeral, many will be reconstructions. Expect sound effects, music, optical illusions, moving parts, shifting lights and reflective materials.

When Lewis Carroll first sent Alice down the rabbit hole back in 1865, he couldn’t have guessed just where she’d end up. While the English mathematician-turned-writer obviously knew she’d be wandering around Wonderland, that was just the beginning of her white rabbit-chasing journey.

From April 5 to October 7, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image will pay tribute to all things Alice in Wonderland, the centre’s major exhibition for the year as part of the Victorian Government’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series. A world-premiere event crafted and curated by ACMI, the entirely original showcase will take fans through the screen history of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There — aka the two Carroll-penned books that introduced not only the titular heroine, but the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, and food and drink with “eat me” and “drink me” labels.

Pablo Picasso jammed plenty of creativity into his 91-year life, including paintings, sculptures, prints, ceramics, stage design, plays, poetry and more. During the 1930s, he also etched and engraved a set of 100 pieces, in a series that was named after the art dealer who commissioned them: The Vollard Suite. Produced over an eight-year period, the collection takes inspiration from stories, tales and myths, as well as the human form, his mistress and politics at the time. In other words, it proves an artistic overview of his favoured themes and fascinations, while also offering an autobiography of sorts. It’s the kind of intimate work that gives fans an insight into the Spanish master beyond his more famous pieces. And the National Gallery of Australia is one of the few institutions in the world to boast a complete set.