Six Melbourne Exhibitions That Will Warm Your Art Receptors This Winter

This July, a groundbreaking exhibition will kick off at the Koorie Heritage Trust in Federation Square, with the main aim of smashing preconceptions of Indigenous design. Titled Blak Design Matters and curated by award-winning architect Jefa Greenaway, it’ll be the first national survey of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design, showcasing talent from across the country.

Exploring everything from architecture and town planning, to interior and product design, the exhibition’s out to celebrate Indigenous design within a contemporary context, instead of reinforcing the usual link to long-held traditions and eras past. It’ll look at how Aboriginal-led design remains innovative, creative and contemporary, while still balancing a respect for history.

On show will be a diverse spread of work, including jewellery from Maree Clarke, Haus of Dizzy and Grace Lillian Lee, graphic design from Balarinji Designs, Marcus Lee Designs and Galimbaa Designs, and fashion pieces by the likes of Lyn-Al Young and Teagan Cowlishaw’s AARLI.

After being one of the most important events at 2017 Sydney Festival, this posthumous exhibition from Australian Myuran Sukumaran is coming to Victoria. Now a household name in this country, these works were all created during Sukumaran’s incarceration in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison.

Curated by 2011 Archibald winner Ben Quilty and Campbelltown Arts Centre director Michael Dagostino, Another Day in Paradise displays not only Sukumaran’s work, but works by other artists specially commissioned in response to the death penalty. This exhibition brings to the fore the discussion surrounding capital punishment around the world, and opens up a dialogue regarding art, redemption and rehabilitation. It will be on display at Bendigo Art Gallery until September 16. If you want to make a day of it, check out our arts and culture guide to Bendigo.

Image: Daniel Boud. 

A free and confronting exhibition that explores the merging of human and animal. In part celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, My Monster: The Human Animal Hybrid will illuminate how we as a society still fear, yet are fascinated, by human-animal hybrids. Through the work of over 30 artists, the exhibition will ask the question of what a hybrid future might look like for animals and humans, given recent biotechnological developments.

Just like the monster in Shelley’s book, the hybrid is unnatural, an outsider — a monster that blurs the lines between the human and animal realms. The exhibition’s aim is also to remind us that we are all, really, still animals, so get ready to feel a sense of disquiet upon seeing the exhibition. And a word of warning: some parts are considered confronting, so beware.

Image: Kate Clark, ‘And She Meant It’.

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. Set to run until October 7, 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.

The Monash University Museum of Art will showcase Robert Smithson’s radical land art from the 1960s and early 1970s in the first ever Australian exhibition of the hugely influential American artist’s work. Running from July 21 to September 22, Time Crystals presents many of Smithson’s key works of sculpture, film, photography, drawing, prints and texts.

With the exhibition featuring almost entirely never-before-seen works in Australia, a collaboration between MUMA and The University of Queensland has successfully loaned Smithson’s work from several major local and international institutions. Examining Smithson’s massive land-based works and photography, Time Crystals includes many of the artist’s personal sketches, preparatory drawings, correspondence, photographs and handwritten manuscripts, all of which detail the massive undertaking behind each os his works.

The exhibition will also be accompanied by a half-day symposium and a three-part film program further considering the artist’s legacy. Alongside his impressive creations, Smithson is credited with being one of the first artists to understand his work as project-driven, promoting a shift in the mindset of many artists of the time. Reflecting on his own work through writing, lecturing and curating, Smithson intensely considered the medium, location and language involved throughout his art projects.

Image: Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, shot by Gianfranco Gorgoni. 

Rolls Royces, Mercedes-Benzs and Jaguars aren’t your typical canvases, but David Bromley isn’t your everyday artist. A free openair exhibition at PROVOCARÉ, Whatever You Dream sees Bromley take luxury cars destined for the junkyard and transform them into masterful works of art. The co-founder of leading Chapel Street design studio and shop Bromley&Co, David Bromley is one of Australia’s most in-demand contemporary artists working today. Best known for three long-term series Boys Own adventure, the Female Nude series, and Butterflies, for his newest exhibition — running July 5–15 — Bromley adds his unique styling to the opulent cars, employing a host of pop culture references, found images and bold colours to explore themes of nostalgia and the lost and found.