Ten New Melbourne Art Exhibitions That Will Drag You in From the Cold This July

The National Geographic publishes images of animals all the time, but the ones photographed for their Photo Ark project are a little different. Led by Nat Geophotographer Joel Sartore, Photo Ark aims to document every living species currently living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the world. As well as acting as an archive of biodiversity, Photo Ark is also a travelling exhibition — and it will be coming to Melbourne Zoo for three months from July 1.

It’s a huge project, and one that Sartore has been working on for a decade now. So far the photographer has visited 250 institutions in 40 countries and captured images of over 6000 species. Many of the animals photographed — including the orange-bellied parrot above — live at Melbourne Zoo or Healesville Sanctuary, which is the reason why this exhibition is coming to our shores. Having travelled around zoos in the US, this will be the first time the works will be seen in the southern hemisphere.

Many of the animals featured are critically threatened or endangered, and Photo Ark aims to bring attention to these species and urge humans to help protect these animals for future generations. While Melbourne Zoo is the only confirmed Australian stop for the exhibition, additional venues may be announced at a later date.

Celebrating the launch of the new Preston-based Gertrude Contemporary following the gallery’s move after 32-years in Fitzroy, Forever Transformed represents the 17^th edition of the gallery’s flagship annual ‘Octopus’ exhibition. Curated by artist and writer Georgie Meagher, as uncertainty and disruption grows in many people’s lives, Forever Transformed delves into the concept of ‘resilience’ and what it means to adapt or change to survive, and whether bouncing back is always a good thing.

Meagher has brought together artists such as Tony Albert, Rushdi Anwar, Sophie Cassar, Tabita Rezaire and Liz Linden to explore these ideas, with each artist providing their own interpretation of resilience and exploring alternative ideas such as perseverance, subversion and optimism. Each year the ‘Octopus’ program invites a guest curator to explore new forms of curatorial practice – providing an exciting opportunity to see what’s happening at the cusp of art thought today.

Octopus 17: Forever Transformed takes place at the new Gertrude Contemporary in Preston from Friday July 28 until Saturday, September 9.

Sometimes the white walls of a gallery just don’t create the most welcoming space, so that’s why the curators of the Yelmo-Garang exhibition have transformed the Footscray Community Arts Centre’s Gabriel Gallery with couches, art supplies and delicious tea for your enjoyment. Developed by emerging Taungurung artist and filmmaker Kate ten Buuren, and multi-talented creative Kat Clarke, Yelmo-Garang ­– the Kulin word for ‘nest’ – invites you to discover a space “where time ceases to exist”.

Functioning as both an art studio and exhibition space, the public is encouraged to come experience Indigenous artists creating new works, while also leaving behind your own creations. Yelmo-Garang offers a space that is open to any and all possibilities, aiming to separate itself from the bounds of your average art exhibition.

Yelmo-Garang is open now and takes place at the Footscray Community Arts Centre until Saturday July 29.

One of the most influential art movements of the 20^th century, Constructivism believed that art could be used for social purposes, becoming a widely used ideal throughout architecture, graphic design, theatre, film and more. Heide Museum of Modern Art takes an extensive look at the movement with Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Art, an exhibition that considers the work of over sixty Australian and influential international artists. With links back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, this exhibition considers how the movement made its way to Australia and how our artists adapted its utopian ideals to a distinctly Australian experience.

Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Art takes place from Wednesday, July 5 until Sunday, October 8 and features work by Australian artists such as Ralph Balson, Frank Hinder, Inge King, alongside works by members of the original Russian movement like Rodchenko, Malevich, El Lissitzky and British artists Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth.

Collaborating for the third time, Melbourne-based visual and sound artist Michael Graeve teams up with Mark Booth, an American interdisciplinary artist, to create a lively space rich in text, prints, projections, surround sound and performance. A playful experiment, Insert Text Here contrasts abstract works with text-based creations, which have been modified as paintings, stencils, vinyl works and more. The exhibition will be a compelling one as works blanket almost the entirety of Blindside Gallery’s floors, ceiling and walls, as fragmented sound and projections also permeate the space.

Having met in Chicago in 2005, Graeve and Booth have worked together twice previously, exploring notions of space, environment and time. Clashing sound, visuals, physical objects and text, the artist’s consider how we might find visual inspiration in sound works, make auditory discoveries through paintings and uncover other unique experiences through varied and intense stimulus.

Insert Text Here takes place at Blindside Gallery from Wednesday July 12 until Saturday July 29.

Interested in tight-knit rural communities and how ritual plays an important part in our daily lives, Melbourne-based portrait and documentary photographer Lynette Letic brings a new exhibition to Junior Space. Having been raised in Brisbane suburbia, throughout 2015 Letic journeyed to numerous regional communities where she approached strangers to photograph their community events, social gatherings, dances and fairs. Culminating in the Let’s Get Together exhibition, through her photographs, Letic began to realise the importance of coming together and the deeper role these events have in small-town life.

Inspired by renowned photographers such as Rineke Dijkstra, Alec Soth, Diane Arbus and Walker Evans, Letic takes a similar documentarian approach with Let’s Get Together, revealing the idiosyncrasies of small town communities and uncovering how distinct events and people can share unmistakable similarities.

Let’s Get Together is on display at Junior Space from Thursday July 13 until Wednesday July 26.

Drawing on more than four decades of work from Belfast-born artist David Thomas, RMIT Design Hub hosts a major exhibition presenting in excess of 100 of the artist’s ‘deeply human’ paintings. Presented together for the first time and displaying the evolution of Thomas’ work from the 1970s until the present day, Colouring Impermanence conveys Thomas’ belief in arts practice and paintings to convey empathy and displays his constant re-evaluation of colour, duration and time.

Colouring Impermanence takes place in two inter-connected spaces, with Project Room 1 showing contemplative works from Thomas’ archives, as well as new works produced directly into response to the Design Hub space. Project Room 2 largely reflects a typical art studio and features early drawings, past collaborative works and art from Thomas’ peers on display. The two rooms are also linked by a ‘mobile monochrome’ series entitled Taking A Line For A Walk.

Drawing on his role as a professor of fine art at RMIT, throughout the exhibition Thomas will be holding a free eight lesson ‘micro-course’ that explores the importance of teaching in Thomas’ art practice, and considers how empathy can be encouraged through art.

David Thomas: Colouring Impermanence runs from Friday July 28 until Saturday September 23 at RMIT Design Hub.

The Gertrude Street Projection Festival will light up the night for the tenth year in a row, when it returns to Fitzroy this winter. Running for ten nights from July 21–30, the free community-driven event will once again showcase spectacular light compositions from local and international artists up and down the northside drag.

Returning artists Yandell Walton, Ray Thomas, Susan Forrester and Jody Haines are among the Australian artists to be announced so far, with the full program to be made public later this month.

In addition to the projections — which last year illuminated everything from shopfronts to footpaths to the trees in the Atherton Gardens — this year’s festival will also feature a program of special events, including parties, pop-ups, and live music and DJ sets, plus a few culinary offerings to tempt you out into the cold from 6pm till midnight each night.

For the last decade or so, Luke Cornish, aka ELK, has been taking his street art into the gallery to great acclaim. Entitled Zero To The Left, Cornish was inspired by a recent journey to war-town Syria, where he taught art to the local children and hoped to provide a positive impact to those caught in the middle of a terrible conflict. Producing lifelike works using stencils, aerosol paint and sublimation prints, Cornish shows the endless destruction and daily struggles of those living with an uncertain future.

Cornish is one of Australia’s most acclaimed street artists routinely completely large-scale works and exhibits. Back in 2012, Cornish was the first stencil artist to be a finalist in the Archibald Prize – Australia’s most prestigious portrait award – with his multi-layered portrait of the ever-popular Father Bob Maguire and has since continued to show his art extensively around Australia and the world.

Zero To The Left is on display at Metro Gallery from Monday July 10 until Saturday August 5. In addition, Father Bob Maguire will join Cornish for a free talk at Metro Gallery on Saturday July 15, 12pm–1pm.

The work of one of Japan’s most popular and prolific artists, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), will be the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. On display from July 21 until October 15, Hokusai will feature more than 150 works by the eponymous painter and printmaker, including several remarkable pieces that have never been seen in Australia before.

Produced by the NGV in partnership with the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, the exhibition will feature a number of the artist’s most iconic creations. These include the instantly recognisable The Great Wave off Kanagawa, as well as the complete Hokusai Manga, which helped shape the development of manga as we know it today.

NGV director James Ellwood has called Hokusai “unprecedented”, and said that it would offer Australian audiences “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness the artist’s influential legacy in one of the most comprehensive exhibitions ever staged outside of Japan”.