The best art exhibitions in Melbourne this month
This month is your last chance to catch the NGV's huge MoMA exhibition, before the modern masterpieces all head back to New York. But there are still plenty of high-profile shows running this month, including Polly Borland's photography retrospective, Hito Steyerl's installation at the NGV and Eva Rothschild's exhibition at ACCA.
Looking to get out of the gallery? See the best street art in Melbourne. And if you're after something a touch more dramatic, here's our hit-list of the best theatre in Melbourne this month.
Melbourne's best art shows
Biennale of Australian Art
This will be the first year Ballarat has played host to this brand new art biennale, but we feel that we can already confidently declare it the daytrip of every Melbourne art lover's dreams.
Hito Steyerl: Factory of the Sun
Could dancing save the world? German artist Hito Steyerl uses a montage of dancing figures as symbols of how we live and what we’re turning into, before we experience the complete digitisation of our everyday lives.
Eva Rothschild: Kosmos
This is the first solo Australian exhibition of the Irish-born artist who's set to represent Ireland at next year’s Venice Biennale.
Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is the exhibition that stops a nation – well, a city anyway. Everyone has an opinion about who and what is most deserving of the $100,000 top gong.
Baldessin/Whiteley: Parallel Visions
George Baldessin and Brett Whiteley were both born in 1939, achieved meteoric success in their respective cities of Melbourne and Sydney, and died tragically young. Yet the similarities don’t stop there.
Gothic Beauty: Victorian notions of love, loss and spirituality
In 1764, the publication of Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto caused a sensation. Inspired by Walpole’s tale of a haunted castle, ladies of the day became obsessed with all things “gothic” and supernatural.
Josh X Muir
Drawing inspiration from hip hop and street art culture, as well as his Gunditjmara and Yorta Yorta heritage, Ballarat artist Josh Muir’s kaleidoscopic multimedia works hang in the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Julia deVille: Wholeness and the Implicit Order
It may surprise you to learn that Julia deVille, known as a jeweller, artist and taxidermist, is actually a vegetarian. She's spent most of her career preserving animal bodies and arranging them into intricate works of art.
Ken Unsworth: Truly, Madly
If you wander into the NGV's Ian Potter Centre this summer you might find yourself face-to-face with some rather creepy spectres.
Mike Parr: Kindness is so Gangster (Specified Abstract Expressionism)
Mike Parr is best known for his innovative performance artworks (earlier this year he was buried under a main road in Hobart), but for Melbourne Festival he'll be showing his latest project: self portraits made from glass sculpture.
Looking to get outside the gallery?
Where to find the best street art in Melbourne
Sure, street art covers almost every nook and cranny of our creative, colourful city, but there are more highly concentrated clusters than others. These are the street art hotspots that any self-respecting 'grammer should be snapping: the city's ten best street mural hotspots, in all their spray-painted laneway glory.
