Jason Phu's Archibald Prize 2025 finalist, ‘older hugo from the future fighting hugo from right now in a swamp and all the frogs and insects and fish and flowers now look on’
Photograph: AGNSW/Jenni Carter | Jason Phu's Archibald Prize 2025 finalist, ‘older hugo from the future fighting hugo from right now in a swamp and all the frogs and insects and fish and flowers now look on’
Photograph: AGNSW/Jenni Carter | Jason Phu's Archibald Prize 2025 finalist, ‘older hugo from the future fighting hugo from right now in a swamp and all the frogs and insects and fish and flowers now look on’

The best exhibitions to see in Sydney this month

There's always fascinating new worlds to discover in Sydney's galleries and museums

Alannah Sue
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Rain or shine, Sydney’s best art galleries and top museums contain treasure troves of inspiration just waiting to be discovered.

The Art Gallery of NSW is ready to unleash a fresh suite of famous faces, diverse landscapes and eclectic sculptures with the return of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes. There's also plenty more strange and wonderful things to discover across both gallery buildings – and you only have a limited time left to head down into The Tank and allow the rich visual and sonic experience of Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When to wash over you (closes May 11). 

If you like your exhibitions extra outrageous, then you absolutely do not want to miss XSWL at White Rabbit Gallery (closes May 18). Taking its name from the Chinese internet slang term for “laughing to death”, this exhibition features four floors of wild contemporary art where silly, harmless fun and jokes are deployed to bypass taboos and tackle politically sensitive topics. 

Qtopia Sydney will also soon say goodbye to the colourful suite of exhibitions that opened during Sydney Mardi Gras, including an exploration of a certain Aussie pop star’s deep bond with her LGBTQ+ fanbase in Kylie Minogue & Queer Devotion, as well as a fabulous showcase of painstakingly crafted costumes from past Sydney Mardi Gras Parades in BE:DAZZLED Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Costume Extravaganza
.

Are you prepared to head outside of the city for an experience where art and nature come together? Down by the bend of the Shoalhaven River, Bundanon's intriguing new exhibition features talking mushrooms and dancing horses; and in the Southern Highlands, Ngununggula has just unveiled a gorgeous showcase of all-women painters.

Read on for more of the coolest exhibitions to have a gander at.

The best exhibitions in Sydney right now

  • Art
  • Galleries
  • Sydney
  • Recommended

Australia’s most popular arts event is back in action for 2025They call it “the face that stops the nation”, and the Archibald Prize for portraiture has indeed been courting controversy and conversation for more than a century now. Meanwhile, the Wynne Prize awards the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figurative sculpture, and the Sulman is awarded to the best genre painting, subject painting or mural project.

  • Art
  • Digital and interactive
  • Woolloomooloo

As the distinctions between the digital and the material worlds become increasingly blurred, the way we think about art, society and technology is radically shifting. In the latest exhibition at Artspace, Amongst the clouds (digital materialities in the 21st century), we see a group of six artists exploring new ways that art and technology can work together to shape our physical and digital worlds. 

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  • Art
  • Galleries
  • The Rocks

The MCA presents the first solo museum exhibition by Kamilaroi artist Warraba Weatherall, whose work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally over the past decade. Through a dynamic combination of installation, sculpture and video works, Shadow and Substance turns a critical eye to the colonial record – reframing existing narratives about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and culture found within archival and museum collections. 

Exhibitions to explore outside of Sydney

  • Art
  • Galleries

When it comes to regional art galleries, Bundanon is top tier – a special place hidden within a nature reserve and perched between a snaking bend of the mighty Shoalhaven River and the foot of a mountain. The latest exhibition to take up residence in the Art Museum, which encourages new ways of thinking through collaborations between humans and non-human worlds, is a natural fit. 

  • Art
  • Paintings
  • Bowral

Ngununggula, for the uninitiated, is a gorgeous little gem of a gallery residing in a repurposed dairy shed near Bowral, a chilled 90-minute drive from Sydney. The latest exhibition to take over the walls is Tender, an all-women showcase of seven leading Australian painters exploring the sensitive yet provocative concept of “tenderness”.

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