The best art exhibitions in Sydney this month

For the last two years, the Art Gallery of NSW has focussed on Europe in its big summer exhibitions: the Netherlands in Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age (2017-18), and Russia and France in Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage (2018-19). But this summer is all about Japan with an epic exhibition of more than 200 artworks from artists past and present.

The Museum of Contemporary Art's summer blockbuster slot has attracted some pretty big names in recent years, with shows from Pipilotti Rist, David Goldblatt, Yoko Ono and Grayson Perry. For 2019-20, it's Cornelia Parker's turn. Parker is considered one of England's biggest and most influential art stars from the last few decades.

For ten years now, Judith Neilson's four-storey temple of contemporary Chinese art has stood proudly in Chippendale, showcasing an enviable collection of bold, playful and frequently provocative work. 

Beijing-born Guan Wei is one of the most provocative and distinctive artists making work in Australia today, about both China and his adopted homeland, and the connection between the two nations. He first left China for Australia in 1989, following the protests in Tiananmen Square, and has divided his time between Sydney and Beijing since then.

Australia hasn't produced that many superstar painters in recent decades (or at least not that many that have reached that status just yet) but Ben Quilty's work is known across the country for its vivid, luscious and tormented quality, all realised in oils. This exhibition is Quilty's first major survey in more than a decade and covers 15 years of his work.

Fifty years ago, John Kaldor changed Australian art history when he invited Christo and Jeanne-Claude to Sydney to wrap two and a half kilometres of coastline with white fabric. Fast forward half a century, and Kaldor has now staged 34 awe-inspiring public art projects from artists including Jeff Koons, Marina Abramovic, Gilbert & George, Jonathan Jones and Sol LeWitt.

Each year, the Museum of Contemporary Art invites an artist or curator to take the reins of Primavera, an exhibition for emerging artists under 35. The brief is simple: showcase artists from across Australia who they feel represent current trends or styles emerging in the next generation. 

A Banksy retrospective, featuring more than 80 of his best-known works, and exhibited in a gallery space. Does it sound like something that the British artist – an anti-establishment icon – would ever approve?  No, it doesn't – and it's not. The Art of Banksy is an entirely unauthorised exhibition, curated by the famously anonymous artist’s former manager, Steve Lazarides. 

Australia’s richest art prize, the Doug Moran Portrait Prize, has been won by some of our most well known artists, including Robert Hannaford, Ben Quilty, Vincent Fantauzzo, Louise Hearman, Tim Storrier and Prudence Flint. 

Recently, a lost archive of photos from the Sydney Morning Herald showed up in a bank vault in the US. Covering the 1950s through to the '80s, the photos reveal a vibrant city constantly evolving and growing. That's why the Northern Beaches Council recently purchased 3,500 photos from the archive, shot on the Northern Beaches or related to the Northern Beaches.

The National Portrait Gallery often stands in the shadow of the flashier National Gallery of Australia, but this summer it has a blockbuster exhibition all of its own. Celebrating 60 years of Vogue Australia, Women in Vogue brings together iconic portraits of the Australian women who have featured in the magazine’s pages over the years, including Kylie Minogue, Cate Blanchett and Elle McPherson.

This series of large photographs pairs images of nude women in forbidding, rugged landscapes with shots of the landscape itself. Melbourne-based artist Clare Plueckhahn was inspired by the 1992 book by Jungian psychoanalyst Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman. 

On May 30, a very special temporary installation opened in the entrance to the Cutaway, the cathedral-like underground cultural space that is part of the Barangaroo urban renewal project. Commissioned by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority, ‘Wellama’ is a new, ten-minute filmed artwork that celebrates the connection of Aboriginal people to the land and portrays some of the rituals that have been practised here for thousands of years.

You know Sculpture by the Sea and you know Sculpture at Scenic World. Perhaps you even know Hidden at Rookwood Cemetery. But do you know about Eden Unearthed at Eden Gardens?  It’s the annual outdoor sculpture exhibition that takes place among the flowers and plants at Macquarie Park’s popular display garden Eden Gardens.