The best art exhibitions in Sydney this month

The National happens in the off-years of the Biennale of Sydney, filling that biennale-shaped hole in your heart. The galleries have planned to run the event three times – 2017, 2019 and 2021 – but if all of Sydney turns out to support it they might just extend.

Marcel Duchamp is best known for game-changing works like ‘Bicycle Wheel’ (1913) – a wheel attached to a chair – and ‘Fountain’ (1917) – a store-bought urinal inscribed with the facetious name ‘R Mutt’. The official mid-20th century reproductions of these lost works are at the centre of the largest exhibition of Duchamp’s art to be shown in Australia.

Sydney-based artist Janet Laurence has made a career as an “environmental artist”, creating installations that respond to and utilise the natural world as key artistic elements – and she's gained a significant following thanks to her unique style. 

Who said art isn’t political? With the federal election happening this month, Campbelltown Arts Centre is taking a stand, with a new exhibition that aims to encourage open discussion about democracy and its future.

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 – and the annual exhibition of finalists offers plenty to argue over, featuring faces familiar and not, by big name, mid-career and emerging painters.

What do you get when you combine 52 artists from 31 countries and give them each a week to make a statement about an issue that concerns them, sharing it with audiences online?

White Rabbit Gallery promises their latest exhibition is “not for the faint of heart”. It brings together 23 contemporary artists, all of whom are unafraid of taking risks and refuse to be limited by gender, age or national identity.

If you want to catch a glimpse of "Australian life", the finalists of this annual photographic prize are always a good place to start. 

The $30,000 Dobell Drawing Prize is being award for the 21st time this year, and there are some pretty big names in competition, including Tony Albert, Suzanne Archer, Martin Bell, Helen Eager, David Fairbairn, Justine Varga, Wendy Sharpe and Chris O’Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa).

There are few Australian artists whose work is as distinctive and immediately recognisable as Bill Henson – and arguably no Australian photographers who are as well known.

Think of abstract, non-objective art and you might think of big names such as Kandinsky, Rothko and Pollock. But what about Australian artists?

Rococo, an 18th century European style of decoration that’s all about the theatrical and ornamental (think of the castle in Beauty and the Beast) is generally thought of as being quite separate to the colonial style that emerged in the decades following. But like most things in the art world, it’s difficult to draw exact lines between movements and styles.

Four artists from around the world are being brought together for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art's new exhibition all about Singapore's past and future.