11 November 2026
Powerhouse Parramatta opens on 7 November with five shows, from an Apollo Moon rock and Leonardo's flying machines to Es Devlin's first Australian exhibition. Philippe Parreno's film, light and sound installations fill the MCA from the 21st, and S.H. Ervin Gallery shows five decades of Angus Nivison's landscapes from the 7th, as the city's own turn jacaranda purple. Black Myth leaves White Rabbit on the 15th and Heather B. Swann UNSW Galleries on the 22nd; Harry Seidler stays at the Chau Chak Wing until April.
Powerhouse ParramattaOpens 7 November
Powerhouse Parramatta opens with five shows. In this one, a 190-metre ramp climbs past Leonardo da Vinci's flying-machine drawings, the largest Moon rock from the Apollo missions and 850 more objects on flight and space.
Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaOpens 21 November
The Sydney International Art Series show: a major survey of Philippe Parreno's installations in film, light and sound.
S.H. Ervin GalleryOpens 7 November
Five decades of Angus Nivison's abstract landscape painting, curated by Rachel Parsons and touring from New England Regional Art Museum.
White Rabbit GalleryCloses 15 November
Sun Xun, Xu Zhen, Zhu Jinshi and others take Black Myth: Wukong and Journey to the West as a way into myth, transformation and modern China. Free, and no controller needed.
Chau Chak Wing MuseumUntil 26 April
Drawings, models and photographs follow Harry Seidler from Nazi-occupied Vienna and study with Gropius and Breuer to a major Australian architecture career. Free.
UNSW GalleriesCloses 22 November
Newly commissioned and rarely seen sculpture, painting and drawing by Heather B. Swann, the first in a final series on symbolism and allegory.
State Library of New South WalesUntil 18 July
A retrospective of Max Dupain's complete body of work, drawn from the Library's archive of more than 250,000 negatives and prints. Free.
Art Gallery of New South WalesUntil 7 February
All 27 Ned Kelly paintings hang in one dark room, in the order Nolan preferred, 26 of them lent by the National Gallery of Australia. Around them sit 150-plus earlier works: Luna Park, Wimmera wheatfields and drought carcasses.
White Rabbit GalleryFree
Drawing on the video game Black Myth: Wukong and the novel Journey to the West, this show curated by David Williams explores myth, transformation and the dark side of modern China through works by Sun Xun, Xu Zhen, Zhu Jinshi and others.
UNSW GalleriesFree
The inaugural institutional exhibition of South Australian ceramic artist Jordan Gower, exploring functional craft and contemporary art through layered glazes and repetition.
UNSW GalleriesFree
Newly commissioned and rarely seen sculpture, painting and drawing by Heather B. Swann, the first in a final series exploring symbolism and allegory.
UNSW GalleriesFree
Remy Faint's most comprehensive body of work yet, spanning painting, sculpture and installation, exploring personal histories and cultural memory through silk, clay, wood and metal.
Manly Art Gallery & MuseumFree
Kate Bohunnis, Anne Ferran, Maddison Gibbs and Ebony Russell explore femininity, inheritance and place, starting from the colonial naming of Manly.
Manly Art Gallery & MuseumFree
Survey of Northern Beaches painter Michael Muir's past decade, tracing his vibrant, memory-laced landscapes through colour, form and composition.
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian ArtFree
A posthumous survey of queer Vietnamese-Australian artist Andy Ewing (1964-2021) paired with new commissions by inaugural Andy Ewing Fellow Kirthana Selvaraj, on inheritance, queerness and the body.
S.H. Ervin Gallery
A five-decade survey of abstract landscape painter Angus Nivison, curated by Rachel Parsons and touring from New England Regional Art Museum.
Carriageworks
Immersive 360-degree projection experience by Lightroom London spanning six decades of David Hockney's work, narrated by the artist with a score by Nico Muhly.
Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaFree
A survey of Māori artist Robyn Kahukiwa's paintings addressing Indigenous identity, sovereignty and whakapapa.
ArtspaceFree
Ideas Platform show of multidisciplinary work by Beijing artist CAO Yu, using her own image, fallen hair and urine to probe gendered expectations and beauty ideals.
ArtspaceFree
Hunkpapa Lakota artist Dana Claxton's first international First Nations Banner Series commission, pairing regalia-adorned portraiture with redacted FBI surveillance files on Indigenous activism.
Art Gallery of New South Wales
A major survey of over 150 works from Sidney Nolan's formative Australian years, including the 1946-47 Ned Kelly series.
ArtspaceFree
Multi-screen video installation critiquing systems that decide whose lives are deemed worthy of protection, centring Indigenous voices asserting rights to resistance and survival.
Australian MuseumFree
100 award-winning nature photographs from Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea, produced by the South Australian Museum.
Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaFree
Contemporary art from the shared collections of the MCA Australia and Tate Modern, London, including works by Yhonnie Scarce.
Manly Art Gallery & MuseumFree
Traces a century of Australian ceramic practice from the earliest piece in MAG&M's collection, presenting clay as a medium that stores and transmits cultural memory.
State Library of New South WalesFree
Marking the Library's bicentenary, over 200 items on display including the Endeavour journals and a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta.
Chau Chak Wing MuseumFree
Traces architect Harry Seidler's path from Nazi-occupied Vienna and studies with Gropius and Breuer to a major Australian career, with drawings, models and photographs.
Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaFree
A new large-scale outdoor sculpture commission by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei for the MCA's Tallawoladah Lawn.
State Library of New South WalesFree
A landmark retrospective of Max Dupain's complete body of work, drawn from the Library's archive of over 250,000 negatives and prints.
Chau Chak Wing MuseumFree
Celebrates the artistry and technical mastery of First Nations women's fibre works from Arnhem Land, the Torres Strait and Boggabilla, presented as masterworks rather than craft.
Chau Chak Wing MuseumFree
Six pioneering Chinese contemporary artists, including Ai Weiwei and Xu Bing, who reshaped China's creative landscape after 1976, from the Sherman family's collection.
Chau Chak Wing MuseumFree
The first archive of its kind donated to an Australian museum, tracing photographer and filmmaker Tracey Moffatt's career since 1985 through photo series, films and ephemera.
A short note now and then when something new opens worth your time.
