Exhibitions in Sydney

National Art School GalleryFree

The National Art School's major end-of-year exhibition of Bachelor of Fine Art graduate work across ceramics, drawing, painting, photomedia, printmaking and sculpture.

Manly Art Gallery & MuseumFree

Nine contemporary abstract painters explore how light and glow can be crafted on canvas, reclaiming a quality screens haven't replicated.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Australia's first major Murakami retrospective, spanning three decades of his Superflat paintings, sculpture and installation.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaFree

A survey of Māori artist Robyn Kahukiwa's paintings addressing Indigenous identity, sovereignty and whakapapa.

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 Australia

Sydney International Art Series 2026-27: a major survey of French artist Philippe Parreno's immersive film, light and sound installations.

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.