Exhibitions

2000-2010
Exhibitions that closed in 2008
 

A Focus on Contemporary
Selected from the collection, this display focuses on art that explores history, memory and the associations that art objects can accumulate though time.
 

Adam Cullen
Adam Cullen is a unique figure in contemporary Australian art. His often satirical works are a form of social allegory, a confronting and incisive view of contemporary life. This exhibition includes paintings and sculpture from early 1990s until now.
15 May - 27 July 2008

 

Archibald Wynne & Sulman Prizes 08
The Archibald Prize is one of Australia's oldest and most prestigious art awards. J.F. Archibald's primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.
8 March - 18 May 2008

 

ARTEXPRESS 08
A dynamic and popular exhibition featuring a selection of outstanding student artworks developed for the artmaking component of the HSC examination in Visual Arts, 2007.
2 February - 30 March 2008

 

Australian Bookbinders Exhibition
Annual exhibitions of the bookbinders� art have been held since 1997, providing a focus for practitioners� skill and creativity.
18 June - 3 October 2008

 

Biennale of Sydney 2008
The 2008 Biennale of Sydney, under the artistic direction of internationally renowned curator, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, investigates revolutions - forms that turn.
18 June - 7 September 2008

 

Bill Viola: The Tristan Project
Bill Viola is internationally recognised as one of the most important artists working in video today. The Fall into Paradise is part of The Tristan Project, a series inspired by Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde.
10 April - 27 July 2008

 

Charles Bayliss
Renowned for his pioneering work in panoramic and landscape photography, Charles Bayliss is considered a leading figure in Australia�s photographic heritage.
9 February - 25 May 2008

 

Contemporary Australian Artist Books: without boundaries
Artist books selected from the Art Gallery of NSW Research Library's own artist book collection are shown alongside a selection of works not seen in Sydney before, from the Australian Bookbinders Without Boundaries touring exhibition.
1 - 12 December 2008

 

Dobell Prize for Drawing 2008
The Dobell Prize is Australia�s most prestigious drawing prize and since its establishment in 1993 has attracted the very best in contemporary drawing.
5 September - 9 November 2008

 

Focus on Contemporary
Selected from the collection, this display focuses on art that explores history, memory and the associations that art objects can accumulate though time.
 

Francis J Mortimer
This exhibition, which includes Dutch scenes, patriotic British WWI homefront images and examples of Mortimer�s refined techniques, displays for the first time the major gift to the Gallery�s collection from the artist�s daughter.
26 July - 9 November 2008

 

Ghosts in the Machine
The most prolific and the most eclectic artists of the 20th century are unknown photographers. This exhibition draws from a number of collections of discarded amateur photographs.
10 April - 16 July 2008

 

Harold Cazneaux
Harold Cazneaux was a luminary in Australian photographic circles; a pioneering photographer whose aesthetic style and impressive output had an indelible impact on the development of photographic history in this country.
5 June - 10 August 2008

 

Indigenous Connections
This Focus Room display celebrates the anniversary of the London premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with a selection of photographs taken during rehearsals by Axel Poignant. Sidney Nolan�s designs for the d�cor and costumes, images taken in Arnhem Land in the 1950s by Poignant, which inspired them, and a spectacular re-creation of Nolan's 'Moonboy' backcloth also feature.
2 November 2007 - 3 February 2008

 

Intimate Encounters
Drawing from collections throughout Australia, both public and private, this exhibition of approximately 70 objects will survey the major schools of Indian painting, highlighting the rich interactions that inspired each tradition.
22 February - 4 May 2008

 

Jan Senbergs
This exhibition comprises a generous selection of Jan Senbergs' screenprints, presented within the context of his work as a whole, underlining their central importance to his evolution into a remarkable, idiosyncratic and admired draughtsman and painter.
5 April - 25 May 2008

 

Judy Cassab
Emigrating to Sydney from Europe in 1951, Judy Cassab quickly established a reputation as a portrait painter, however it was her experience of Central Australia in the late 1950s that made her first feel fully at home in this country.
29 May - 31 August 2008

 

Kate Beynon
Melbourne-based artist Kate Beynon presents a new series of paintings in which she explores ideas of transcultural identity and the �global citizen�.
7 August - 26 October 2008

 

Kitty Kantilla
This major retrospective from the National Gallery of Victoria pays tribute to the renowned Tiwi artist Kitty Kantilla (Kutuwalumi Purawarrumpatu).
7 December 2007 - 20 January 2008

 

Living Black
Inspired by the title of the late Kevin Gilbert's award winning book 'Living Black', this exhibition from the Gallery's permanent collection features works that favour a darker palette or graphic aesthetic.
20 December 2007 - 12 November 2008

 

Michael Riley: sights unseen
Michael Riley: sights unseen reveals the prolific talents of a quiet observer whose photomedia continues to have a profound effect on Australia�s contemporary representation and comprehension of Indigenous Australia.
22 February - 27 April 2008

 

Mountains & Streams: Chinese paintings from the NGV collection
A National Gallery of Victoria touring exhibition drawing upon material from the NGV�s important collection of Asian art, in particular Chinese paintings.
29 November 2007 - 10 February 2008

 

Operation Art 2008
An annual exhibition of children's art from schools throughout NSW created for the Children's Hospital, Westmead.
23 September - 6 October 2008

 

Scott Redford
For his first exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland artist Scott Redford drags art history into popular culture, using the materials that create surfboards he produces monochromatic paintings, some embellished with images.
13 December 2007 - 24 March 2008

 

Searching for Asphodels: Artists in the Mediterranean
An exhibition of artists' books, prints, watercolours, sketchbooks and journals made in response to time spent in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain over the past ten years. In the Gallery's Research Library
12 March - 30 May 2008

 

Sidney Nolan
The first major retrospective of Sidney Nolan's work since his death in 1992, this exhibition presents a selection of his most important masterpieces of landscape, Ned Kelly, and other themes of Australian and European history.
2 November 2007 - 3 February 2008

 

Taishô Chic
This exhibition explores the impact of the simultaneous clash and embrace of modernity and tradition on arts and design in Japan of the Greater Taisho period (1900�1930).
22 May - 3 August 2008

 

The Artist in a Director
An exhibition of artworks, ephemera, papers and books on four past directors of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
13 February - 7 March 2008

 

The Lost Buddhas
The discovery of these 6th-century stone Buddhist sculptures at the site of a long-destroyed temple in China is considered an archaeological find on par with the First Emperor's terracotta soldiers.
29 August - 23 November 2008

 

The Photographs of August Sander
August Sander's belief in his own objectivity, as well as that of the camera, appears never to have wavered during his lifetime (1876-1964). This exhibition of 155 photographs acknowledges Sander's interest in typologies and his aim to produce a definitive 'atlas' of the German people.
17 November 2007 - 3 February 2008

 

Tom Arthur
First exhibited at the Gallery in 1975, this extraordinary installation was the first of a major trilogy of works produced by the Sydney-based sculptor in the 1970s which explored states of flux and emergence and the way knowledge is perceived.
6 September - 23 November 2008

 

War: The Prints of Otto Dix
This exhibition showcases Otto Dix�s war portfolio Der krieg 1924, a collection of 51 etchings with aquatint which is regarded as one of the great masterpieces of 20th-century printmaking.
22 August - 26 October 2008

 

Yasumasa Morimura: Seasons of Passion / A Requiem: Mishima
In his 2006 series Morimura recreates memorable postwar incidents as reported through press photography, harking back to his earlier 1991 work 'Slaughter cabinet II'.
24 November 2007 - 9 March 2008