In 2023, M&G NSW plans to tour 9 exhibitions of contemporary art including 5 major solo presentations and curated group shows. Exhibitions will travel across Australia, hosted by venues such as Museum & Gallery of the Northern Territory (NT), New England Regional Art Museum (NSW), Hyphen Wodonga (VIC), Wagga Wagga Art Gallery (NSW), The Condensery – Somerset Regional Art Gallery (QLD), Goldfields Art Centre (WA), Plimsoll Gallery – The University of Tasmania (TAS), Tamworth Regional Gallery (NSW), Swan Hill Regional Gallery (VIC), Redcliffe Art Gallery (QLD), Araluen Arts Centre (NT), John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University (WA) and Lismore Regional Gallery (NSW).

In addition to developing the projects and organising logistics, M&G NSW provides support every step of the way for tour venues, by aiding with public programming, offering curatorial advice, providing education resources and delivering remote as well as on the ground support with the installation and de-installation process.

Below is an overview of the exhibitions touring in 2023.

OCCURRENT AFFAIR

OCCURRENT AFFAIR is a major exhibition featuring new and recent works by Brisbane-established Aboriginal artist collective proppaNOW, who have had a five-year hiatus to focus on their individual careers. Established in 2003, proppaNOW is one of Australia’s leading cultural collectives, exploring the politics of Aboriginal art and culture, and provoking, subverting and re-thinking what it means to be a ‘contemporary Aboriginal artist’.

Conceived as a collaborative activist gesture, OCCURRENT AFFAIR will address current socio-political,economic and environmental issues, while celebrating the strength, resilience and continuity of Aboriginal culture. Engaging wordplay through its title, the exhibition references the sensational journalistic style of some television current affair programs, and embraces the slippage between language and its associated readings to probe and present new narratives. OCCURRENT AFFAIR will reflect on the ongoing state of affairs affecting Aboriginal communities – issues that are relevant to all Australians.

Artists: Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and Laurie Nilsen.

Venues for this tour, spanning 2023 – 2024, include: John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University, WA; Lismore Regional Gallery, NSW; Ngununggula | Southern Highlands Regional Galley, NSW; USC Gallery – University of the Sunshine Coast, QLD; Artspace Mackay, QLD, and CDU Art Gallery, Darwin, NT.

Visit the OCCURRENT AFFAIR tour page

A UQ Art Museum exhibition touring with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. This project is assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program.

BARBARA CLEVELAND | THINKING BUSINESS

Thinking Business brings together select work by collective Barbara Cleveland delving into themes of friendship, women’s work, communality and persistence. With an underlying humour, the exhibition traces the group’s 15 years of shared intellectual and creative pursuit. Curated by Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and touring from 2021.

Presenting five video works spanning ten years of the collaborative’s prolific career, each work contributes to a fascinating study of humour, absurdity and feminist practices. Thinking Business highlights the performative aspect of Barbara Cleveland’s work which brings endurance, labour and time to the exhibition, with great impact. The exhibition will be presented as a theatrical installation and has been designed in collaboration with architect Luke Pigliacampo.

The tour for this exhibition will run from 2021 to 2023, showing at: Penrith Regional Gallery, Home of the Lewers Bequest, NSW; Redland Art Gallery, QLD; Pine Rivers Art Gallery, QLD; Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW; Somerset Regional Art Gallery – The Condensery, QLD; and Goldfields Arts Centre, WA.

Visit the Thinking Business tour page

Visit the Barbara Cleveland website

Read more about the exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery

A Goulburn Regional Art Gallery exhibition toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Supported by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.

JUST NOT AUSTRALIAN

Just Not Australian brings together a group of 20 living Australian artists across generations and mediums to deal broadly with the origins and implications of contemporary Australian nationhood. Artists include: Soda Jerk, Abdul Abdullah, Hoda Afshar, Tony Albert, Cigdem Aydemir, Liam Benson, Eric Bridgeman, Jon Campbell, Karla Dickens, Fiona Foley, Gordon Hookey, Richard Lewer, Archie Moore, Vincent Namatjira, Nell, Joan Ross, Tony Schwensen, Raquel Ormella and Ryan Presley.

The tour for this exhibition will run from 2020 to 2022, showing at: Tweed Regional Gallery and The Margaret Olley Arts Centre, NSW; Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW; NorthSite Contemporary Art Centre, QLD; Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Moreton Bay, QLD; Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, SA; and Walkway Gallery, Bordertown, SA; and New England Regional Art Museum, NSW.

Visit the Just Not Australian tour page

Just Not Australian was curated by Artspace and developed in partnership with Sydney Festival and Museums & Galleries of NSW. The exhibition is touring nationally with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

DENNIS GOLDING | POWER – THE FUTURE IS HERE

POWER – The Future is Here is the result of a collaboration between artist Dennis Golding and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Alexandria Park Community School. The superhero capes were created during a workshop in 2020, led by Golding who was an artist in residence at the school through Solid Ground. Students from Kindergarten to Year 12 designed their capes with iconography informed by their lived experiences and cultural identity.

As superheroes, Golding and his young collaborators are empowered and reminded of the strength of their culture in forming their identity and connection to Country. Individually and together, the capes critique social, political and cultural representations of contemporary First Nations experience. This series of capes were first presented in POWER at Blacktown Arts Centre (2021) and then at Carriageworks in The Future is Here (2021).

This exhibition will tour nationally from September 2023.

Visit the Dennis Golding tour page

A Solid Ground project with Dennis Golding and Alexandria Park Community School, curated by Kyra Kum-Sing and presented by Carriageworks and Blacktown Arts. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. 

MEL O’CALLAGHAN | CENTRE OF THE CENTRE

Created specifically for Artspace, Centre of the Centre is a major new commission that traces the origins of life and its regenerative forces, iterated through video, performance and sculpture. The exhibition was presented at Artspace, Sydney from August – October 2019. The Australian tour kicked of 2021, after the exhibition received international exposure in France and the Philippines.

Visit the Mel O’Callaghan tour page

The itinerary for this tour includes (2021-2023): Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville, QLD; Glasshouse Port Macquarie, NSW; Western Plains Cultural Centre Dubbo, NSW; Samstag Museum of Art, SA; Hyphen Wodonga, VIC; and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW.

CULTURAL MEDIATION

M&G NSW has developed a new professional development program to introduce cultural mediation to the regional gallery sector, aligned with this exhibition to be rolled out across our touring program. We have partnered with UQ ART Museum to develop a Cultural Mediaton Training Kit as part of this program to enrich audience connection with this work and contemporary art more generally.

       – Daniel Qualischefski, Gallery Manager, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville, QLD.

Mel O’Callaghan’s Centre of the Centre was curated and developed by Artspace and is touring nationally with Museums & Galleries of NSW. Centre of the Centre is co-commissioned by Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers; Artspace, Sydney; and The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. With Commissioning Partners Andrew Cameron AM & Cathy Cameron and Peter Wilson & James Emmett; and Lead Supporter, Kronenberg Mais Wright. The development and presentation of Centre of the Centre is supported by the Fondation des Artistes; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the US National Science Foundation. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

SUSPENDED MOMENT

In April 2019, artists Frances Barrett (NSW), Sally Rees (TAS) and Giselle Stanborough (NSW) were announced as the recipients of the Fellowship. Each artist received $100,000 to realise an ambitious new work that were presented in three individual exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) (Frances Barrett), Carriageworks (Giselle Stanborough) and Mona (Sally Rees) in 2020 – 2022.

Suspended Moment brings together new works by artists Frances Barrett, Sally Rees and Giselle Stanborough – the three recipients of Suspended Moment: The Katthy Cavaliere Fellowship. Established in the name of Italian-born, Australian artist Katthy Cavaliere (1972–2012), the fellowship was a one-off opportunity that provided support to Australian women artists working at the nexus of performance and installation. Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, the Suspended Moment tour contextualises key works by Cavaliere alongside the fellowship artists who benefited from her enduring legacy.

The 2022 – 2024 national tour will include the following venues: Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, NSW, The Glasshouse Regional Gallery, Port Macquarie, NSW, Mildura Arts Centre, VIC, Redcliffe Art Gallery, QLD, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW.

Visit the Suspended Moment tour page

A Carriageworks and Museums & Galleries of NSW touring exhibition, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, developed in partnership with the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Hobart. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. This project is assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program.

MONTAGES: THE FULL CUT 1999-2015 TRACEY MOFFAT AND GARY HILLBERG

Montages: The Full Cut, 1999–2015 presents the full suite of 8 montage films by artist Tracey Moffatt and collaborator Gary Hillberg. Presented together for the first time, the exhibition spans 16 years of the artist and editor’s collaborative practice and includes their most recent work, The Art (2015).

The exhibition is an ode to cinema and to the cinematic form, offering unprecedented insight into the stereotypes that populate our collective cultural imagination. In this suite of montages, Moffatt and Hillberg source footage from Hollywood films, tapping into the humour and pathos of universally shared subjects like art, revolution, love and destruction.

This tour’s extensive itinerary spans 2017 to 2022 and includes: Shepparton Art Museum, VIC ; Blacktown Arts Centre, NSW; Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW; Wanneroo Library and Cultural Centre, WA; Newcastle Art Gallery, NSW; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, NSW; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Lismore Regional Gallery, NSW; Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, SA; Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, QLD; Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, QLD; ArtGeo Cultural Complex, WA; Broken Hill Regional Gallery, NSW; Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery; Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW; Northsite Contemporary Arts, Cairns; Art Gallery of Ballarat, VIC ; Caboolture Regional Art Gallery; and The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

Visit the Montages: The Full Cut 1999-2015 tour page

Montages: The Full Cut, 1999 – 2015 was curated and developed by Artspace, Sydney and is touring nationally in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

52 ACTIONS

52 ACTIONS brings together 52 leading Australian artists from across the country to present the diversity, complexity and dynamism of contemporary Australian art now. This exhibition has evolved from Artspace’s online commissioning platform of the same name, which was a year-long project from May 2020 to June 2021 that presented new works by a different artist or collective each week on Artspace’s Instagram @52artists52actions and website.

The 52 ACTIONS tour will transform these works across physical and digital spaces through a nationally touring exhibition and public program series. Artspace will partner with numerous venues around the country to deliver adaptive, site-specific exhibitions that are responsive to each unique context, and collaborate with venues to develop targeted public programs relevant to local interests and demographics. The ideas presented by these 52 artists and collectives from across generations, geographies and cultural backgrounds touch on critical contemporary issues, from Islamophobia and environmental activism to mapping migration stories and the unceded sovereignty of Australia’s First Peoples.

Participating artists include Eddie Abd, Abdul Abdullah, Adrift Lab, Brook Andrew, Aphids, Archie Barry, Nathan Beard, Naomi Blacklock, Diego Bonetto, Pat Brassington, Johnathon World Peace Bush, Rainbow Chan, Erin Coates, Lill Colgan & Sab D’Souza, Michael Cook, Nici Cumpston, Pilar Mata Dupont, Léuli Eshrāghi, Ruha Fifita, Rochelle Haley, Larissa Hjorth, Naomi Hobson, Jannawi Dance Clan, Guo Jian, Karrabing Film Collective, Gillian Kayrooz, Loren Kronemyer, Adam Linder, Dani Marti, Hayley Millar-Baker, Raquel Ormella, Ozanam Learning Centre, Henri Papin (Meijers & Walsh), Jason Phu, Patricia Piccinini, Kenny Pittock, Yhonnie Scarce, Sancintya Mohini Simpson, Rolande Souliere, Stelarc, Tyza Stewart, Shahmen Suku / Radha, Seini F Taumoepeau, TV Moore, James Tylor, Unbound Collective, Ivey Wawn, Kaylene Whiskey, Min Wong, Chris Yee, Gutiŋarra Yunupiŋu, and Louise Zhang.

The 52 ACTIONS tour will travel across Australia over the next three years and is premiering at Penrith Regional Gallery, Home of The Lewers Bequest, in August 2022.

Visit the 52 ACTIONS tour page 

52 ACTIONS was curated by Artspace Sydney. The exhibition is touring nationally with Artspace, Sydney, with support from Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program and is proudly funded by the NSW Government through Create NSW; the City of Sydney; and the Copyright Agency. 

ZANNY BEGG | THESE STORIES WILL BE DIFFERENT

Born in 1972 in Melbourne and now living in Bulli, near Sydney, Begg’s practice, which is often collaborative, incorporates film, drawing and installation, with a particular interest in exploring hidden or contested histories.

Once described as an advocate for women and marginalised communities, Zanny’s work uses humour, understated drawings and found cultural artefacts to explore themes of gender, activism and migration and the ways in which we can live and be in the world differently. This has included working with macro-political themes, such as globalisation protests, and in micro-political worlds, such as with children in prison.

This exhibition, curated by UNSW Galleries and designed for tour, brings together the artist’s most significant works to date including The Beehive (2018), City of Ladies (2017) and Stories of Kannagi, (2019).

Venues for this tour, spanning 2022 – 2023, include: Redland Art Gallery, QLD, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, NSW,  Devonport Regional Gallery, TAS, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW, Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, TAS,  Tamworth Regional Gallery, NSW,  Swan Hill Regional Gallery, VIC,  Artspace Mackay, QLD, and Goldfields Art Centre, WA.

Visit the Zanny Begg tour page 

A UNSW Galleries and Museums & Galleries of NSW touring exhibition. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.