National Gallery announces 2023 Touring Program
Key information
Jess Barnes
Senior Communications & Content, Touring
M +61 437 986 286
E jessica.barnes@nga.gov.au
‘I always look at Country and think about the stories,
not only that it tells but that it's seen.’
From Alice Springs to Auckland, the National Gallery of Australia’s Touring Program will take the national collection to regional, suburban, and overseas venues in 2023.
Director Dr Nick Mitzevich said this year’s program speaks to the importance of taking the National Gallery on tour, beyond its home in Kamberri/Canberra.
‘The 2023 touring program reflects a strengthened commitment to sharing the national collection with as much of the nation as possible, to elevating women artists and the voices of our First Nations peoples,’ said Mitzevich.
‘Art is for all Australians and through the National Gallery’s touring program and national engagement strategies, the collection can be shared based on the inclusive principles of mutual benefit and exchange. We work closely with our partners to deliver projects, exchanging ideas that support audiences in different contexts and environments.’
The Gallery’s touring program is set to expand further over the coming years with the July launch of the sharing the national collection initiative. Funded under the Australian Government’s new National Cultural Policy ‘Revive’, this will see more highlights from the collection on long-term loan to galleries across Australia.
‘We look forward to continuing to work with our regional and suburban partners across the country to enable as many Australians as possible access to their collection,’ Mitzevich said.
With artists such as Tony Albert and Yayoi Kusama on the list, this year’s touring program taps into the Gallery’s internationally renowned collections.
The breadth and diversity of First Nations art will be seen in the regions and abroad with Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia continuing its international tour to Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand this July. Locally the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony will continue its tour of the country showing in Victoria, Northern Territory and South Australia.
Assistant Director, Collections and Exhibitions Natasha Bullock said the Gallery aims to share an inclusive story of Australian art with regional audiences through the program’s representation of women artists.
‘The National Gallery’s gender equity initiative Know My Name is driving a national dialogue on gender within the visual arts. With an expansive and diverse program, we continue the conversation and advance the cause toward gender equity.’
The Know My Name initiative, launched in 2019, is reflected in the program with the national tour of Know My Name: Australian Women Artists beginning at Mornington Peninsula (VIC) this November, and dedicated exhibitions Spowers & Syme, The Balnaves Contemporary Series exhibitions: Skywhales: Every Heart Sings, and Judy Watson & Helen Johnson: red thread of history, loose ends also touring in 2023.
The Gallery continues to find new ways to tour the collection and experience art outside traditional settings through digital displays such as Single Channel, comprising video works of art and ongoing initiatives such as the National Gallery’s Art Cases. There are five Art Cases, representing five themes: ‘Earth’, ‘Country’, ‘Bodies’, ‘Past, Present and Future’ and ‘Form and Function’ which each contain art that can be explored through touch.
Collection works by audience favourites including Clarice Beckett, Tracey Moffatt, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are on loan to regional galleries as part of the Gallery’s Regional Initiatives program, supported by Metal Manufactures. The Regional Initiatives Program supports short term loans across Australia.
Touring the collection has been made possible thanks to The Balnaves Foundation, The Naomi Milgrom Foundation, David Thomas AM, Wesfarmers Arts, and the Australian Government through Visions of Australia and the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program. Know My Name: Australian Women Artists and The 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony have been made possible through the generous and ongoing support of National Gallery corporate partners and key philanthropic supporters.
See full 2023 Touring Program below.
IMAGES
available here
MEDIA ENQUIRIES
JESS BARNES
Senior Communications & Content Officer, Touring
E jessica.barnes@nga.gov.au M +61 437 986 286
KIRSTY NOFFKE
Communications Manager
E kirsty.noffke@nga.gov.au M +61 401 090 089
INTERNATIONAL
Michael Cook, Bidjara people, Undiscovered #4 from Undiscovered series, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, © the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY
Touring exhibition
EVER PRESENT:
FIRST PEOPLES ART OF AUSTRALIA
29 Jul – 29 Oct | Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand
Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia surveys historical and contemporary works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across Australia. Drawn from the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and Wesfarmers Arts, the works in this touring exhibition bridge time and place and are interconnected through story and experience[SB4] . Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia is presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia and Wesfarmers Arts.
NATIONAL
Yayoi Kusama, THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS, 2017, purchased 2018 with the assistance of Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett. © YAYOI KUSAMA.
Touring exhibition
YAYOI KUSAMA:
THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS
until 2 Apr | Art Gallery of South Australia (SA)
Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS, 2017, is an installation comprising a vibrant yellow room overrun with black polka dots. At its centre, visitors to this National Gallery Touring Exhibition find a mirrored box with several dozen illuminated pumpkin sculptures inside that can be seen through windows and are endlessly reflected in the room’s internal mirrors. Made possible with the support of Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett.
Eveline Syme, The factory, 1933, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1979, © Estate of Eveline Syme
Touring exhibition
SPOWERS & SYME
10 Mar – 4 Jun | Queensland University of Technology (QLD)
Celebrating the artistic friendship of Naarm/Melbourne artists Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme, the National Gallery Touring Exhibition Spowers & Syme presents the changing face of interwar Australia through the perspective of two pioneering modern women artists. Much-loved for their innovative approach to lino and woodcut techniques, Spowers & Syme showcases their dynamic approach through prints and drawings whose rhythmic patterns reflect the fast pace of the modern world through everyday observations of childhood themes, overseas travel and urban life.
Jasper Johns, Figure 7 from Color numeral series, 1968–69, published by Gemini Graphic Editions Limited, Los Angeles, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1973 © Jasper Johns/Copyright Agency, 2023
RAUSCHENBERG & JOHNS:
SIGNIFICANT OTHERS
11 Mar – 14 May | Araluen Arts Centre (NT)
3 Jun – 30 Jul | Ipswich Art Gallery (QLD)
9 Sep – 19 Nov | Cairns Art Gallery (QLD)
9 Dec 23 – 4 Feb 24 | Museum of Art and Culture, yapang Lake Macquarie(NSW)
From their run-down New York studios, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns began a private creative dialogue that introduced everyday signs, objects, and media into their work, collapsing the distinction between art and life. While their relationship would end after seven years, their art would continue to radiate the new ideas of their creative exchange. This exhibition is drawn from the National Gallery’s Kenneth Tyler Collection of prints with works by both artists produced between 1967 and 1973.
Joel Bray, Wiradjuri people, Giraaru Galing Gaanhagirri (still), 2022, commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra for the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony, created in consultation with Uncle James Ingram and Wagga Wagga Elders, and with support from City of Melbourne, Phillip Keir and Sarah Benjamin (the Keir Foundation), City of Port Phillip, Create NSW, Blacktown Arts, Arts Centre Melbourne, and Yirramboi Festival 2020. Image courtesy and © the artist
Touring exhibition
4TH NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL:
CEREMONY
25 Mar – 12 Jun | Araluen Arts Centre (NT)
29 Sep – 8 Dec | Samstag Museum of Art (SA)
Ceremony remains central to the creative practice of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. From the intimate and personal to the collective and collaborative, ceremonies manifest through visual art, film, music and dance. Featuring the work of 35 artists from across Australia, the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony reveals how ceremony is at the nexus of Country, of culture and of community.
Patricia Piccinini, Skywhales: Every Heart Sings, Hamilton Gallery, VIC, 2022, image supplied, © Patricia Piccinini.
Touring event
PATRICIA PICCININI:
SKYWHALES:EVERY HEART SINGS
6 May | Tamworth Regional Gallery (NSW)
Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale and Skywhalepapa are large sculptures in the form of a hot-air balloons. Together, with their nine babies, they form a skywhale family and will continue to take to the skies in 2023 as part of the Skywhales: Every Heart Sings National Gallery Touring Event. Skywhales: Every Heart Sings is part of The Balnaves Contemporary Series and a Know My Name project.
Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, still from Terminus 2018, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra.
Touring exhibition
JESS JOHNSON & SIMON WARD: TERMINUS
20 May – 13 Aug | Hyphen Wodonga (VIC)
26 Aug – 5 Nov | Central Goldfields Art Gallery (VIC)
Inspired by Sci-Fi, comics and fantasy movies, Jess Johnson and Simon Ward: Terminus is a virtual reality (VR) installation that transports the viewer into an imaginary landscape of colour and pattern populated by human clones, moving walkways and gateways to new realms. Terminus is a National Gallery Touring Exhibition which presents a quest, a choose-your-own adventure into the technological. Prepare yourself for a slippage of time and space as your journey propels you through five distinct realms. This National Gallery Touring Exhibition is part of The Balnaves Contemporary Series.
Judy Watson, Waanyi people, rani with freshwater mussel shells (malu malu) and hoop pine, 2021, commissioned as part of The Balnaves Contemporary Series, © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency
Touring exhibition
JUDY WATSON & HELEN JOHNSON:
the red thread of history, loose ends
27 May – 23 Jul | Museum of Art and Culture, yapang Lake Macquarie (NSW)
Judy Watson & Helen Johnson: the red thread of history, loose ends is a National Gallery Touring Exhibition as part of The Balnaves Contemporary Series presenting the work by two of Australia’s leading artists – Judy Watson and Helen Johnson – in conversation as they reflect on their individual and Ancestral cultural experiences living in Australia. Watson, a Waanyi woman, and Johnson, a second-generation immigrant of Anglo descent have each developed new works that explore complex and varied perspectives on colonisation, with an emphasis on the experience of women. This is a Know My Name project.
Tony Albert, Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji peoples, I am visible (video still), 2019, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra © the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf
Touring exhibition
SINGLE CHANNEL
11 Aug – 24 Sep | Geraldton Regional Art Gallery (WA)
4 Nov – 17 Dec | Ellenbrook Arts (WA)
Single Channel draws together key contemporary video works from the national collection. The selection traces the emergence of video, its connection to portraiture and promise of narrative possibility, focussing on works of art by First Nations and Australian artists.
Anne Wallace, She is, 2001, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2002 © Anne Wallace
Touring exhibition
KNOW MY NAME:
AUSTRALIAN WOMEN ARTISTS
25 Nov 23 – 18 Feb 24 | Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (VIC)
Know My Name: Australian Women Artists tells a new story of Australian art. Looking at moments in which women created new forms of art and cultural commentary, it highlights creative and intellectual relationships between artists across time. The Know My Name touring exhibition follows the National Gallery’s major two-part exhibition of Australian women artists. It is part of a series of ongoing gender equity initiatives by the Gallery to increase the representation of all women in its artistic program. This is a Know My Name project.
Various works featured in the National Gallery Art Cases Touring Program.
Ongoing program
NATIONAL GALLERY ART CASES
Earth (Blue case)
& Past, Present and Future (Yellow case)
13 Feb - 10 Mar | Tamworth Regional Gallery (NSW)
24 Apr - 26 May | Telopea Park School (ACT)
12 Jun - 7 Jul | Devonport Library (TAS)
24 Jul - 18 Aug | Redland Art Gallery (QLD)
4 - 29 Sep | New England Regional Art Museum (NSW)
16 Oct - 10 Nov | Penrith Regional Gallery (NSW)
Bodies (Red case) & Form and Function (Orange case)
13 Feb - 10 Mar | Snow Valleys Council libraries (NSW)
24 Apr - 26 May | Telopea Park School (ACT)
12 Jun - 22 Jul | Ngununggula (NSW)
7 Aug - 22 Sep | Korumburra & Leongatha Libraries (VIC)
9 Oct - 3 Nov | Devonport Regional Gallery (TAS)
20 Nov - 15 Dec | Snowy Monaro Council libraries (NSW)
Country (Copper case)
16 Feb – 17 Mar | Libraries ACT (ACT)
24 Apr - 26 May | Telopea Park School (ACT)
12 Jun - 16 Jul | Mandurah Community Museum (WA)
31 Jul - 25 Aug | Gippsland Art Gallery (VIC)
11 Sep - 6 Oct | Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens (VIC)
25 Oct - 14 Nov | Barossa Regional Gallery (SA)
The Art Cases program is a core part of the National Gallery’s touring program. It comprises five art-filled cases that travel to schools, libraries, community centres, galleries and aged care homes, where the works are discovered and handled by adults and children of all ages for both exhibition and hands-on programs such as art making and story-telling.
REGIONAL INITIATIVES PROGRAM
Collection loan
SIDNEY NOLAN IN THE WIMMERA
until 5 Mar | Horsham Regional Gallery (NSW)
Arguably one of Australia’s most important artists, Sidney Nolan is synonymous with the “Heide Circle” and Australian modernism. In 1942 Nolan painted in Dimboola whilst being stationed in the area on army duty during World War II. It was during this time he created some of his most iconic paintings. This exhibition explores how Nolan saw the Wimmera region, its landscapes and people, as he developed a versatile visual language that re-envisaged the Australian landscape. This exhibition is presented by Horsham Regional Art Gallery, the National Gallery is a Principal Loan Partner, supported by Metal Manufactures.
Tracey Moffatt, Laudanum # 13 from Laudanum (detail), 1998, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, gift of the artist © Tracey Moffatt, courtesy of Roslyn Oxley Gallery9, Sydney
Collection loan
NO EASY ANSWERS
10 Mar – 2 Jul | Murray Art Museum Albury (NSW)
No Easy Answers explores art as a way of thinking. Bringing together six artists from across Australia and the United States, it makes the case for art as a necessary strategy in confronting contemporary challenges that have no easy answers. This exhibition is presented by Murray Art Museum Albury, the loan of works of art from the national collection is supported by Metal Manufactures.
Roy Lichtenstein, Nude with blue hair, state I , 1993, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Copyright Agency, 2023
Collection loan
ANDY WARHOL / ROY LICHTENSTEIN
25 Mar – 18 Jun | Cairns Art Gallery (QLD)
The names Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are synonymous with the influential and international pop art revolution that swept the world in the 1960s. Warhol and Lichtenstein’s works are now iconic references to a time when young artists began to revolt against the prevailing art styles being taught at art schools and shown in art galleries around the world. This exhibition is presented in partnership between the Cairns Art Gallery and the National Gallery, supported by Metal Manufactures.
Clarice Beckett, Evening landscape, c 1925, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1974
Collection loan
CLARICE BECKETT - ATMOSPHERE
1 Apr – 9 Jul | Geelong Gallery (VIC)
Geelong Gallery presents an exclusive in-focus, thematic survey of the work of Australian artist Clarice Beckett (1887–1935). This much anticipated exhibition will present key works from across Beckett’s oeuvre ranging from 1919 to the early 1930s, providing a critical representation of this enduringly enigmatic modernist artist’s atmospheric depictions of light, climate, and bayside Melbourne. This exhibition is presented by Geelong Gallery, the loan of works of art from the national collection is supported by Metal Manufactures.
Graham Lightbody, Cockroach Posters & Annandale Studio, Take to the sun, alternative energy works , 1979, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, gift of the Philip Morris Arts Grant 1982 © courtesy Graham Lightbody
Collection loan
ENVIRONMENTAL POSTERS 1975-2023
3 Sep – 19 Nov | Wagga Wagga Art Gallery (NSW)
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery will be devoting the entirety of its 2023 exhibition program to the Environment – from the sublime to the climate crisis. Environmental Posters 1975 – 2023 will offer regional audiences an historical overview of artists’ involvements in the environmental movement. This exhibition is presented by Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, the National Gallery is a Principal Loan Partner, supported by Metal Manufactures
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