Art Gallery NSW

This Saturday 16 November, join us to celebrate the exhibition 'PAHIT MANIS, Night Forest' with a discussion between Australian–Balinese artist Leyla Stevens; the Art Gallery's assistant curator of contemporary Australian, Johanna Bear; and Katie Dyer, senior curator at Artspace. The centrepiece of the free exhibition 'PAHIT MANIS, Night Forest' is an immersive film that transports you to a Bali of ancient trees and spirits, where storytelling holds keys to caring for the natural world. This conversation will explore the ideas and process behind Stevens’ work, which combines animation sequences, wayang kulit (a form of shadow puppet theatre) performance and documentation of contemporary painting practices with field recordings from one of Bali’s last old growth forests. After the discussion, enjoy complimentary home-cooked Indonesian sweets from Lawan Catering accompanied by tea and coffee. 11–11.45am Sat 16 Nov FREE, no bookings required Art Gallery of New South Wales

🔦 Behind the scenes ⏩ into the spotlight! November 7th is World Digital Preservation Day and the theme this year is 'community'. While the Art Gallery is a proud and active member of the international digital preservation community, we wanted to take this opportunity to shine a light inwards to highlight all the different teams who contribute towards the creation, care, conservation, display and preservation of our digital artworks, archives and assets. Safeguarding our digital collections is a huge undertaking, requiring hard work and collaboration between our Digital Preservation Department, Time-Based Art Conservators, Curators, Archivists, Registrars, Collection Managers, Audio-Visual Technicians, Videographers and Content Editors to name but a few. A big shout out to everyone at the Art Gallery who contributes towards this massive and often invisible job! __ Image: L–R – A small gathering of our many colleagues contributing in the #DigitalPreservation community: Back: Cameron Elkins, Mark Marchand 3rd row: Emma Smith, Yin Cao, Greg Gilet, Joanna Fleming, Ziggy Potts, Hannah McKissock-Davis, Mei Wilkinson 2nd row: Scott Elliot, Bec Barnott-Clement, Tai Spruyt, Nicole Rawson Front: Felipe Olivares-Barreto #WDPD2024 #WorldDigitalPreservationDay Digital Preservation Coalition #ArtConservation #ArtMuseum #MuseumCareers Photo © #ArtGalleryNSW, Felipe Olivares-Barreto

We're honoured to host these iconic works at the Art Gallery, and delighted that their intriguing power is captivating audiences anew – thank you to The Sydney Morning Herald's Joanna Mendelssohn for this insightful review!

☁️💙 Magritte has landed in Sydney – have you spotted a city banner yet, or did you swoop in to visit on opening weekend? We're thrilled to unveil iconic works by the Belgian surrealist this month at the Art Gallery, many of them coming to us from across the world with the support of exhibition official airline partner Singapore Airlines, travelling on their new flight path from Brussels. #MagritteSydney is on display in the Art Gallery's south building, Naala Nura, until 9 February 2025. Buy tickets on-site from the friendly hosts at our Welcome Desk, or book online: https://bit.ly/3C1cp2e __ #SingaporeAirlines #ArtGalleryNSW #Sydney

We’re celebrating the grand reopening of the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, our hotel partner of 21 years. Sofitel Sydney Wentworth’s Cultural Summer package gives guests the opportunity to visit three must-see exhibitions featuring the celebrated surrealist Magritte and the groundbreaking Cao Fei at the Art Gallery NSW and the visionary Julie Mehretu at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, while experiencing signature French luxury at an iconic Sydney landmark. Visit agnsw.art/sofitel to book your ultimate cultural weekend. — 🌆 Exclusive to Sydney, the #MagritteSydney and #CaoFeiSydney exhibitions are presented at the Art Gallery alongside the MCA’s Julie Mehretu survey as part of the 2024–25 Sydney International Art Series. Sydney International Art Series is a NSW Government initiative through its tourism and events agency Destination NSW. 'Magritte' is also proudly supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW’s Blockbusters Funding initiative. #RebirthofaSydneyIcon #Sydney #FeelNewSydney #ILoveSydney — Images: • René Magritte 'The false mirror (Le faux miroir)' 1929, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 133.1936 © Copyright Agency, Sydney 2024, photo © The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence 2024 • Cao Fei 'Nova' 2019 © Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space. Courtesy Sprüth Magers. • Julie Mehretu 'Black Monolith, for Okwui Enwezor (Charlottesville)' (detail), 2017–2020, ink and acrylic on canvas, Kravis Collection, image courtesy and © Julie Mehretu, photograph: Tom Powel Imaging

'For "The Rites of When", Mesiti has arrayed seven monolithic video screens in a formation that references the Pleiades star cluster, famously known as the Seven Sisters in the Southern Hemisphere. On first encounter, it feels like Stonehenge meets "2001: A Space Odyssey".' — in The Sydney Morning Herald, Linda Morris gives a terrific glimpse into Angelica Mesiti's spectacular new work at the Art Gallery

Join us for a free lecture in Mandarin about the archaeological discoveries and research at Sanxingdui (三星堆) on Saturday 28 September. Sanxingdui is an archaeological site first discovered in 1927 in Guanghan, Sichuan province, China. In 1986, a large number of artefacts were unearthed, some of which were over 3000 years old. Since 2019, more discoveries have been made at Sanxingdui, bringing worldwide attention to the site. Professor Lei Yu, who previously served as the head of the Sanxingdui Site Workstation at the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, will introduce the ancient Shu civilisation represented by Sanxingdui and discuss the development of Chinese civilisation from a pluralistic to a unified state, providing evidence of its inclusiveness, innovation and unity. — Saturday 28 September 11am–12pm Naala Nura, our south building Lower level 3, Domain Theatre Free, bookings required 🎫 https://lnkd.in/gVEWHmi8 — This lecture is part of the VisAsia Hingyiu Mok Mandarin language lecture series. The VisAsia Hingyiu Mok Mandarin language lectures are made possible with the generous support of the late Dr HY Mok and his family, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales support partner VisAsia.

We love this video from Herbert Smith Freehills on the unique perspectives of artist and sitter when it comes to the Archibald Prize! As our longest-serving partner, HSF's enduring commitment to the arts allows us to realise our ambitious programming and share with even wider audiences. 💙

Expand your art knowledge and spark your creativity through an enriching travel experience with new International Study Tours. Presented by the Art Gallery Society of NSW and open to all, the first tour visits Paris and Brussels with an immersion into the Surrealism art movement, just in time for our summer blockbuster 'Magritte'. Highlights of this intimate 15-person tour: 🔹 Exclusive access to Surréalismes Paris 2024 conference 🔹 Private viewing of rarely-seen works at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium 🔹 Exploration of Magritte’s enigmatic works at the Magritte Museum 🔹 Visits to Parisian landmarks that inspired Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and André Breton 🔹 Led by art expert Dr Kate Kangaslahti, formerly of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the British Museum, and now a lecturer at Belgium’s leading university, KU Leuven. As the official airline partner of the 'Magritte' exhibition, Singapore Airlines is offering guests taking part in this tour an 8% discount on economy, premium economy and business class flights on one of four flights offered per week to Brussels. Find out more about the Surrealism tour, and the International Study Tour program: https://bit.ly/3M0FKMe __ Image: Magritte Museum, Brussels, photo: Alamy

We are delighted to celebrate a new partnership between Singapore Airlines and the Art Gallery NSW, supporting the Art Gallery's broad program of international art exhibitions and delivering a global exchange of cultural experiences. Singapore Airlines is supporting our winter blockbuster exhibition 'Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau' and the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25 exhibitions, 'Magritte' and 'Cao Fei: My City is Yours', including bringing international museum colleagues to Sydney to work directly with our exhibition curatorial team. This year, the partnership will also support the Art Gallery Society of NSW's series of International Study Tours, which are directly related to the Art Gallery’s exhibition program. These intimate, guided travel experiences offer immersive experiences of art movements, artists and art forms in the cities where the artwork was created. The partnership with the Art Gallery adds to Singapore Airlines’ deep engagement with the arts, since flights to Sydney commenced in 1967, as the official airline for Art Exhibitions Australia since 1988 and the West Australian Ballet since 1972. __ Image: Singapore Airlines regional vice president Louis Arul, and Art Gallery of New South Wales director Michael Brand, photo © AGNSW, Felicity Jenkins