Adelaide is bursting at the seams with extraordinary exhibitions this year, including unusual objects in the Make Award exhibition and the upcoming Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art featuring Archie Moore.
Later this year, there’ll be an exclusive showcase of European and American art from the 19th and 20th centuries where the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) winter exhibition will display pieces by Cézanne, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and more.
And, save the date for summer’s significant solo exhibition of Kaurna artist James Tylor, plus a fashion and photography coupling that’s all about South Australian dresses.
Here are the best exhibitions coming to Adelaide, in chronological order.
Golshad Asami: Rhythms of Home
Ceramic artist Golshad Asami has made a series of beautiful plates decorated with deep blue, red and gold paint to explore the artist’s connection to Iran, where she was born. Asami moved to Adelaide in 2019, and her delicate circular ceramics tell the story of living between two worlds: one of her plates, called Dual Heritage, has a thin gold line dividing geometric patterns in half. Another, called The Poetic, has coloured wool tassels representing the comfort of family life. Each one is deeply connected to her life.
Golshad Asami: Rhythms of Home runs until April 12 at the Jam Factory.
Make Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design
Wollongong-based artist Cinnamon Lee won this year’s Make Award for her metal sculpture that she describes as a lamp, a piece of jewellery and a theatrical work of art. It’s currently on display at the Jam Factory, alongside a sofa made of 3,744 golf balls. The sofa was made by furniture-maker Jake Rollins, who took home second prize. Plus, you’ll see various quirky design items from all the other finalists.
Make Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design runs until April 12 at the Jam Factory.
Touching the Divine: Love and Devotion
In this exhibition, AGSA curators have pulled out paintings and ceramics from the gallery’s collection that explore how artists interpreted Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic stories across Asia over the centuries. There are Hindu goddesses, Sufi subjects and many depictions of Krishna spread around the Lower Melrose Wing, each one expressing the concept of love and devotion.
Touching the Divine: Love and Devotion runs until April 26 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Beginnings
Imagine if, when you shopped for groceries, you could see the whole cost of buying, say, a punnet of blueberries. Not just the dollar amount, but the labour of growing and picking them, the environmental costs of transporting them, preserving them and keeping them cool until they reach your basket. Adelaide University’s Mod gallery has created a convenience store where you can do just that. Beginnings also features a machine called the Beast, which you can “fuel” with various energy systems. Go feed it.
Beginnings runs until November 20 at Mod.
Kumarangk
As part of a project looking at the Ngarrindjeri women who resisted the construction of the Hindmarsh Island bridge, Kumarangk brings together work by Ngarrindjeri artists, including Aunty Ellen Trevorrow and Aunty Betty Sumner, to honour their fight and survival of culture. The exhibition includes a remounting of Ngarrindjeri and Buandig artist Sandra Saunders’s Hindmarsh Island Collection; Saunders was one of the leaders of the Kumarangk protests in the 1990s.
Kumarangk runs from February 21 to April 4 at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.
2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength
We know the idiom “pressure creates diamonds”, but does pressure really transform something for the better? Curator Ellie Buttrose has called this year’s Biennial Yield Strength, which asks 24 artists to explore how materials and people change under pressure. The line-up includes Venice Biennale winner Archie Moore, Melbourne-based painter Prudence Flint, Ngapa Jukurrpa painter Julie Nangala Robertson, and sculptor and video artist Charlie Sofo.
Yield Strength runs from February 27 to June 8 at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art and Adelaide Botanic Garden.
Two Islands, One Thread: Textiles of Lombok & Bali
Woven, embroidered and tie-dyed textiles – including previously unseen items from AGSA’s collection and loans from Lombok’s West Nusa Tenggara State Museum – will be on display in an exhibition that explores the artistic exchanges between two Indonesian communities. Artworks by the Sasak people of Lombok and people of Bali show how each respected their ancestors and their spiritualities.
Two Islands, One Thread: Textiles of Lombok & Bali runs from May 15 to October 11 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition
See world-famous impressionist, cubist, surrealist and abstract expressionist works by master artists, including Cézanne, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Renoir, in AGSA’s major winter exhibition. The Adelaide exclusive features 57 masterpieces from the 19th and 20th centuries, all on loan from Ohio’s Toledo Museum of Art. There’ll be select works from AGSA’s collection too, showing how artists transformed modern art during this radical era.
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition runs from July 11 to November 8 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows
Mildura-born artist James Tylor uses his art to explore his Kaurna, Māori and European heritage. Over the years, his practice has spanned photography, video and sculpture, often drawing on the language of the Kaurna people. Turrangka…in the shadows will be the most comprehensive display of his art, including his hand-tinted daguerreotypes (images created on mirrored or copper plates), as well as re-created Kaurna artefacts and digital photography.
James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows runs from July 31 to November 1 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Michelle Nikou: Tell it slant
South Australian sculptor Michelle Nikou, the Guildhouse Fellowship recipient of 2024, will transform domestic objects into humorous and poignant sculptures for one of AGSA’s summer shows. Working with materials such as bronze, resin, latex and ceramics, Nikou invites the viewer to see items from their everyday lives in a new and unexpected way.
Michelle Nikou: Tell it slant runs from December 5 to March 21, 2027, at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Dressed Up: Fashion & Photography 1850–1920
A match made in heaven: historical fashion and period photography are paired up and taken for a spin in this summer exhibition about South Australian dresses. Using recent research into the makers and wearers of garments from AGSA’s collection, Dressed Up will provide an insight into how the various clothes on display represent social class, emerging trends and the broader societal values of the time.
Dressed Up: Fashion & Photography 1850–1920 runs from December 5 to March 21, 2027, at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
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