The Rocks
140 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Hours: Saturday–Monday and Wednesday–Thursday 10am–5pm
T +61 2 9245 2400
mail@mca.com.au
MCA Australia’s exhibition program for 2024 delivers a dynamic year of contemporary art and ideas with national and international firsts, new commissions and fresh approaches to exhibition-making that go beyond the Museum walls.
The program includes the first major survey by Australian artist Nicholas Mangan, the largest exhibition to date by acclaimed Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, new work by groundbreaking Australian artist Julie Rrap, British artist Isaac Julien, new commissions by Kurdish-Iraqi-Swedish-American artist Hayv Kahraman and Aotearoa New Zealand artist Kate Newby, and a Mount Druitt street installation by Aotearoa New Zealand-Samoan provocateur Greg Semu. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture are central to the program.
The 2024 exhibition program commences with the 24th Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns, March 9–June 10, 2024. MCA Australia presents the work of 15 artists and collectives including Serwah Attafuah (Ashanti, Australia), Robert Campbell Jnr (Ngaku/Dunghutti, Australia), Doreen Chapman (Manyjilyjarra, Australia), Irene Chou (China/Australia), Juan Davila (Chile/Australia), Kirtika Kain (India/Australia), Freddy Mamani (The Plurinational State of Bolivia), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Frank Moore (US), Sergey Parajanov (Armenia/ Georgia), Segar Passi (Meriam Mir/Dauareb, Torres Strait Islands, Australia), Anne Samat (Malaysia/US), William Strutt (United Kingdom) and Te Whā a Huna (Tūwharetoa, Aotearoa New Zealand).
As part of the Biennale of Sydney, the Museum unveils a new Circular Quay Foyer Wall Commission by artist Hayv Kahraman (Iraq/Sweden/US). Kahraman is the first international artist to be part of the MCA Australia Foyer Wall Commission Series. Informed by the artist’s Iraqi-Kurdish heritage, her experience as a refugee and her research into Australia’s immigration policy, Kahraman’s new work draws parallels between water, migration and traditional art forms.
In April 2024, the Museum inaugurates a major survey by Australian artist Nicholas Mangan, A World Undone, April 5–June 30, 2024. Curated by MCA Australia’s Anneke Jaspers and Anna Davis, this exhibition brings together eight of the artist’s expansive sculptural projects that consider our relationship to the natural world, culminating with his latest work, Core-Coralations (2022–24), inspired by the history and health of the Great Barrier Reef.
In May 2024, MCA Australia presents the next iteration of MCA Collection: Artists in Focus. This new set of displays will highlight artists from the MCA Collection, including Brook Andrew, Maree Clarke, Fiona Hall, James Nguyen and Esme Timbery. Works by Joan Brassil, Kevin Gilbert, Jumaadi, Leyla Stevens and the Arnott’s Biscuits Collection, which showcases the work of Aboriginal artists from the communities of Groote Eylandt, Yirrkala, Galiwin’ku, Milingimbi, Maningrida, Ramingining, Gunbalanya, Wadeye and the Tiwi Islands, will remain on display.
Julie Rrap: Past Continuous, June 28, 2024–February 16, 2025, features Rrap’s iconic installation, Disclosures: A Photographic Construct (1982), a landmark feminist work in the history of Australian art, now part of the MCA Collection, in dialogue with new and recent works drawing on the artist’s present-day body, 42 years older.
From August, MCA Australia will present its winter exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, August 2–October 27. This major retrospective of the internationally renowned photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto spans his 50-year career and highlights the artist’s philosophical yet playful inquiry into our understanding of time and memory. The exhibition features over 100 works and is organised by the Hayward Gallery, London in association with MCA Australia.
In September, Isaac Julien, one of Britain’s most critically acclaimed artists and filmmakers, presents his latest powerful multi-channel film work Once Again… (Statues Never Die) (2022). Commissioned by the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, Julien’s immersive, five-screen installation imagines a conversation between American art collector of Modern Art and African Material Culture, Albert C. Barnes and philosopher-critic Alain Locke, known as the ‘Father of the Harlem Renaissance’ to consider African art and its place in global art histories.
September also sees the return of MCA Australia’s annual exhibition Primavera: Young Australian Artists dedicated to the work of early-career Australian artists under the age of 35, curated by Lucy Latella. And Kate Newby’s 2024 Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission, developed in direct response to the site of the Museum on Sydney Harbour at Tallawoladah, will open as well.
MCA Australia will announce a 2024–25 international major summer exhibition later this year by a renowned international artist.
Beyond the Museum walls
MCA Australia’s long-standing C3West program will continue its artist-led and groundbreaking social impact work in Western Sydney with the opening of a project led by Aotearoa New Zealand-Samoan artist Greg Semu in Mount Druitt, 8–30 June 2024. Co-produced with Blacktown Arts and Blacktown City Council, this project has emerged from sustained engagement with Blacktown’s Pasifika communities and is underpinned by the importance of kinship and intergenerational healing for individual and the community wellbeing.
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia)
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) presents, collects and engages with the art of our time. Guided by the principles of belonging, connection and influence, we aim to be the defining platform for contemporary art and ideas in Australia and beyond. Located on Sydney Harbour at Tallawoladah, a home to stories, art and culture for over 65,000 years, we connect the widest possible public to contemporary art through exhibitions, events, creative learning and access programs. Our evolving Collection of over 4,500 artworks is the only public collection in Australia dedicated to the work of living artists, with over a third represented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. As an independent, not-for-profit organisation, MCA Australia raises over 80% of its revenue each year through donations and commercial activities to deliver its artistic and engagement programs.
Museum of Contemporary Art Australiagu wawa Cadigalmirung nura badu garrigarrang*
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land and waters upon which the MCA stands.
*Language translation undertaken with assistance from Professor Jakelin Troy and endorsed by local community Elders and the MCA Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group.