QAGOMA’s 2024 program will include ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson‘ a career survey of work by the leading contemporary Australian artist; the Australian exclusive ‘Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses‘, an immersive multidisciplinary blockbuster showcasing the innovative practice of the Dutch fashion designer; and the opening of ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art‘ (APT11) across both QAG and GOMA, the latest chapter in the Gallery’s renowned flagship series.
The exhibition of contemporary art by Pacific women, ‘sis: Pacific Art 1980–2023’ will continue at GOMA with a new rotation of work, alongside ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’, a selection of highlights from QAGOMA’s Indigenous Australian art collection, inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s bestseller Dark Emu.
Read on for more details on these exhibitions, plus our 2024 Children’s Art Centre projects, Cinema screenings and touring exhibitions.
2024 program
Fairy Tales
GOMA, 2 December 2023 – 28 April 2024 | Tickets on sale now
Step into the enchanting world of once upon a time. From opulent carriages to sumptuous gowns, twisted woodlands to mystical mirrors, ‘Fairy Tales’ explores centuries of beloved folk stories through art, design and film.
Exclusive to Brisbane, this exhibition brings together exceptional contemporary art, breathtaking costumes, immersive installations and stunning cinema from visual storytellers around the world to untangle themes of bravery and justice, loyalty and humility, cunning and aspiration.
‘Fairy Tales’ features the work of artists Abdul Abdullah, Del Kathryn Barton, Destiny Deacon, Gustave Doré, Rachel Feinstein, Trulee Hall, Carsten Höller, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Ron Mueck, Tracey Moffatt, Henrique Oliveira, Polixeni Papapetrou, Patricia Piccinini, Kiki Smith, Jana Sterbak and many others. It includes original papercuts by Hans Christian Andersen, a nineteenth-century photograph by Lewis Carroll and a costume designed by Henri Matisse for the Ballets Russes adaptation of ‘The Nightingale’. Also featured are film costumes and props from Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête 1946, Jacques Demy’s Donkey Skin 1970, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth 1986, Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are 2009, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland 2010, Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror 2012, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella 2015 and more.
‘Fairy Tales’ unfolds across three themed chapters. ‘Into the Woods’ explores the conventions and characters of traditional fairy tales alongside their contemporary retellings. ‘Through the Looking Glass’ presents newer tales of parallel worlds that are filled with unexpected ideas and paths. ‘Ever After’ brings together classic and current tales to celebrate aspirations, challenge convention and forge new directions.
A free curated film program screens alongside the exhibition in the Gallery’s Australian Cinémathèque with ongoing screenings of Jim Henson’s The StoryTeller television series throughout the season.
The major publication ‘Fairy Tales in Art and Film’ available at the QAGOMA Store and online explores how fairy tales have held our fascination for centuries through art and culture.
Seeds and Sovereignty
GOMA, 2 March – 8 September 2024 | Free
Inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s bestselling book Dark Emu, ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ draws artworks from the Indigenous Australian Art collection to explore the deep knowledges and relationships Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have developed and sustained with plants and Country over many millennia.
mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson
QAG, 23 March – 11 August 2024 | Free
For more than four decades, Judy Watson has fashioned powerful, ethereal works of art channelling the stories of her family’s Waanyi Country in northern Queensland. ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson’ is a comprehensive survey of the renowned Queensland artist’s incisive meditations on colonial, social and ecological concerns.
The exhibition includes 130 works, across painting, prints, sculpture, installation and video, from an artistic practice centred on truth-telling around the environment, historical government policy affecting Indigenous Australians, and institutions that collect First Nations cultural material and remains. It will be accompanied by a substantial publication.
The title ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri’, translated as ‘tomorrow the tree grows stronger’, is taken from a poem in Waanyi language by the artist’s son Otis Carmichael.
Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses
GOMA, 29 June – 7 October 2024 | Tickets on sale now
Fashion, art, design, science and technology collide in the world of endlessly innovative and internationally acclaimed Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen.
Exclusive to Brisbane ‘Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses’ is an immersive sensory exploration of her practice with close to 100 garments in conversation with contemporary artworks, natural history specimens and cultural artefacts from which the designer draws inspiration.
Created for the likes of Beyonce, Björk, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga and Tilda Swinton, van Herpen’s sculptural silhouettes stem from a deep curiosity about the universe and a highly collaborative approach to haute couture. Her unconventional and dynamic approach to fabrics and techniques combines subtle hand-crafting with sophisticated technologies such as 3D printing to evoke the intricacy and diversity of the natural world, from marine biology to quantum physics.
‘Sculpting the Senses’ includes an evocation of the designer’s Amsterdam studio, revealing the stages of a dress in development, and a space dedicated to her fashion shows. The entire exhibition is accompanied by a new soundscape by artist Salvador Breed.
In addition to van Herpen’s garments, footwear and headpieces, the exhibition features an installation of Biospheres by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno, astronomical photographs, documentary footage of blooms of phytoplankton and fungal networks by Yann Arthus Bertrand and Michael Pitiot, colourful photographic abstractions by Kim Keever, sculptures in beeswax by Ren Ri and Tomáš Libertíny, a kinetic artwork featuring 300 gold seed pods by Casey Curran, and two immersive installations by the Japanese art collective Mé.
Exhibition co-organized by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and QAGOMA, Brisbane, based on an original exhibition designed by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT11)
QAG & GOMA, 30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025 | Free
The next chapter in QAGOMA’s flagship exhibition series, ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT11) will feature 70 projects from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific, encompassing work by over 200 artists, makers and thinkers.
Across QAG and GOMA, APT11 will reflect the region’s social and cultural diversity, drawing on a wealth of cultural expression and giving voice to artists not previously exhibited in Australia. The exhibition focuses on knowledge, expressed through sensitivity to natural and urban environments, intergenerational migration and labour experiences, and nuanced approaches to storytelling, materials and modes of making. APT11 will honour First Nations cultures and diasporas and highlight collective, performative and community-driven artmaking.
Building on three decades of engagement in Asia and the Pacific, APT is developed by a team of QAGOMA curators working with co-curators, advisors and interlocutors from across the region and in South-East Queensland communities.
APT11 will include an energetic program of live performance, public discussions, cinema and projects for young visitors, along with ongoing community engagement activities and research partnerships. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication and newly commissioned digital essays for the Asia Pacific Art Papers series.
Gone Fishing
GOMA, until 21 Jan 2024 | Free
Isaac Walter Jenner: A Feeling for Light
QAG, until 28 Jan 2024 | Free
Living Patterns: Contemporary Australian Abstraction
QAG, until 11 Feb 2024 | Free
Hiraki Sawa ‘O’
GOMA, until 17 Mar 2024 | Free
I can spin skies
QAG, until 23 Jun 2024 | Free
Creative Generation 2024: Excellence Awards in Visual Art
GOMA, 27 AprIl – 25 August 2024 | Free
sis: Pacific Art 1980-2023
GOMA, until 8 Sep 2024 | Free
Small Figures
QAG, until 29 Sep 2024 | Free
North by North-West
QAG, until 29 Sep 2024 | Free
Childrens Art Centre
The Children’s Art Centre exhibitions and activities are created in collaboration with artists especially for children under six years of age.
Natalya Hughes: The Castle of Tarragindi
GOMA, until 14 July 2024 | Free
Jakkai Siributr: The Legend of the Rainbow Stag
GOMA, 25 November 2023 – 28 April 2024 | Free
APT11 Kids
QAG & GOMA, 14 September 2024 – 13 July 2025 | Free
Australian Cinémathèque
The Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) provides an ongoing program of film and video that you’re unlikely to see elsewhere. Screenings take place Wednesday and Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday matinees.
Fairy Tales Cinema: Truth, Power and Enchantment
GOMA, 2 December 2023 – 28 April 2024 | Free
‘Fairy Tales Cinema’ is presented in conjunction with GOMA’s blockbuster summer exhibition ‘Fairy Tales’ which presents beloved classics alongside contemporary retellings. Fairy tales have always been a means of speaking truth to power; challenging injustice and providing hope. This program highlights how filmmakers have innovated on older stories to resonate in different times and contexts.
The Magic of Monty Python
GOMA, 13 – 27 January 2024 | Ticketed
Celebrating the films of iconic British comedy troupe Monty Python, this program brings together the silver screen collaborations of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam.
For the Love of it: A Curator’s Pick
GOMA, 31 January – 11 December 2024 | Free
From January 2024, join the Australian Cinémathèque curatorial team on the last Wednesday of every month, as they share and discuss a film which is close to their heart.
Technicolor Dreams and Transcendent Reality: The Films of Powell & Pressburger
GOMA, 3 February – 27 April 2024 | Free
‘Technicolor Dreams and Transcendent Reality’ presents a comprehensive retrospective of the cinematic collaborations of filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, whose filmmaking partnership is among the most acclaimed in British cinema.
Live Music & Film: Claire
GOMA, 3 March 2024 | Ticketed
Loosely based on a 10th century Japanese story, Claire follows an elderly male couple on a farm in the 1920s American South who find a little girl from the moon inside an ear of corn and raise her as their own. This dreamlike black and white silent film was shot on an antique hand-crank 35mm (Mitchell Standard) camera. Organist David Bailey will provide newly composed live accompaniment to the film on the Gallery’s 1929 Wurlitzer organ.
Live Music & Film Häxan
GOMA, 5 April 2024 | Ticketed
Benjamin Christensen’s wickedly humorous 1922 docufiction tracing the history of witches from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century is a tour de force of the weird, chilling, and supernatural. Blending an episodic account of the occult with lurid hallucinatory horror, Häxan holds a well-deserved place as one of the preeminent works of silent cinema. Post classical composer Madeleine Cocolas will provide newly composed live accompaniment to the film.
Mad Science
GOMA, 3 May – 23 June 2024 | Ticketed
Ghastly creations, evil schemes and experiments gone wrong, ‘Mad Science’ explores science and scientists throughout the history of cinema, from playful interpretations of mad-cap scientists through to horror and thrillers that engage with our uncertainty for the future and unease with unknown.
Touring exhibitions
QAGOMA works with Queensland’s network of regional galleries and community centres to deliver exhibitions, talks, workshops and kids programs.
Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT
touring until July 2024 | Free
Asia Pacific Video
touring until August 2024 | Free
I, Object on Tour
touring until late 2025 | Free
Natalya Hughes: The Castle of Tarragindi
touring January – October 2024 | Free
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