Melbourne Art Fair to become annual event as of 2024

Melbourne Art Fair has announced it will be staged annually to service the region’s growing appetite for the exhibition and sale of contemporary art.

Owned by the Melbourne Art Foundation, a not-for-profit Australian arts organisation that is committed to supporting living artists, the Fair has distributed $1 million in artist and curator fees since its establishment in 2003

Melbourne Art Foundation Chief Executive and Fair director Maree Di Pasquale notes “Melbourne Art Fair continues to hold an essential role in growing the Australian art market, representing the most comprehensive and considered overview of the region’s thriving contemporary art scene for 35 years.

"The now annual fair remains an exceptional showcase of the region’s most significant galleries and, since 2022, Indigenous-owned art centres, as a progressive forum for contemporary art and ideas. We look forward to welcoming collectors, industry and the art loving public to the 17th edition of Melbourne Art Fair as the cultural event of the Australian summer and the official launch of the annual arts calendar.”

Galleries taking place in the summer art fair have been announced along with presentations of solo shows and works of scale and significance from new and iconic artists.

From 22nd-25th February 2024, the art fair will bring together 60 of the region’s leading galleries and Indigenous art centres, spanning 7,500sqm at the Denton Corker Marshall designed Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The gallery and art centre presentations will take place alongside a broader program of large-scale installations, video works, performances, conversations, and the unveiling of the 2024 Melbourne Art Foundation Commission, haloed by the theme of ketherba – a Boon Wurrung word used to express a togetherness imbued with promise, one that not only transcends but embraces difference and cause for hope.

A dedicated edition of MAF Virtual will run in parallel with the fair, from 22nd February-8th March 2024, embracing a hybrid model with an expanded online program connecting galleries and audiences across the globe.

A key component of the 2024 program will be the revelation of the Melbourne Art Foundation 2024 Commission which has been awarded to Julie Rrap (pictured above), represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney). Rrap, one of Australia’s most recognised female artists, is widely considered to have contributed to the foundations of contemporary feminist art in Australia. Working for over three decades with a range of different mediums, Rrap’s work challenges, subverts and reinterprets the definition of women and their image in surprising ways, often using her own nude body to do so. Commissioned in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) and supported by Artwork Transport and Creative Australia, the major sculptural work will be the 10th commission of the 17-year program, set to be unveiled at the Fair before moving to its permanent home in the AGWA collection.

Julie Rrap shared “SOMOS (Standing On My Own Shoulders), is a bronze life-size sculptural work that is a dynamic composition in which both casts of my body are caught in a moment of action as one figure appears to support the other on its shoulders.

“While SOMOS echoes the ‘heroic’ tradition of bronze figurative sculpture, it subverts that history by representing an older female body traditionally rendered invisible. This work strongly consolidates many of the concerns that have preoccupied me in my practice over the last 40 years and to have the opportunity to create SOMOS as a major work for this commission and the Art Gallery of Western Australia is a career highlight and one which will create an incredibly important conversation.”

Galleries include: 1301SW/Starkwhite (Naarm/Melbourne, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Tāhuna/Queenstown), Alcaston Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Anna Schwartz Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Art Collective WA (Boorloo/Perth), Arthouse Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Arts Projects Australia (Naarm/Melbourne), Blackartprojects (Naarm/Melbourne), CHALK HORSE (Gadigal Country/Sydney), cbOne (Naarm/Melbourne), Charles Nodrum Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Daine Singer (Naarm/Melbourne), Darren Knight Gallery (Gadigal Country /Sydney), Despard Gallery (nipaluna/Hobart), Fox Jensen (Gadigal Country/Sydney, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland), GAGPROJECTS (Tarntanya/Adelaide), GALLERY 9 (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Jacob Hoerner Galleries (Naarm/Melbourne), James Makin Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Jan Murphy Gallery (Meanjin/Brisbane), Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art (Naarm/Melbourne), MARS Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Martin Browne Contemporary (Gadigal Country/Sydney),MOORE CONTEMPORARY (Boorloo/Perth), Nanda\Hobbs (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Neon Parc (Naarm/Melbourne), Niagara Galleries (Naarm/Melbourne), Nicholas Thompson Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), OLSEN Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney, New York), Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Sophie Gannon Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), STATION (Naarm/Melbourne, Gadigal Country/Sydney), Sullivan+Strumpf (Naarm/Melbourne, Gadigal Country/Sydney, Singapore), Sutton Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), The Commercial (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Tolarno Galleries (Naarm/Melbourne), Vermilion Art (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Vivien Anderson Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Wagner Contemporary (Gadigal Country/Sydney), William Mora Galleries (Naarm/Melbourne), and Yavuz Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney, Singapore).

Melbourne Art Foundation Chair Peter Jopling adds “Melbourne Art Fair sets a standard for artistic excellence in the region with a continued focus on solo shows and works of scale and significance presented by emerging spaces and established galleries.

“We would like to thank the gallery sector for standing with us since 1988, and for our Government Partners, Creative Australia and Creative Victoria, for their continued support.” 

Committed to creating a platform that supports the next generation of artistic practice, the Fair also welcomes 11 young galleries established after 2016 with space subsidised by the Melbourne Art Foundation with space: COMA (Gadigal Country/Sydney), day01. (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Five Walls (Naarm/Melbourne), FUTURES (Naarm/Melbourne), Haydens (Naarm/Melbourne), LON Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), N.Smith Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Nasha Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney), ReadingRoom (Naarm/Melbourne), and The Renshaws’ (Meanjin/Brisbane), and Void_Melbourne (Naarm/Melbourne).

Additionally, the Fair welcomes four art centres supported through the William Mora Indigenous Art Centre program. Established in 2022, the initiative supports the participation of Indigenous-owned art centres within a fair of regional significance, funded by the Australian Government through the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support (IVAIS) program, and generously supported by Bennelong Funds Management and Morgans. This program recognises the vital role art centres play in sustaining First Nations arts and communities, and in sharing the stories of Indigenous Australians.

In 2024 Melbourne Art Fair welcomes Moa Arts (Mua, Mualgal Country/Moa Island), Munupi Arts & Crafts Association, (Pirlangimpi Community/Melville Island), Papunya Tjupi Arts (Papunya), and Wik & Kugu Arts Centre (Aurukun).

The broader 2024 Artistic Program will see works delivered across four distinct undertakings – VIDEO, BEYOND, LIVE and PROJECT ROOMS.

VIDEO offers a program dedicated to the presentation of moving-image art from new and iconic contemporary artists at the fore of digital works, presented by local and international galleries. VIDEO is curated by Tamsin Hong, Exhibitions Curator, Serpentine (London, UK). BEYOND will harness the monumental exhibition spaces within MCEC to present four large-scale installations and spatial interventions that respond to the Fair’s thematic, curated by Shelley McSpedden, Senior Curator, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) (Naarm/Melbourne).  

LIVE presented by Glenfiddich, the World’s Most Awarded Single Malt Scotch Whisky – will offer an onsite performance program curated by Anador Walsh, Director, Performance Review. Celebrating boundary-pushing practices that are aligned with Glenfiddich’s maverick DNA, the program will showcase a series of new commissions from an emergent generation of Australian performance artists, while PROJECT ROOMS, presented by Alpha60, PROJECT ROOMS is a non-commercial platform for experimentation, welcoming Gertrude Contemporary (Naarm/Melbourne) and Firstdraft (Gadigal Country/Sydney) with the presentation of performance and multi-media works.

Rounding out the program is CONVERSATIONS. A platform for critical discourse and the sharing of ideas, bringing together cultural communities and thinkers from across the creative spectrum. The aim: to address the future of art and its relationship to interdisciplinary practices and the contemporary world through a series of talks and panels featuring artists, gallerists, curators, collectors, architects, critics, and cultural luminaries.

The full 2024 program with exhibiting artists will be announced January 2024.  

Tickets will go on sale Tuesday 3rd October at 9:00am, with First Release ticket prices available until midnight 31st October.  

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit melbourneartfair.com.au