2025 program announced

Thu 20 Feb 2025

QAGOMA's 2025 program includes Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore’s award-winning Venice Biennale project kith and kin — the first work by an Australian artist to receive the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation — Moore’s work was acknowledged by the jury ‘for its strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of a shared loss of an occluded past'; ‘Wonderstruck’, an awe-inspiring exhibition exploring the wonder that can be found in the ordinary and the extraordinary from spectacular large-scale artworks to captivating small treasures and immersive experiences; ‘Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–50s’ showcasing the work of Queensland artists and those working in the state in the middle decades of the twentieth century; solo exhibitions by Queensland artists Danie Mellor and Pat Hoffie; and a major solo exhibition with globally renowned Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson who invites us on an expansive multi-sensory journey to the edges of perception.

Danie Mellor: marru | the unseen visible
15 Mar – 3 Aug 2025

An exhibition of new painting, photography and moving image works by Danie Mellor, whose multidisciplinary practice explores Australia’s shared history through the lens of his Ngadjon-jii, Mamu and Anglo-Celtic ancestry celebrates his ongoing connections to Country in the rainforest areas of far north Queensland. ‘marru’, which means ‘becoming visible’ in the Dyirbal language of Mellor’s matrilineal ancestors, includes new works examining memory and remembrance, and the environmental and social impact of our colonial history.

Delve Deeper | Frontier fluidity — the colours of Danie Mellor’s Country

Great and Small
21 Jun 2025 –  May 2027

‘Great and Small’ explores the central role animals have played in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, culture and spiritual beliefs. For over 60,000 years, native fauna form an integral part of relationships with Country, in community and are a foundation of economies, identity and sustainability.

The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture
21 Jun 2025 – 5 Oct 2026

'The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture' draws its title from Arundhati Roy's evocative novel to explore the omnipresence of faith in the mundane and extraordinary alike. Centred around a rare collection of embellished oleographs by Raja Ravi Varma (India, 1848-1906), the exhibition delves into the intersection between devotional imagery and popular culture, capturing the divine as a living part of everyday life.

Wonderstruck
28 Jun –  6 Oct 2025

‘Wonderstruck’ presented across GOMA’s ground floor, explores themes related to collective and personal experiences of awe and wonder. With more than 100 artworks and interactive projects by over 70 international and Australian artists, the exhibition invites audiences on a journey through spectacular large-scale installations, captivating small treasures and immersive experiences. Highlights include audience favourites Nick Cave’s Heard 2012, Ron Mueck’s In bed 2005 and Yayoi Kusama’s much-loved interactive sticker installation The Obliteration Room 2002-present.

Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–50s
16 Aug 2025 – 26 Jan 2026

'Under a Modern Sun' showcases the work of Queensland artists and those working in the state in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and the important role that women artists played in fostering artistic practice in the state. The exhibition includes artworks by renowned Brisbane-based painters Vida Lahey and William Bustard and luminaries from the regions, including Kenneth Macqueen and Joe Rootsey. The exhibition explores connections between these artists and others — such as Sidney Nolan and Max Dupain — who travelled to Queensland to explore its histories and subject matter and, in doing so, contributed to the development of a modernist sensibility here.

Snap Blak: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island photography from the Collection
16 Aug 2025 – 13 Sep 2026

'Snap Blak' brings together dynamic examples of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island photography that champion Indigenous self-representation, with assertions of visual sovereignty that resist prevalent stereotypes and re-present their people.

Archie Moore: kith and kin
27 Sep 2025 – 18 Oct 2026

QAGOMA is the first venue to present Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore’s kith and kin following its debut at La Biennale de Venezia 2024, where it secured the prestigious Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation. Commissioned by Creative Australia — and gifted to QAGOMA and TATE by Creative Australia on behalf of the Australian Government — kith and kin comprises a vast genealogical chart capturing Moore’s First Nations Australian connections spanning more than 2400 generations and over 65 000 years.

The installation confronts the ongoing legacies of Australia’s colonial history, with a focus on the overincarceration of First Nations peoples and the severing of familial ties. It evokes the vastness of First Nations Australian history, while speaking to the connectedness of the human family. At the centre of the installation, a reflective pool memorialises First Nations people who have died in police custody.

Inscribing a Life
27 Sep 2025 – 18 Oct 2026

‘Inscribing a Life’ celebrates the intensity and wonder of existence, histories, and time through the act of mark making. Complementing the adjacent display of kith and kin both presentations share the themes of memorials and cosmic time. Alongside artworks expressing the intensity and wonder of existence are those that celebrate and solemnly honour lives that have come to an end.

Contraptions
4 Oct 2025 – 1 Mar 2026

‘Contraptions’ considers how artists use machines for play, experimentation, and hands-on exploration of ideas. Whilst digital production dominates the landscape in the everyday, many artists are still entranced by the mechanical qualities of contraptions and the analogue nature of their often hand-made forms.

Olafur Eliasson
6 Dec 2025 – 12 Jul 2026

Closing QAGOMA’s 2025 program across GOMA’s ground floor galleries is an exhibition of outstanding new and existing works by leading Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson inviting audiences to discover the creative potential of perception.

Eliasson asks us to reimagine how we care for the world and each other. The exhibition will feature two major, new site-specific installations: one exploring the polarisation of light and another exciting new experiential mirror-work created especially for our expansive galleries. Two iconic QAGOMA collection works by the artist, The Cubic Structural Evolution Project 2004, an all-white LEGO city perpetually rebuilt by visitors, and Riverbed 2014, a vast, rocky landscape with a primeval spring of water running through it, will be shown, along with Eliasson’s celebrated early installation Beauty 1993 bringing a rainbow suspended in mist into the gallery and photographs of his ancestral home, Iceland.

QAGOMA's 2025 program

Exhibitions

• Asia Pacific Triennial (QAG and GOMA, showing until 27 Apr 2025)
• Danie Mellor: marru | the unseen visible (QAG, 15 Mar – 3 Aug 2025)
• Great and Small (QAG, 21 Jun – May 2027)
• Creative Generation: Excellence Awards in Visual Art (GOMA, 31 May – 31 Aug 2025)
• ingkwia tjaiya, lyaartinya tjaiya (old way, new way) 30 years of Hermannsburg Pottery in the Collection (GOMA 31 May – 26 Oct 2025)
• The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture (QAG, 21 Jun 2025 – 5 Oct 2026)
• Wonderstruck (GOMA, 28 Jun – 6 Oct 2025)
• Ken Unsworth (QAG, 19 Jul 2025 – 8 Feb 2026)
• Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950’s (QAG, 16 Aug 2025 – 26 Jan 2026)
• Snap Blak: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island photography from the Collection (GOMA, 30 Aug 2025 – 13 Sept 2026)
• Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love (QAG, 30 Aug 2025 – 1 Feb 2026)
• Archie Moore: kith and kin (GOMA, 27 Sep – 18 Oct 2026)
• Inscribing a Life (GOMA, 27 Sep – 18 Oct 2026)
• Contraptions (GOMA, 4 Oct – 1 Mar 2026)
• Olafur Eliasson (GOMA, 6 Dec 2025 – 12 Jul 2026)

Children’s Art Centre

• Asia Pacific Triennial Kids (GOMA, on now until 13 Jul 2025)
• Art Box: Yim Maline (GOMA on now until 18 May 2025)
• Art Box: Mandy Quadrio (GOMA, 31 May – 26 Oct 2025)
• Vipoo Srivilasa (GOMA, 11 Oct 2025 – 113 Sep 2026)

Australian Cinémathèque

• Asia Pacific Triennial Cinema (GOMA, various programs until Apr 2025)
• Curator’s Pick 2025: For the Love of it (GOMA, Jan – Dec 2025)

Touring Exhibitions

• Asia Pacific Triennial Kids on Tour (Various venues, until Apr 2025)
• Joe Furlonger: Horizons on Tour (Various venues, Feb 2025 – Jul 2027)
• Looking Out, Looking In: Exploring the Self-Portrait on Tour (Various venues, Mar 2025 – Dec 2027)

‘Wonderstruck’ is supported by Major Partners Shayher Group and Carnival Cruise Line alongside Tourism, Media and Supporting Partners.

'Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–50s’ is supported by Major Benefactor John Allpass Charitable Foundation.

‘Archie Moore: kith and kin’ is supported by Major Partner Gadens.

‘Olafur Eliasson’ is supported by Strategic Partner Tourism and Events Queensland; Major Partner Shayher Group; and Grantor Gordon Darling Foundation.