This summer, the Art Gallery of New South Wales presents a major exhibition exploring the work of Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944), one of the most influential and best-loved European modernists, exclusively in Sydney as part of the Sydney International Art Series.
Kandinsky is credited as a pioneer of western abstract painting, and this exhibition features some of the artist’s most admired paintings, which are usually a highlight of the display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Opening on Saturday, November 4, Kandinsky is the largest collection of the artist’s work ever to be seen in Australia, featuring more than 50 works. The exhibition traces the full breadth of the artist’s extraordinary life, from his creative beginnings in Munich, to his return to his birthplace of Moscow with the outbreak of World War I, followed by the interwar years spent in Germany where he was an instructor at the Bauhaus, and his final experimental chapter in Paris.
Editor's note: the brilliance of Kandinsky's paintings must be seen with your own eyes – no photo or video can capture the depth and layering of these works, the vibrancy and timelessness of the artist's colour work, or, as some might say, the "spiritual" energy that draws the viewer in. Check out our first look video here.
Visitors to the Art Gallery are invited to delve deeper with a range of exhibition related public programs including talks, tours and workshops, beginning on the opening weekend. You can also join guided daily tours at 12pm and 2pm, and on Wednesdays at 6.30pm when the gallery is open late (tours are free with exhibition ticket and also available in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean). Visit during Art After Hours on Wednesdays throughout November and December to join drawing workshops set to music and hear talks on exhibition themes while enjoying late night access to the gallery.
The vivid, expressive nature of Kadinsky’s paintings was influenced by the way the artist could reportedly “hear colours” and “see sounds”. This is an expression of synesthesia, a rare neurological condition that Kandinsky was known to have, which causes the stimulation of one sensory pathway to trigger an involuntary experience in another. (Colour us fascinated!)
Exhibition highlights include his early career masterpiece ‘Blue Mountain’ (1908-09); ‘Painting with white border’ (1913), evocative of his beloved Moscow; the buoyant ‘Dominant Curve’ (1936); and ‘Composition 8’ (1923), which Kandinsky regarded as the high point of his post-war achievement.
Most of the works in this exhibition have never been seen in Australia before, making this a once in a lifetime experience – and it’s exclusive to Sydney.
The exhibition also includes music programming that explores the crucial relationship Kandinsky had with music. Within the exhibition space there is also a specially commissioned artist project by Desmond Lazaro that draws inspiration from the ideas that influenced Kandinsky, and will form an immersive and wondrous experience for all ages.
In conjunction with Kandinsky, an adjunct exhibition of ‘spirit drawings’ created by British medium Georgiana Houghton in the 1860s and ’70s will also be on display. Invisible Friends will bring together some of Houghton’s unknown and rarely seen works in Sydney for the first time, and will highlight the significant role spiritualism played for artists in early modernism.
Kandinsky is showing at the Art Gallery of NSW from Nov 4-Mar 10. Tickets are on sale now over here (from $35, discounts availiable).
You can save by purchasing tickets in a bundle for Art Gallery’s concurrent 2023-24 Sydney International Art Series Louise Bourgeois exhibition (Nov 25-Apr 28). An Art Pass also gets you access to the MCA's Sydney International Art Series exhibition featuring Tacita Dean.