Pediment/Impediment, an installation by Daniel Boyd

Past exhibitions

Delve into our previous exhibitions

Each year our team produces an array of exhibitions highlighting our permanent collections and featuring contemporary artists. Past exhibition pages include links to research and digital catalogues for you to relive the experience online.

2024

Branded header featuring multiple multi-coloured circles

2023

a woman sits on a couch with her eyes closed and head tilted back

Hayley Millar Baker: Nyctinasty

'Nyctinasty', by Gunditjmara and Djabwurrung artist Hayley Millar Baker, was originally commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra for the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial.

Ömie barkcloth: Pathways of nioge

An exhibition of dynamic contemporary nioge (barkcloth) made by Ömie artists from the rainforested highlands of Northern (Oro) Province, Papua New Guinea.

Mikala Dwyer: Penelope and the Seahorse

Mikala Dwyer’s aquatic-themed installation bristles with allusions to hippocampus, the genus name of the seahorse, derived from the Ancient Greek meaning ‘horse’ and ‘sea monster’.

The Sherman Gift

Recent gifts of artworks from the collection of Gene and the late Brian Sherman reveal a life of cultural engagement.

Object/Art/Specimen

An interdisciplinary exhibition drawing on all three of the museum’s diverse collections.

Instrumental 2

Using and analysing light. The second display in our ongoing series featuring scientific instruments from the Macleay Collections

Exhibition view of D Harding with Kate Harding at the Chau Chak Wing Museum

D Harding with Kate Harding: Through a lens of visitation

Exploring D Harding and Kate Harding's multi-layered practices and the artists' relationship to Carnarvon Gorge.

Coastline

Artists have always been captivated by the ocean. In Coastline, over 40 artists take on this monumental theme, variously representing the journeys, dangers, conflicts, pleasures and politics carried by the tides.

Black and white photograph of a man on a rocky ledge

Australian Seashores

Exploring the photography of the landmark textbook "Australian Seashores"

Sentient Paper

Highlighting the communicative power of paper

2022

Light & Darkness

This evocative theme unites 70 artworks from the Power Collection, exploring luminosity, colour, movement, race and politics across three decades of late modernism.

Animal gods

When taxonomists began to name the thousands of plant and animal species, they drew on Classical myths and legends for inspiration.

Pacific views

Stunning historical photographs of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia are brought to life through the contemporary voices, songs and poetry of Pacific peoples.

Instrumental

A display of scientific instruments from the Macleay Collections

Sarah Goffman: Applied Arts

An immersive installation of intricate ‘objet d’art’ museum replicas alchemically created from waste materials.

Kamay (Botany Bay) spears: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Three spears taken by Lieutenant James Cook from Kamay (Botany Bay) in 1770 are on display for the first time in Sydney since they were taken more than 250 years ago.

2021

Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations

For Yolŋu people, knowledge is shared and demonstrated through their art. Paintings and sculptures embody their spiritual, philosophical and legal foundations.

The business of photography

Turning a lens onto the first commercial photography studios in NSW

Daniel Boyd: Pediment / Impediment

‘Pediment/Impediment’ was Contemporary Art Project #1, the inaugural exhibition in a series of new contemporary art commissions in the Chau Chak Wing Museum's Penelope Gallery.

2020 and earlier

We’ve developed a wide range of entertaining and scholarly exhibitions over the past decades.

It is possible to explore many of the past exhibitions through our collection search, and discover where our objects have been exhibited in Australian galleries and museums from around the globe.

Featured image (top of the page): Left to Right: Mangala Bai Maravi, Baiga Godna Indian Tribe, 2024. Citra Sasmita, Timur Merah Project X: Bedtime Story, 2023; Citra Sasmita, Timur Merah Project IV: Tales of Nowhere, 2020; Installation view for the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024) at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Photograph: David James.

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