POP TO POPISM
Filling multiple floors of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Pop to Popism showcases 200 classic works from around the world (think Warhol, Lichtenstein and Hockney), celebrating the origin and development of the Pop Art movement as well as bringing something new to the table: the contribution of many notable Australian artists to it. The exhibition explores the genesis of the Pop scene, starting from the first classic period in the sixties and seventies and following the movement’s trajectory through its ‘second wave’ in the eighties. It was then that younger artists (including some prominent Australians like Martin Sharp, Howard Arkley, Brett Whiteley and Maria Kozic) started to look at consumer culture and mass media by way of positioning themselves in the dialogue of the interplay between media and personal identity.
Until 01 March, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

CHUCK CLOSE: PRINTS, PROCESS AND COLLABORATION
Across Circular Quay at the Museum of Contemporary is Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration, a survey exhibition of the American contemporary artist’s many and varied forms of creation, including etching, aquatint, lithography, handmade paper, direct gravure, silkscreen, traditional Japanese woodcut and reduction linocut, among others. Organised by the Parrish Art Museum in New York, it comprises portraits of many of contemporary culture’s most iconic faces such as Brad Pitt, Kate Moss, Lou Reed, Roy Lichtenstein and President Barack Obama.
Until 08 March, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

FUTURE BEAUTY: 30 YEARS OF JAPANESE FASHION
Queensland’s innovative Gallery of Modern Art was an early embracer of fashion as a valid art form in a museum context, bringing the likes of Valentino, Stephen Jones and Easton Pearson to the public’s attention long before this season’s spate of fashion-focused exhibitions. But its latest venture, Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion, is perhaps one of the most unique to reach our shores. Put together by Japanese fashion historian Akiko Fukai, the director of the Kyoto Costume Institute, where it was first exhibited, the exhibition comprises nearly 100 garments, from the simple and traditional through to the technically ambitious and artistically innovative, with names such as Junya Watanabe, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake showcased alongside newer names such as Tao Kurihara, Hiroaki Ohya and, from Australia, Akira Isogawa.
Until 15 February, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

MATTHEW BARNEY: RIVER OF FUNDAMENT
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art is currently playing host to its first major solo exhibition of Matthew Barney, whose reputation within the avant garde art world can only be recognised as this generations answer to the likes of Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst – more bluntly to say Mr Barney is the most recent incarnation of the ‘artist celebrity’. The exhibition was commissioned by MONA in conjunction with Haus der Kunst in Munich and features an amended arrangement of the original exhibition featuring select pieces from MONA’s antiquities collection, lending a site-specificity to the transplanted exhibition and satisfying founder David Walsh’s ‘new and old’ mandate. The film is loosely based on Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings and like its source material is richly obtuse with hypersexual imagery and content. While River of Fundament has the convenient title of ‘film’, it is more accurately a “combination of cinema and live performance” with “all the ingredients of opera”, and a chance to experience the artist’s work in a particularly atmospheric environment.
Until 13 April, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart.

THE FASHION WORLD OF JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: FROM THE SIDEWALK TO THE CATWALK
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk curated by Thierry Maxime Loriot, comes from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the designer has been closely involved with the exhibition, which features some 140 garments alongside photographs, sketches, stage costumes, excerpts from runway shows, film, television, concerts and dance performances. Arguably more so than any other designer, Mr Gaultier contributed to the lexicon of twentieth century popular culture with his costume designs for Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, namely the conical bra corset she wore to writhe around in for the tour version of Like a Virgin. For many, the French designer is synonymous with pop music’s most famous provocateur; she brought the world to Mr Gaultier and he in turn made her iconic, evidence of fashion’s cultural significance. In the larger context of the exhibition though, the corset is a temporary distraction, given the breadth of the designer’s work on display. The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier is a timely reminder of Mr Gaultier’s legacy, his characteristic rebellious spirit, still so fresh alongside so much contemporary sameness. Mr Gaultier is, still, wholly original.
Until 08 February, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

ZHANG HUAN: SYDNEY BUDDHA
Shanghai-based artist Zhang Huan has unveiled a major, site-specific installation at carriageworks: two five-metre-tall Buddhas crafted from ash sourced from sacred temples from around China. Weighing in at close to 20 tonnes, Sydney Buddha, as the exhibition is titled, is intended as a meditation on the brevity of life and the cycles of renewal and destruction, and is presented as part of this year’s Sydney Festival, of which Carriageworks is a partnering venue.
Until 15 March, Carriageworks, Eveleigh.

JAMES TURRELL: A RETROSPECTIVE
The National Gallery of Australia already plays home to a major work by light sculptor James Turrell, Within without, which regularly draws visitors to the nation’s capital, but in a major coup for the gallery, Mr Turrell’s blockbuster exhibition, James Turrell: a retrospective, is currently on display. Coming to Australia from LACMA, Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Guggenheim, New York, The exhibition brings together almost 50 years of the renowned artist’s work including built spaces, holograms, drawings, prints and photographs. Most popular of all, of course, are the Skyspaces series, are the flurorescent light coloured rooms, part of the Ganzfeld series, in which our depth of field becomes blurred, offering a multi-sensory experience that is seeing thousands flock to Canberra.
Until 08 June, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

IN THE FLESH
This confronting and enthralling exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, In the Flesh, showcases the work of ten Australian artists – including Ron Mueck, Patricia Piccinini, Sam Jinks and Michael Peck – whose who deal with issues of intimacy, empathy, the transience and transitions of life, vulnerability and mortality. It’s a particularly scholarly exhibition in terms of its conceptual underpinning but the popularity of many of the artists included, and the very real nature of those sculptures, ensure that it is accessible on an aesthetic level, too.
Until 09 March, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.

FASHION ICONS: MASTERPIECES FROM THE MUSEE DES ARTS DECORATIFS, PARIS
Curated by internationally respected curator Pamela Golbin of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs (the curator of Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs, Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la mode and Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future to name but a few blockbusters) especially for Adelaide, Fashion Icons is bespoke, to use fashion parlance. The one hundred garments included in the exhibition have been handpicked by Ms Golbin to “paint a unique picture of Parisian style within the context of contemporary fashion design since 1947 when the couturier Christian Dior re-launched haute couture with his New Look.” The iconic garments – so much more than clothes, but historical documents –a showcase of “emblematic haute couture garments created by France’s leading fashion designers”, but this is not to say the exhibition is limited to French labels. The collection is French, the designers are international. There is the opportunity to see a 1973 Jean Muir dress up close, the aforementioned Dolce & Gabbana chrome bustier made famous by Lady Gaga in her Paparazzi video, seminal Issey Miyake pieces from 1978 as well as incredible Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Thierry Mugler and Madame Gres haute couture.
Until 15 February, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

DE ANIMA – BROOK ANDREW
The result of an experimental collaboration between artist Brook Andrew and the RMIT Design Hub, De Anima is an exhibition of a new body of work, Horizon I, II, III and IV. Comprising three-channel video work, sculpture and performance, De Anima is the merging of fiction and truth, and also includes live performances by Justin Shoulder and Mama Alto, both of whom appear in the videos. The multi-sensory exhibition invites viewers to wear veils, created by students at the RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles, creating new identities with which to experience the work.
Until 14 February, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne.

Reporting by Jess Alcamo, Alison Kubler, Mitchell Oakley Smith and Lucy Rennick.
Images: Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2014, courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery, New York. Photograph: Jess Maurer.
Matthew Barney, Boat of Ra, 2014. Wood, resin-bonded sand, steel, furniture, cast bronze and gold-plated bronze. 335.3 x 1524 x 731.5cm. Photograph: Remi Chauvin/MONA.
James Turrell Virtuality squared 2014, Ganzfeld: built space, LED lights 800 x 1400 x 1940.5 cm (overall).
In the Flesh Sam Jinks, still life (pieta), 2007, mixed media.