Concrete Playground
filmmusicStrange Powers
Wednesday, 4th August - 7PM
@ Chauvel Cinema
Take a rare look inside the world of indie rock god Stephin Merritt in this intimate, revealing documentary.
artfreeDan Askill: Slow Work on a Bright Screen
Thursday, 5th August - Monday, 30th August
@ Edition
Askill mixes time the way The Chemical Brothers mix sound. His videos pull out ordinary moments until they've stretched into the raw stuff of movement. Somehow, this renowned video-artist has condensed his stunning works into a book, launching this week accompanied by small screenings of his work.
artLance Richardson: de MéXICO
Friday, 6th August - Sunday, 8th August
@ China Heights
The everyday scenes in the statement accompanying Lance Richardson's de MéXICO are almost as good a snapshot of Mexico as the exhibition itself. His photos come from right across the country — from Mexico City to Spanish colonial towns like Taxco and Guanajuato, from the ghostly and peyote-soaked Real de...
artfreemusicperformingVerge Festival 2010
Wednesday, 1st September - Friday, 10th September
@ University of Sydney
Verge is strange. That's one of the best things about it. A silent disco, a 24-hour comedy gig and a NASA vs. NIDA debate are definitely some of the stranger pieces of the Verge mosaic. Which is varied, like a spotty art wall of Rubiks cube is varied - something they have at the festival.Verge is also perfectly normal. They'll have a best-of Theatresports (with Chaser members and cast from Thank God You're Here), a white-lit night market, open circus rehearsals and music. The festival has been running at Sydney University since 2003, starting as an experiment along the torn and sticky-taped graffiti tunnel and progressing down to a full-sized cultural event.
artfreeGrove
Thursday, 9th September - Thursday, 30th September
@ Japan Foundation Gallery
In the Bible, people are made from ribs and soil. In Mexico, it's corn. In Japan, a baby gets found in a stalk of bamboo. This installation will take you into the dark bamboo cutter's world where the myth takes place.
performingStories from the 428
Saturday, 11th September - 8PM - Saturday, 25th September - 2PM
@ Sidetrack Theatre
The 428 is an omnibus of mystery. A team of writers, directors and actors will observe and distil its action into play form for this restaging of April's successful season.
filmSydney Latin American Film Festival
Wednesday, 1st September - Sunday, 19th September
@ Dendy Opera Quays
Latin America produces good film. The documentary The Forgotten Tree, from Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal's travelling Ambulante Film Festival, revisits the slums of famous director Luis Bunuel's masterpiece Los Olvidados, Mexico's equivalent to Bicycle Thieves. Optical Illusions shows the world of a man whose sight is being slowly...
freeplaySydney Children's Festival
Monday, 27th September - Saturday, 9th October
@ CarriageWorks
In some parts of the world it's getting harder and harder to get children into the more interesting places. But take them along to this decidedly messy festival and they'll get stuck into compost bins, play with clay, meet roaming dinosaurs and manufacture heads and no one will bat an eyelid. If you don't have kids, then borrow some and get along.
musicperformingThe Ballad of Backbone Joe
Tuesday, 21st September - Saturday, 2nd October
@ Wharf 2, Wharf Theatre
It's a wooden-industrial macabre story of murder and revenge and has a blues-instrumented country feel, but this production is actually an organic, funny, weird, creepy, electric kind of comedy.
musicplayNo Lights, No Lycra 2010
Tuesday, 28th September - 8PM
@ Curious Works
A weekly space to dance where you can dance like nobody's watching because nobody is. You don't have to worry about how you're doing it, what you're wearing or who you're with. Instead, you can concentrate on the pure joy of sound and movement.
artThe Engine Room
Friday, 8th October - 3PM
@ Object Gallery
Studios across the inner-city will throw open their doors on Friday afternoon - Sixteen, including Object renovators Architect Marshall, eco-furniture designers Schamburg + Alvisse and more-than-jewelry-makers Dinosaur Designs, will take guests inside their space and process.
artfreeM.A.R.s Attacks
Friday, 15th October - 6PM
@ Red Bull Gallery
If you looked at the news in 2008, you've already seen the movement called lowbrow art, or pop surrealism. Friday evening, the Red Bull gallery will be full of it to launch this collaborative exhibition.
performingNew Creations Season 2
Tuesday, 12th October - Saturday, 23rd October
@ Sydney Theatre
Watching Gat's dance is like keeping track of the hands in a Jason Bourne movie. His whole figure jumps with suddenness and grace - no movement is spare, and there arrives no moment of rest.
performingBrand Spanking New
Wednesday, 27th October - Saturday, 6th November
@ New Theatre
Need new drama? The New Theatre has concentrated it for you at its third annual Brand Spanking New season. A collection of authors, actors and directors have been pulled together by Stories from the 428 curator, Augusta Supple, to tell their disparate stories over a common set. This project offers...
artfreeMorte
Thursday, 21st October - 6PM
@ LO-FI Collective
On hearing that he was to be executed in Bolivia, Che Guevara reportedly turned white and said "It is better this way." Dying Capuchin monks made churches with their deaths, their bones used for the deeply serious skeletal collages which still sit oddly in their Italian crypts. The point was...
artfreePost Exhibition Blues
Sunday, 24th October - Tuesday, 2nd November
@ Gaffa
Former Chocolate Factory resident Mark Gerada's new exhibition at Gaffa has two themes. One is the almost post-natal sadness that descends on you after you stage an exhibition. The other is an unreal tint of blue he saw while swimming in a sea-cave in the island of Gozo, off his...
performingImperial Panda presents Fright Night!
Saturday, 30th October - 7PM
@ Red Rattler
Live music and horror stories - what better way to celebrate Halloween. With general ghoulishness promised on the night, who knows what stories will be born and which rough bodies will be sewn together into life.
filmHola Mexico Film Festival
Thursday, 4th November - Sunday, 14th November
@ Dendy Cinemas
It's a hundred years since the Mexican Revolution. Moustaches, cries of "land and freedom!" and 'sombrero' as a synonym for 'big hat' all flow from that revolutionary era. The Mexico it created is complex, layered and huge. Just like Mexico's movies, which — thanks to this year's Hola Mexico Film...
playSydney Open 2010
Saturday, 6th November - Sunday, 7th November
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
Everyone knows there are secret Sydneys. Not just waterfront apartments and gothic mansions of state, but quieter faces - the back rooms, offices, tunnels and storehouses that make the city function, or once did. Stone, glass, brick, old, new - scattered, strange buildings around the city that make you think. Sydney Open throws back the veil for a weekend, letting Sydneysiders peek behind the scenes. There are focus tours of individual properties over the whole weekend, while on Sunday there is a city-wide wander. So get the map, get nosy and get a look behind the curtain.
freeplayNewtown Festival 2010
Sunday, 14th November - 9AM
@ Newtown
With this multi-faceted neighbourhood festival the question isn't where to start but where to stop. Divided into stages, stalls, lawns and avenues, events in the festival trip over each other to entertain, edify or feed you.
freeperformingthinkWoollahra Festival
Friday, 12th November - Sunday, 14th November
@ Woollahra
The inaugural Woollahra Festival this weekend plans to divide itself into two parts for your entertainment. Siteworx will feed the performance parts of your brain on stages around Queen Street, while a program of talks will feed your ears, eyes and urge you to pipe up with a question. Siteworx...
artfreeCurvy 2010
Friday, 19th November - Sunday, 9th January
@ The Galleries
This annual exhibition of works from the best female visual artists around the world is on once again. Art will be suspended mid-air, will be for show and sale in shops below, and for three Thursdays will be created live in a texta-only art battle.
filmBicycle Film Festival 2010
Wednesday, 17th November - Sunday, 21st November
@ Dendy Newtown
A celebration of films on cyclists and by cyclists, this annual festival of the two-wheeler screens in more than 30 cities around the globe, and this week it kicks off in Sydney with some serious velocity.
performingA Solitary Choice
Thursday, 11th November - Saturday, 27th November
@ Seymour Centre
For Ruth, the world seems split into people living safe in boxes, and wilder creatures with the ferocity to live a harder life. Her fantasies are bleak dreams of far away places, welling-up into a torrent of words and joie de vivre bursting to escape into her day-to-day life.
artfree3 Exhibitions
Friday, 4th February - Saturday, 12th February
@ Australian Centre for Photography
Three new exhibitions embracing imaginative new worlds and remodeling reality have graced the walls of the Australian Centre for Photography.
thinkfastBREAK: Love
Friday, 26th November - 7AM
@ Powerhouse Museum
With the sleek morning accoutrements of cheap breakfast and swish digs, you can listen to bright young things from a range of creative industries talk about what they do. This month's theme is 'Love', and each of its five speakers loves what they do.
artfreeSumptuary
Friday, 26th November - Saturday, 29th January
@ Australian Centre for Photography
The cavernous galleries of the Australian Centre for Photography are about to play host to a display of excess. Historically, over-paid elites hid their wealth behind empty shows of humility. When they didn't, they tended to inspire harsh laws against showing off; effective or otherwise. The ancient Romans tried to ban...
artfreeMemories Not Included
Thursday, 25th November - Saturday, 18th December
@ Chalk Horse
Anthony Lister's figures are amalgamations of superheroes, shimmering colours and body parts. They look ready to walk off the walls to go out in search of whatever takes their mood, so don't let them get away before you've had the chance to get a look.
artThe First Emperor: China's Entombed Warriors
Thursday, 2nd December - Sunday, 13th March
@ Art Gallery NSW
Get up close with the life-size terracotta warriors that guarded the tomb of the first Emperor of China, examine their accoutrements and check out some recently unearthed finds as well.
musicEliza Doolittle
Tuesday, 30th November - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory
With a strong, clear new voice cutting its way out across the heavily engineered landscape of pop, this Britpop princess is sure to pack a punch during her Sydney tour.
filmfreeWhite Rabbit Gallery Film Club
Sunday, 5th December - 2PM
@ White Rabbit Gallery
Massive, philanthropic art foundations had always seemed to belong to faraway cities, like New York or Madrid. Then they started popping up over here as well. A four-storey converted knitting-factory wedged at the edge of the Carlton Brewery site and the Mortuary Station, the White Rabbit Gallery showcases a massive private collection of modern...
musicperformingLooking Through a Glass Onion
Tuesday, 30th November - Sunday, 12th December
@ Sydney Opera House
This is the third time that John Waters has toured his biographical combination of music and words about the life of superstar ex-Beatle, John Lennon. Waters wears Lennon easily, catching his rhythms and attitude. His builds a Lennon who is likeable, human and irreverent. He strips the fame from him and returns a likeable man in midst of a whirlwind. The real Lennon had little of the slow gravitas often adopted in the glare of public life. He just seemed to be himself. This critically acclaimed production gives you some idea of the man behind some of the most timeless tunes ever written, and what they meant to him. By end of the show, John Waters owns the meaning of John Lennon, if only a version of it. Lennon as a whole person, and taking up a person's space. No more, no less.
artfreeWithout Walls 2
Wednesday, 8th December - Sunday, 12th December
@ amBUSH Gallery
This collaborative exhibition matches wall-based art with cotton-based style, encouraging you to walk away wearing the treasures of the exhibition on a t-shirt of your very own.
artfreeWind Now
Thursday, 9th December - Saturday, 18th December
@ Locksmith Gallery
Anna John's exhibition plays drapery against abstract skeletons of figures or buildings. It puts together anti-figures in the past - the detail's there, but the bodies have gone elsewhere to be implied by what remains.
freeperformingRISE
Thursday, 16th December - 6PM
@ Switch Digital Arts Centre
The product of months of work with local artists, this community project has taken young people from central and western Sydney and equipped them with digital and physical skills to get their stories across to the wider world.
artfreeOogga Booga
Wednesday, 15th December - Wednesday, 22nd December
@ The Paper Mill
The four artists showcasing their work in this latest exhibition at the Paper Mill have looked inside and turned back to their instincts for inspiration. While the name may be flippant, the works themselves are anything but.
freeXmas Store
Wednesday, 15th December - Saturday, 18th December
@ District 01
A trio of Sydney's top designers aren't content to stick to the tradition of starting sales after Christmas, and insist on giving you your Boxing Day joy a little early.
artfree3 Exhibtions
Friday, 3rd December - Sunday, 19th December
@ MOP
Silhouettes, projected images, vodka and condoms - three artists play with profiles and perceptions in this effecting and at times confronting exhibition.
musicChocolate Jesus Kwanzaa Party
Wednesday, 22nd December - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory
Formed from a collection of real African traditions and seasons, Kwanzaa isn't religion, it's heritage all the way. This party will be rolling the seven-day festival into one big, principled omnibus of sound.
artfreeThis Is Not Street Art
Friday, 17th December - Sunday, 26th December
@ Moon Age Gallery
It's hard to fit so much work into such an efficient space, but these two talented artists have left you just enough room get a good look and their beautifully executed, original works.
artfreeNocturne
Saturday, 23rd October - Sunday, 16th January
@ Object Gallery
In music, a nocturne is drawn from the night or other dusky moods. At the Object Gallery's Project Space, Janet Lawrence and Lee Mathers are exhibiting their own nocturnal visions. Lee Mathers' four pieces form a single image of sky and stars. She uses a series of clear, luminescent fairy lights...
musicperformingSmoke & Mirrors
Thursday, 6th January - Friday, 11th February
@ The Famous Spiegeltent
"It's vaudeville" said Groucho Marx when he saw Alice Cooper live on stage. Old-style stage variety - a bit like cabaret in a theatre - vaudeville began to wane as big acts like Marx made their transition from the music hall to the screen. This year's Sydney Festival offers the return of one of last years' stars; a show which pulls together stage variety like vaudeville of old, Smoke and Mirrors. Lacking the pure sex and swearing of understated previous festival acts like Spankrock, Smoke and Mirrors matches the lithe singing style of iOTA together with buff acrobatics, rough voices and a tough house band. Tiny though the Spiegeltent is, you'll be amazed how much Smoke and Mirrors can wedge of itself into its confined circular spaces.
performingSuper Night Shot
Tuesday, 25th January - Sunday, 30th January
@ Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
In a 'war on anonymity' a team of experimental film makers take to the streets to capture random encounters with strangers and project them, unedited, on four screens in an exploration of spontaneity, immediacy and realism.
artfreeperformingMinto: Live
Thursday, 20th January - Saturday, 22nd January
@ Minto Mall Carpark and Minto Streets
Residents and acclaimed local and international artists have collaborated to transform the streets of Minto into a stage to showcase contemporary theatre, dance, film and music for a community extravaganza worth making the trek for.
performingMy Girlfriend's Boyfriend
Thursday, 13th January - Sunday, 16th January
@ Seymour Centre
Birbiglia started his career doing straight stand-up, but over time he unwound his routine to revolve around longer stories. His stories are funny, unwind slowly and, like his Sydney Festival show, they're all about him.
artfreeExposed: Photography & the Classical Nude
Tuesday, 4th January - Friday, 11th March
@ Nicholson Museum
Exposed fuses together one hundred images of ancient and modern views of nudes, statues and classical methods of filthy art — exploring the connections and differences of images of the body in sculpture and photography.
artfreeUn Fête dans le Papier
Tuesday, 11th January - Saturday, 15th January
@ The Paper Mill
Angel and Ash. The two streets the Papermill sits on polarise like the twin themes of its latest show — Un Fête dans le Papier ('A Feast on Paper') — which dines at the intersection of poverty and excess. The exhibition takes inspiration from francophones like Basquiat and Marie Antoinette. Though Antoinette...
artmusicLive
Friday, 14th January - Sunday, 23rd January
@ Lower Town Hall, Sydney Town Hall
Selected for their ability to imbue their music with a certain 'duende', more than 20 well known singers and musicians have contributed their voice to this mesmerising large-scale video installation.
freemusicThe Rocks' Australia Day
Wednesday, 26th January - 11AM
@ The Rocks
This Australia Day the mother of all street party venues, The Rocks, will host a whole day of free music down the sharp hills and smart alleyways of one of Sydney's oldest disreputable neighbourhoods.A long list of artists includes the Hungry Kids of Hungary, the funereal Christa Hughes and the Honky TonkShonks and any amount of choral singing. At five, there's a flashmob singing 'Bury Me Deep in Love' by The Triffids, with which you can join in. So while some may go for other festivals, ferry races or more somber bites of history, why not spend your shoe leather tapping along to the action on The Rocks' sweetly cobbled streets?
musicThe Unthanks
Friday, 28th January - Sunday, 30th January
@ The Famous Spiegeltent
Lots of bands get accused of having an eclectic range of influences. The Unthanks, instead, get accused of being the eclectic influence. Their reach covers not only musos like Elvis Costello and Radiohead, but has also helped inspire a revival of lo-fi clog dancing. Part of a musical current unwraping...
artfreemusicEarth: Ho Tzu Nyen
Thursday, 20th January - Sunday, 20th February
@ Artspace
Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen gets around. His experimental film Earth — designed to be accompanied live by the music of Yasuhiro Morinaga and Stefano Pilia — has toured the world. It made appearances at the Venice Film Festival and Cannes, and more traditional art shows at Fukuoka and São Paulo. After...
musicFiesta!
Friday, 4th February - 8PM
@ Eastside Arts
Cafe Carnivale has a pretty full program this year. As a taster of globe-spanning goodness to come, it has brought together a collection of musicians to launch the 2011 program with this musical fiesta.
artfreeHugh Ford
Tuesday, 25th January - Saturday, 12th February
@ Iain Dawson Gallery
Sound drawn only from their incongruous titles, this artist's comic-esque images draw out moments of life and near-life fantasy raucous with vibrant visual noise.
artplayWeekend Art Sessions
Sunday, 13th February - 1PM
@ Museum of Contemporary Art
The MCA's Weekend Art Sessions invite you to let your artistic imagination run wild in the surrounds of a big-gallery space.
performingSydney Shakespeare Festival
Thursday, 6th January - Sunday, 27th February
@ Bicentennial Park, Glebe.
The 2011 Festival alternates between [i]A Midsummer Night's[/i] Dream and [i]Romeo and Juliet[/i], performed under the stars. A perfect way to spend a summer Sunday evening.
artfreeplayKiss: Expressions of Love
Saturday, 19th February - Saturday, 26th February
@ Pine Street Creative Arts Centre
Kissing as a universal and all-around lovely experience is showcased as part of the International Day Against Homophobia and this year's Mardi Gras season.
musicLloyd Cole Small Ensemble
Friday, 11th February - 8PM
@ Enmore Theatre
Having shot to fame with the Commotions, ex-label rocker turned successful, self-produced artist is bringing his new band and album to our shores.
freemusicLanie Lane
Monday, 28th February - 8PM - Sunday, 3rd April - 9PM
@ Shady Pines Saloon
In bars, theatres and festivals around Sydney, one woman has been educating Sydneysiders in a new version of an old sound.
artfreeAbove: Here Today Gone Tomorrow
Thursday, 24th February - 6PM
@ LO-FI Collective
When he moved to Paris, US street artist Above went from the literal to the figurative and started signing his name with an arrow. Having started his career tagging trains in California, he began sticking up pointed wooden mobiles instead. A few years ago, he checked out Latin America's street...
artfreeSubtext
Thursday, 17th February - Saturday, 5th March
@ CarriageWorks
Art and Australia magazine, together with the Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation, is putting students at the front and centre with this poignant exhibition for a very worthy cause.
freemusicUnplugged + Uncomplicated
Saturday, 26th February - 12PM
@ CarriageWorks
Curated by sustainable rockers [i]Music For Trees[/i], this 5-hour session of live music will feature a stellar line-up of local talent throughout Carriagworks' cavernous foyer.
performingFrancesca Martinez
Saturday, 26th March - 8PM
@ Riverside Theatre
Francesca Martinez will tell you she's wobbly. She started her career on the (only recently-cancelled) teen classic Grange Hill, has performed with QI favourite Jo Brand, and been on Extras and Spicks and Specks. She makes her living as a standup these days. She's coming to Sydney, running her only local gig...
musicOs Mutantes
Wednesday, 9th March - 7PM
@ Enmore Theatre
Anarchic. Chaotic. Creative. Everything a sixties TV rockband was claimed to be, Os Mutantes was in real life.
artperformingplayImperial Panda Festival 2011
Friday, 4th March - Sunday, 20th March
@ Good God Small Club
Emerging this year as a bigger and better-funded incarnation of its former self, this festival of strange art, performance and general fringe activity is sure to inspire in its new SMAC award-winning home.
freethinkTED Live
Thursday, 3rd March - 3AM
@ Bondi Pavilion
If it has a cutting edge, people talk about it at TED. This year's main conference in California will be screened live for free at Bondi Pavilion Theatre.
artfreeDean Manning: Midgets and Giants
Thursday, 3rd March - Saturday, 19th February
@ Damien Minton Gallery
Dean Manning, formerly of Leonardo's Bride, and currently singing with Angie Hart in Holidays on Ice, has a big artistic side, with a style somewhere near early British colonial art and Sidney Nolan. Growing up around travelling side-shows, Manning very quickly learned to look at the downscale behind the small glamours...
filmperformingLiving Sound in Silent Light
Thursday, 10th March - 8PM
@ Red Rattler
A night of film at the Red Rattler mixing old films and new, where the evening's only rule is that any sound needs to be done live on the night.
artfreeplayHidden
Monday, 7th March - Sunday, 8th May
@ Rookwood Cemetery
Hidden brings together over thirty artists in the grounds of Rookwood Cemetery, inviting the public to wander amongst the graves.
filmfreemusicOne80 Project Festival
Sunday, 20th March - 5PM
@ Prince Alfred Park
The Optus One80 Project has been taking 180-second short entries in a competition of 'pitches' to win a fully-produced pilot to screen on MTV, and this Sunday they'll be showcasing the finalists.
musicplayCarnivargyle
Tuesday, 1st March - Thursday, 31st March
@ The Argyle
Carnivals were originally a farewell to the pleasures of the flesh before Roman Catholic lent. These days the focus tends to be more on the party.
performingArthaus Lounge: Shaken & Stirred
Saturday, 12th March - 7PM
@ Riverside Theatre
This regular festivity is getting ready to break down the martini drinker's appeal into its constituent elements of glamour and sex appeal.
freeperformingPlatform Hip Hop Festival
Saturday, 12th March - Saturday, 2nd April
@ CarriageWorks
Whether you're up to speed or yet to be sold on the genre, the Platform Hip Hop Festival is returning to CarriageWorks' concrete halls for its fourth year to educate your senses.
freemusicDie! Die! Die!
Wednesday, 30th March - 8PM
@ Beach Road Hotel
Genre doesn't sit comfortably for Die! Die! Die! One moment their pop and punk roots are showing, the next they're pure experimental thrash, the next they sound like an all-girl nineties band doing the Arctic Monkeys. Which is to say that they have range. They made their second album in...
musicperformingShared Frequencies
Tuesday, 29th March - Saturday, 16th April
@ Sydney Theatre
The naked bloke on the back of Sydney buses is for the Sydney Dance Company's Shared Frequencies, with guest talent dripping motion from around the world.
artfreeSome Kind of Love Story
Thursday, 10th February - Saturday, 26th March
@ Anna Schwartz Gallery
Brendan Van Hek's new neon-sculpture show at Anna Schwarz Gallery takes its cues from a hard-boiled Arthur Miller play, with sculptures of skewiff colour and shape.
freethinkEarth Hour 2011
Saturday, 26th March - 8PM
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
If you'd rather sit at home with the lights off than watch the NSW election coverage, you're in luck. This year's Earth Hour starts 8.30pm the night of the election, providing you with some alternative civic participation if you weren't looking forward to a night of margins and reported booths. The night started here in Sydney in 2007 and has become an international event in the years since. Earth Hour is a symbolic action. Although there is carbon saved by turning things off, the point is the unmissable demonstration that a huge chunk of the world's population can do the same thing at the same time. If they can do it for Earth Hour, why not for grander environmental things?
musicCyndi Lauper
Thursday, 31st March - Friday, 1st April
@ State Theatre
If all you know about the blues came from the Simpsons, Cyndi Lauper wants to educate you.
artfree4 Exhibitions
Thursday, 24th March - Tuesday, 5th April
@ Gaffa Gallery
Four new shows at Gaffa feature snowy satellite imagery, unreliably narrated photos, cardboard geometry and Facebook escaping into the real world.
artfreethinkBehind the Lines
Friday, 25th March - Friday, 20th May
@ Riverside Theatre
You may think you've had enough politics after the last election, but for the artists behind the political cartoons in Behind the Lines the work is just getting started.
thinkSir Terry Pratchett: Imagination, not Intelligence, Made us Human
Sunday, 17th April - 5PM
@ Sydney Opera House
Terry Pratchett's cover-flap bios tend to stress that he's "still not dead", and he's coming to Sydney to prove it to you.
musicMikelangelo and the Tin Star
Friday, 1st April - 7PM
@ Notes
Alternately Croatian, Melbournian or homicidal, there are many facets to singer Mikelangelo. He's bringing them all to Notes with his new band The Tin Star.
artfreeperformingUneasy Futures
Wednesday, 13th April - Saturday, 14th May
@ Performance Space
Do you have an uncomfortable feeling about tomorrow? The Performance Space's Uneasy Futures season shares your dread.
musicFantine
Wednesday, 6th April - 8PM
@ Good God Small Club
Named after the mother of the better-known Cosette in the great humanist epic Les Miserables, Fantine has all the soul, all the fire, all the ever-present vocal power that her namesake lacks in fiction.
freeJapan: Kingdom of Characters
Friday, 8th April - Saturday, 28th May
@ Japan Foundation Gallery
Giant robots, antlers and cats await you at the Japan Foundation's Kingdom of Characters exhibition.
artArchibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes
Saturday, 16th April - Sunday, 26th June
@ Art Gallery NSW
Faces. Faces and fields. They don't always spring straight to mind when you're talking about great art. But they're stomped all over the history of art, obsessed as it was with the human body and the unreal rustic idyll. These are also the ingredients of the Archibald, and Wynne prizes, about to go on show with the Sulman at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Archibald entrants compete in portrait, the Wynne in landscapes, and the Sulman in paint both big and small. This years program also includes lectures and film, so there's lots of fodder for you to indulge in an epic day of art.
freeperformingsmart ARTS 2011 Closing Party
Friday, 15th April - 6PM
@ Red Rattler
smart ARTS is almost over for 2011, but they're not going out without a bang.
performingGreg Proops
Saturday, 16th April - 7PM
@ Enmore Theatre
With Buddy Holly hair and no shame for the force of his opinion, Greg Proops is smooth, clever, snide and funny.
musicHerbie Hancock
Sunday, 1st May - Monday, 2nd May
@ Sydney Opera House
With collaborators like Chakha Khan, Jeff Beck and the Cheiftains, it's hard to overestimate Herbie Hancock's stature in the world of Jazz.
performingThe Business
Saturday, 23rd April - Sunday, 29th May
@ Belvoir Theatre Upstairs
The Belvoir Street is staging a new version of Gorky's Vassa Zheleznova, famous for the strength of its female lead.
musicKim Boekbinder
Thursday, 21st April - 7PM
@ Red Rattler
Kim Boekbinder is bringing her visual flair to the Red Rattler.
artfreeUnguided Tours
Thursday, 5th May - Sunday, 10th July
@ Art Gallery NSW
Unguided Tours brings together digital artists to compete for the Anne Landa prize.
thinkSemi-Permanent 2011
Friday, 13th May - Saturday, 14th May
@ Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre
There are a lot of creative gatherings above-the-radar in Sydney these days. TEDx Sydney is almost upon us again, Creative Sydney is about to return under Vivid's big umbrella, and if PechaKucha wasn't already an above-ground thing, then its public presence at last year's Biennale pushed it over the top. But preceding all of these groups into the spotlight is a conference that hosts a convention of creative designers, artists and all their related mad crowd.Semi-Permanent is now in its ninth year of bringing together interesting speakers with interesting audiences. Last year's speakers included Triple J culture-communicator Craig Schuftan and the founders of Frankie. This year, artists Reg Mombassa, Kelly Thompson and We Buy Your Kids will be speaking, along with others from creative agencies, digital FX and elsewhere. There will also be a free exhibition of conference artists at the Paper Mill and an after party at Lo-Fi.
performingAs You Like It
Friday, 22nd April - Saturday, 7th May
@ CarriageWorks
Women disguise themselves as men, dukes are banished and quite a lot of sheep hang around in Siren Theatre's production of As You Like It.
performingThe Passenger
Wednesday, 27th April - Friday, 29th April
@ Outside the AAPT Building in Glebe
The Deconvertors' foreboding new micro-show speeds you in a car around Sydney's streets.
thinkThe Great Love Debate: That Polyamory Doesn't Work
Saturday, 30th April - 7PM
@ Serial Space
Six debators at Serial Space may or may not make you love them.
filmSource Code
Thursday, 5th May - Wednesday, 15th June
@ Various Cincmas
In Moon director Duncan Jones' Source Code, Jake Gyllenhaal finds death inevitable.
filmNorthern Void
Thursday, 12th May - 7PM
@ Performance Space
Philip Brophy imagines a world without hope or trams.
filmfreeMessage Sticks Indigenous Film Festival 2011
Thursday, 12th May - Sunday, 15th May
@ Sydney Opera House
One of Sydney's best film festivals is on at the Opera House again. And it's free.
artfreeSpectacle / Obstacle
Wednesday, 27th April - Sunday, 15th May
@ Firstdraft Gallery
Spectacle / Obstacle critiques the fabulous displays, cosmic excess and ordinary indulgences meant to distract you from the every-day.
artfreeCosmic Nature
Thursday, 8th December - Sunday, 18th December
@ Kind Of Gallery
Strange creatures from Beastman, both malevolent and divine.
thinkThe Chaser's Empty Vessel
Wednesday, 11th May - 8PM
@ FBi Social
The Chaser are coming to FBi's Social to make you laugh and think in equal measure.
artfreeBarry Otto: A Romantic Obsession
Saturday, 14th May - Sunday, 5th June
@ Artsite Gallery
Barry Otto paints a romantic vision at Artsite's new exhibition.
musicThe Crystal Ark
Saturday, 28th May - 7PM
@ Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Thesynthesis of musicians and styles that is Gavin Russom's Crystal Ark collective is playing at Vivid Saturday night.
musicGhostwood
Saturday, 21st May - 8PM
@ FBi Social
Ghostwood offer energy and thump this Saturday at FBi Social.
artfreeThree Emerging Projects
Saturday, 14th May - Saturday, 25th June
@ 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
It's a good moment for Asian Art in Sydney right now, and 4a Gallery is bringing you new art with strange substance.
artfreeIDAHO 2011: Fragility
Tuesday, 17th May - Saturday, 28th May
@ Pine Street Creative Arts Centre
IDAHO Sydney offers you art to go with the ideas of the International Day Against Homophobia.
freethinkFBi Radio's All the Best: Power Trips
Thursday, 19th May - 7PM
@ Pier 2/3 Club Stage
FBi comes to the Sydney Writers' Festival to shock you with power of speech.
artfreeUnfamiliar Customs
Friday, 27th May - Monday, 13th June
@ Customs House
Sydney's Vivid Festival is giving Customs house an electronic facelift.
freethinkVivid Creative Sydney: Show and Tell
Monday, 30th May - Friday, 3rd June
@ Playhouse, Sydney Opera House
Get in the know about creative things on the boil around town at Creative Sydney.
filmSydney Film Festival 2011
Wednesday, 8th June - Sunday, 19th June
@ State Theatre
There are twin poles of entertainment rambling on the Sydney streets this June. While Vivid Sydney is dominating the Rocks end of town, the Sydney Film Festival owns the drags south of Martin Place. The Festival used to be an R-rated preserve of afficianados and film professionals, but over the last decade it has grown into a popular event with an international competition and a dedicated childrens program. While the pounding heart of the Festival is the plush State Theatre, this year's day sessions have been moved across to the George Street cinema complex due to hotel construction at the Gowings site. Some talks will be there, while others have shifted over a block to the Grasshopper, the Apple Store and the Town Hall. Even UNSW is getting in on the action.The Festival's program is immense, with films from all over the world. Explore it by strand, pick it apart on your iPhone or get the word on the street. But get a look in.
filmColourfest 2011
Friday, 3rd June - 6PM
@ Red Rattler
This home-grown festival shows you Australian stories that don't always make it to the big screen.
musicplayA Great Night Out
Friday, 27th May - Monday, 13th June
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
During Vivid Sydney, the Vivid Rocks Night Markets are opening their stalls Friday and Saturday nights to provide you with music, cheapish food and even some shopping to go with your Vivid light-peeping evening experience. Shops and restaurants across the CBD and the Rocks will be offering specials to go with the festival, and after stopping in at some you can see a few extra light sculptures under the QVB dome. All the while 2manydjs will be broadcasting live for triple j from the Opera House's studios. If creative talks, live music and brain-bending light shows aren't enough for you at Vivid this year, A Great Night Out answers the question of what more you could possibly want.
artthinkPecha Kucha Sydney 18
Thursday, 2nd June - 7PM
@ CarriageWorks
2011's first Pecha Kucha is an old-fashioned mix of the curious.
artfreeSun Studios Assistants Award
Thursday, 9th June - Thursday, 30th June
@ Sun Studios
Photographic assistants come out of the shadows in this Alexandria exhibition.
musicSynergy Percussion presents Iannis Xenakis' Pleiades
Wednesday, 8th June - 8PM
@ City Recital Hall
These drums will move you with their dark math.
artfreeWorld Heritage in Japan
Thursday, 16th June - Friday, 15th July
@ Japan Foundation Gallery
See Japan's World Heritage sites through the lens of Kazuyoshi Miyoshi.
artfreethinkFear+Hope
Monday, 20th June - Friday, 8th July
@ Mori Gallery
Refugees offer you a window into their lives, through art.
thinkMatt Ridley: The Rational Optimist
Wednesday, 15th June - 7PM
@ Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Come see if this former journalist's optimism runs to your taste.
artfree2 Exhibitions
Thursday, 16th June - Tuesday, 28th June
@ Gaffa Gallery
Gaffa offers exhibitions with stark fabric and fragile biology.
musicPictures at an Exhibition: An Artist's Imagination
Wednesday, 29th June - Saturday, 2nd July
@ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Symphony performs work by three composers that make pictures in the air.
filmArab Film Festival 2011
Thursday, 30th June - Sunday, 3rd July
@ Riverside Theatre
A whole corner of the world visits Parramatta for this film festival.
filmTree of Life
Thursday, 30th June - Saturday, 30th July
@ Cinemas Everywhere
Terrence Malick's fifth film demands answers from life: from the big bang to the present.
artperformingWithin & Without
Wednesday, 22nd June - Saturday, 2nd July
@ Blacktown Arts Centre
Get close to Manilla's urban life in Blacktown this winter.
musicThe Church: Universe Within Benefit Gig
Thursday, 23rd June - 8PM
@ Red Rattler
Steven Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles from iconic band the Church are getting together for a one-off gig at the Red Rattler to raise money for Autism Spectrum Australia. Their air of mystery having survived the twin perils of winning an ARIA and being admired by George Negus, they're providing the reflective soul to the benefit.With early treatment, life on the autistic spectrum can be made a lot simpler, but this sort of thing costs money. Entry proceeds from the gig will go to Autism Spectrum Australia, a non-profit that operates here, in Victoria and the ACT. Art connected to the organisation will be offered for sale, the documentary Rainman Goes to Rockwiz will also be screened and the band promises to satisfy fans of Ref:omation as much as those of the Church.
performingFaustus
Thursday, 30th June - Sunday, 24th July
@ Playhouse
John Bell wants to eat your soul. In a play.
artfreeUnderbelly Arts Festival 2011
Sunday, 3rd July - Saturday, 16th July
@ Cockatoo Island
If you were wondering where Sydney's underground art scene is, Underbelly Arts Festival has made it accessible for you. The Festival - spread out over Cockatoo Island for the first time this year - is unique, not just in Sydney's mainstream art scene, but in the alternative one too. Not only does it offer you a day of the complex, strange, new, and experimental, but for a week beforehand you can come in for free and check out the artists in process. And sometimes help them make their art as well. The mysterious J Dark stalks and is stalked, Complicit brings you wall-robots, Ngoc Nguyen creates a Vietnamese flower festival, the turbine hall is taken over by acrobats, and all the while five artists knit together a new society.
artfree3 Exhibitions at Artspace
Wednesday, 1st June - Sunday, 10th July
@ Artspace
Three exhibitions at Artspace are flush with the power of the moving image.
artfreethinkThe Rocks Pop Up Project
Wednesday, 25th May - Wednesday, 23rd November
@ Four vacant buildings
The Rocks Pop Up Project has been going for a while already, but a few months in you'll find it has a few new ideas in season for your delectation. A lot of the current action centres around the Red Room Company, who have set up what really is an underground den of poetry under 77 George Street in the form of its Club House. An installation by their new artist in residence will be in situ: The Forensic Heart is about loss and drawn from poems by Emily Bitto and Emily Simpson. Artist Donna Page will be hauting the space weekends. Gaffa's Pop-Up, meanwhile, is restaging Tim Andrew's blood-soaked Big Deal, along with his Horseradish-like Thousand Yard Stare.
musicthinkNext Next
Thursday, 7th July - Saturday, 9th July
@ Serial Space
A small experimental music festival with the biggest band you've seen.
performingCircus Incognitus
Tuesday, 12th July - Sunday, 24th July
@ Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
A veteran circus star looks for something to say.
artfreeperformingFraser Studios Open Day
Sunday, 31st July - 1AM
@ Fraser Studios
Residents at Fraser Studios want you to check out what they've been up to.
artfreeNAS Art Forum Series
Wednesday, 20th July - Saturday, 23rd July
@ National Art School
Artists and anti-art are the subject of these two talks in support of a Korean-Australian exhibition.
freeplayExtreme Crochet Championships
Wednesday, 20th July - 7PM
@ LO-FI Collective
The cutthroat world of competitive looped wool-wear beckons.
performingThe Farnsworth Invention
Wednesday, 13th July - Saturday, 13th August
@ New Theatre
Aaron Sorkin writes about two men who fought for the right to say they invented the box.
artfreeShowcase Gallery Launch Exhibition
Tuesday, 26th July - Saturday, 13th August
@ Showcase Gallery
A new gallery gets you a look at what creative workers make when they're not working.
performingThe Wishing Tree
Friday, 29th July - 8PM
@ Bondi Pavilion
Impro Australia offers one night of on stage wish fulfillment.
performingWindmill Baby
Thursday, 28th July - Sunday, 21st August
@ Belvoir Downstairs
This Patrick White award-winner returns to the Belvoir to shock and charm.
freeperformingthinkCaravan Slam
Wednesday, 31st August - 7PM
@ TONE Bar
This local sydney poetry slam is experimenting with emergency verse.
artLove Lace
Saturday, 30th July - Tuesday, 30th April
@ Powerhouse Museum
Big sculptures and traditional cloth make up this Powerhouse exhibition of lacework.
freeplayEven Books: Tinah Feyman's BEDPANTS
Thursday, 4th August - 8PM
@ Surry Hills Library
Even Books are invoking the spirit of Tina Fey for a late night with funny women.
artfreeA Touch of Class
Wednesday, 3rd August - Sunday, 28th August
@ Somedays
Giant tableware and talent as the Tough Titties blog curates its first show.
artfreethinkSydney Design
Saturday, 30th July - Sunday, 14th August
@ Various
Spend a few stylish weeks appreciating the form, fit and function of the useful stuff in your life.
artfilmperformingplaythinkGraphic
Saturday, 20th August - Sunday, 21st August
@ Sydney Opera House
Explore words, pictures and the spaces in between as the Opera House geeks out. Riding high on last year's success, it returns to bring you a fresh sampling of local and overseas comics and animation.Gotye will premiere his new album live to images, while comics luminaries like Eddie Campbell and Scott McCloud will be taking to the stage to explain to you their words and pictures, and spaces in between. McCloud wrote Understanding Comics, the famous guide to comics panels and gutters used by Shaun Tan to ferment The Arrival. Tan's Oscar-winning short will also screen.
playFifties Fair
Sunday, 21st August - 10AM
@ Rose Seidler House
Swing into the look, sounds and style of a past era.
musicLiam Finn
Friday, 26th August - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory
Back with a full band, there's no fear of missing out at Finn's shows.
filmSydney Underground Film Festival 2011
Thursday, 8th September - Sunday, 11th September
@ Factory Theatre
Under the radar, transgressive or just weird: 'underground' is a flexible word.
playSuitcase Market
Sunday, 21st August - 10AM
@ Serial Space
Serial Space's Brisbane-inspired, bag-based bazaar.
artfreeAs I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams
Saturday, 13th August - Sunday, 28th August
@ Cockatoo Island
Ken Unsworth follows up his 2009 Cockatoo Island show with a new feast of art.
artfreeFour Exhibitions
Wednesday, 10th August - Sunday, 28th August
@ Firstdraft
Portraits of people and places dominate at Firstdraft.
filmThe Ballad Of Genesis And Lady Jaye
Friday, 9th September - 8PM
@ Factory Theatre
This doco at the Sydney Underground Film Festival explores the border between intimacy and assimilation.
artfree2 Exhibitions
Thursday, 18th August - Sunday, 4th September
@ MOP
Colour unites these two new shows at MOP.
performingA Quiet Night in Rangoon
Thursday, 18th August - Saturday, 10th September
@ New Theatre
Katie Pollock brings two generations of Burmese protest to the stage.
artfreeMotion / Pictures
Thursday, 25th August - Saturday, 10th September
@ Former Paramount Pictures Building
Gallery A.S. is a moveable feast and its new exhibition is setting up shop in what was once the Sydney headquarters of Paramount Pictures in Surry Hills. Motion / Pictures takes filmic inspiration from its art-deco surrounds to present work from artists that sits with the building that it stands in.The exhibition promises to cover, allude to and explore all the facets of movie culture, be it sci-fi, art-deco or video tape. Curated by Joseph Allen Shea, the show will feature the time-shaping Daniel Askill, along with Andrew Long and Mel O'Callaghan. Jacob Ciocci will present the low-key video Dark Green, while Anthony Lister's rough-edged super heroes will make a showing.
artfree1.85 Million - Art Peripheries
Saturday, 20th August - Sunday, 23rd October
@ Campbelltown Arts Centre
Mohamed Bourouissa, Miranda July and others explore the nature of life in Western Sydney and beyond.
artPicasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris
Saturday, 12th November - Sunday, 25th March
@ Art Gallery NSW
Paris comes to Sydney with a lush collection of Picasso's great paintings. The show promises to cover all of Picasso's highly varied styles and periods — 'blue', 'rose', Expressionist, Cubist, Neoclassical and Surrealist. Picasso collections tend to see his styles travel backwards in time, from the rose and blue periods' powerful realism, to arrive at his famous rough-brushed, cubist strokes. Realism came easily to Picasso, but the seemingly simpler stuff was the real work. He's said to have said "when I was just a child, I could already draw like Raphael, but it took me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child." And this week at AGNSW, you too can get overwhelmed by some of his child-like wonder.
freeInsight Talk: Seb Chan
Wednesday, 31st August - 6PM
@ Apple Store
Guru of musical and educational electronica, Seb Chan, offers you a window into the museum of the future.
artfreeperformingVerge Festival 2011
Wednesday, 31st August - Friday, 9th September
@ University of Sydney
Sydney Uni's annual festival brings you weird arts.
artfree3 Exhibitions
Thursday, 25th August - Tuesday, 6th September
@ Gaffa
Three shows that focus on blurry places and half-seen worlds.
thinkBeat Poets - Outspoken #10
Wednesday, 14th September - 8PM
@ FBi Social
North American rhymers descend on Kings Cross. Whatever your poetic roots, the Social offers you a night to leave you lost in fast words.
musicThe Adults
Thursday, 1st September - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory
Shihad frontman Jon Toogood's side-project is age agnostic.
filmRussian Resurrection Film Festival 2011
Thursday, 1st September - Sunday, 11th September
@ Chauvel Cinema
An elegant sufficiency of Russian film comes to Sydney.
artfreeFur
Wednesday, 7th September - Thursday, 15th September
@ Monstrosity Gallery
West curates a show with a common thread something more than skin deep.
filmItalian Film Festival 2011
Thursday, 15th September - Wednesday, 5th October
@ Palace Cinemas
There's a divide in Italy, the North and the South. Sharper than the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry, both are well represented in the selection at this year's Italian Film Festival.
artfreePrimavera 2011
Thursday, 8th September - Sunday, 13th November
@ The Rocks
This year's show has escaped the confines of gallery walls, halls and plinths — being loosed instead on the alternative art space of the Rocks' narrow squares and forgotten alleyways.
artfreeperformingplaySydney Fringe Festival 2011
Friday, 9th September - Sunday, 2nd October
@ Addison Rd Centre
The edges of things can be the best bits. Dark corners, musty and long-forgotten places or cutting-edge ideas on the cusp of success. Fringe Festivals hang out at these edges, bridging the gap between acts and audiences that have been searching for each other. Sydney's Fringe returns for its first return engagement this year, bringing with it a staggering list of events. A Pop-Up Festival, Reclaim the Lanes, a Festival bar with visits from the Campfire Collective, vivified paintings by Frida Khalo and the return of the Mystery Bus are just a taste of the action. Focused in Marrickville, this festival sprawls across the city.
artfreeArt & About 2011
Friday, 23rd September - Sunday, 23rd October
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
There's this feeling sometimes in Sydney that's not unlike the vast nothing inside atoms. Despite the apparent solidity of its sandstone buildings, vertical offices, parks and sunny lanes, the city hides a labyrinth of empty spaces waiting to be filled. Throughout the year festivals, small bars, casual cafes and delivery vans cram in to try to top up those voids with dance, food or clever art. Graffiti aside, though, few things focus as much on filling up Sydney's quiet corners as the public art festival Art & About.This year's season opens with a debut evening on the streets at Friday Night Live, the return of Laneway Art and Michael Landy's public Acts of Kindness.
artfreeThe 60th Blake Prize
Friday, 16th September - Saturday, 15th October
@ National Art School
Religion, spirituality and everyday Australia come together in this year's finalists.
performingthinkMike Daisy: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
Saturday, 24th September - Sunday, 2nd October
@ Sydney Opera House
Storyteller Mike Daisey returns to Sydney to talk about the highs and lows of your gadgets.
filmSydney International Animation Festival
Friday, 23rd September - Monday, 26th September
@ UTS University Hall Cinema
Get some animation in company, with shorts from around the world.
artfreeActs of Kindness
Friday, 23rd September - Sunday, 23rd October
@ Martin Place
Michael Landy connects you to some local moments of grace.
artfreeTokujin Yoshioka: Waterfall
Monday, 17th October - Saturday, 17th December
@ Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation
Tokujin Yoshioka brings his ethereal plastic arts to Paddington.
filmManhattan Short Film Festival
Saturday, 1st October - 7PM
@ Chauvel Cinema
Some of the world's best short films come to Sydney via the Big Apple.
freeplaySydney Rides Festival 2011
Saturday, 8th October - Sunday, 16th October
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
Sydney cycling gets a festival all its own.
filmSydney Bicycle Film Festival 2011
Saturday, 8th October - Sunday, 16th October
@ Sydney Opera House
Spring is here, and the weather's notionally improved enough for outdoor sports. With winter receding and some fitful glimpses of the perhaps over-glorious summer to come, one film festival is giving you some excellent reasons to get active outdoors before the local climate is ready for it. This year's Sydney Bicycle Film Festival has a week of screenings, rides, markets and art, weaving in and out of a freshly minted Sydney Rides Festival that promises to take this year's cycling festivities to a truly city wide scale.
filmThe Hunter
Thursday, 6th October - Sunday, 6th November
@ Cinemas Everywhere
Willem Dafoe comes to terms with the Tasmanian wilderness in this adaptation of a novel by Sleeping Beauty director Julia Leigh.
musicNo Lights No Lycra
Thursday, 6th October - 8PM
@ Curious Works
Sure, you can zag with style and some tremored precision when you're out and about, but what you really want is to dance scruffy, like you do among the lingering curls of steam by the bathroom mirror. Now there's an evening of dance that gets your problem. A homegrown night out that's spawned a worldwide movement which many know, but few have seen. Hosted at Curiousworks, Sydney's inner-city hive of pan-urban storytelling, No Lights No Lycra invites you to dance away the evening with your groove on and the lights off.
artfree2 Exhibtions at Gaffa
Thursday, 6th October - Tuesday, 18th October
@ Gaffa Gallery
Get cute — but not too cute — at Gaffa's latest offerings.
artfreeLorem Ipsum
Wednesday, 5th October - Sunday, 23rd October
@ Alaska Projects
Alaska Projects opens its new space with an artistic note from the underground.
freeplayPeep Show AR Launch
Saturday, 15th October - Sunday, 16th October
@ Heffron Hall
Queen Street Studios fits an insider's view of Darlinghurst and Surry Hills through a narrow lens.
artfreeTransient
Thursday, 13th October - Friday, 11th November
@ L4NE FOUR
Double the art to launch Lane Four as Sydney's newest micro-gallery.
artplayOxford Arts Festival 2011
Tuesday, 18th October - Saturday, 29th October
@ Oxford Street and Surrounding Area
Oxford Street has had all sorts of phases. Starting out as a dirt track, it was done up as a High Street, demolished and widened for the bubonic plague, and home to rent control and slums in the fifties. Migration dominated in the seventies before it grew into the queer heart of Sydney. The Oxford Arts Festival reckons there's life yet in this pan-suburban road, and returns for a second year of filling it with art and performance.
artAnn Lewis Contemporary Art Address: Julia Peyton-Jones
Thursday, 27th October - 6PM
@ Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
One of the most powerful people in the world of art comes to Sydney to give you a piece of her mind.
filmPoetry in Film Festival 2011
Sunday, 30th October - 7PM
@ Palace Verona
A whole night of verse translated to the big screen.
freeplayParramasala
Sunday, 30th October - Sunday, 6th November
@ Parramatta Streets and Parks
The end of Diwali brings South Asia to the streets of Sydney.
artfreeOutpost
Friday, 4th November - Sunday, 11th December
@ Cockatoo Island
International stars, local talent and a bit of Banksy cover Cockatoo Island in street art.
artfreeplaySculpture by the Sea
Thursday, 3rd November - Sunday, 20th November
@ Bondi to Bronte Coast Walk
Fifteen years on, sticking art by the ocean is still a big deal. This year's exhibition is bringing back some past glories, overseas artists and local entrants for its anniversary, and it's even shifted the whole thing a week later to allow a viewing by our local Danish royals. Which just means you can check it all the better, as later sunsets drag further and further in the realm of a doable after work adventure.Programs on sale benefit the ongoings of the festival, or you can choose to wander among the art in ignorance. Seeing it all splayed against the skyline, amongst mysterious names and the tide of fellow art lovers, it'll be hard not to find yourself lost in the art with all the extra feeling that comes with an infinity of sea.
artSpirit of Jang-In
Friday, 28th October - Sunday, 12th February
@ Powerhouse Museum
A history of Korea via gold, relics and the everyday in this dagger-thin gallery.
filmAges of Love
Thursday, 24th November - Saturday, 17th December
@ Cinemas Everywhere
Robert De Niro gets naked in this trilogy of shorts.
artfreeNothing Like Performance
Thursday, 24th November - Saturday, 22nd December
@ Artspace
The music industry has spent a long time moving toward favouring the live performance over the recording to make their money. But Sydney Artists have also started going the way of the live performance, with while-you-wait graffiti wars and the seemingly inexorable rise of the Brown Council. Fresh from a series of water-based performances, Artspace is bringing you artists who put themselves back into their work for Nothing Like Performance.
freeplayNewtown Festival 2011
Sunday, 13th November - 9AM
@ Camperdown Memorial Rest Park
Sit down with old ghosts at this year's Newtown celebration.
musicWest African Festival 2011
Saturday, 12th November - 1PM
@ Marrickville Town Hall
Ten hours of shaking musical education from Café Carnivale.
freeplayWoollahra Festival 2011
Thursday, 10th November - Sunday, 13th November
@ Queen Street, Woollahra
Food, music and words lure you to Queen Street as its festival returns.
musicSpicks and Speck-tacular
Monday, 14th November - Friday, 18th November
@ Hordern Pavilion
Alan, Myf and Adam offer one last chance to get your trivia out before it's too late.
playHarry Potter: The Exhibition
Saturday, 19th November - Sunday, 18th March
@ Powerhouse Museum
Literature, magic and dangerous sports as Hogwarts comes to Sydney.
artfreeSELF EST.
Thursday, 17th November - Friday, 2nd December
@ Gallery A.S. on Brisbane St
Self Est. is a mini festival that brings together artists who put their artistic careers together themselves, be it by street art or through other more commercial avenues. Curated by Joseph Allen Shea, of the late Monster Children Gallery, and Marty Routledge, part of calm, alt-art championing Lo-Fi Collective, the festival turns its eye on four days of pavement focused, out-of-towner talent. Star imports favour a deliberate eye for the painted letter, or a knack for blending typography into art. They include the precise abstractions of Britisher Roid, American Jeff Canham's ordered lettering and the wild words of compatriot Dmote. Rounding out the lineup are the organic constructions of French star Horfé.
artfreeThe Day After Tomorrow
Tuesday, 15th November - Saturday, 10th December
@ 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Former Sydney resident Shen Shaomin takes you to the edge of life and death.
artfreeRecorders
Friday, 16th December - Sunday, 12th February
@ Museum of Contemporary Art
Mexican-Canadian tech-artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer makes art by stealing your shadow, or your heart.
filmWe Have a Pope
Tuesday, 1st November - Monday, 21st November
@ Cinemas Everywhere
To act, or to be Pope? One man chooses, in this new film from Italian director Nanni Moretti.
performingplayPenguin Plays Rough: Your Cities Re-imagined
Saturday, 17th December - 8PM
@ Penguin Plays Rough
Build a new city from a dream. Or have Penguin Plays Rough do it for you.
artfreeAlterations, Disturbances and Rips
Thursday, 15th December - Sunday, 18th December
@ amBUSH Gallery
Collage gets the respect it deserves in this group show.
artfreeXEROX MISSIVE 1977/2011
Thursday, 8th December - Sunday, 5th February
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art duo Ms & Mr give the late Philip K Dick a taste of his own medicine.
artfreeManuwangku: Under the Nuclear Cloud
Tuesday, 17th January - Sunday, 29th January
@ Pine Street Creative Arts Centre
Photographer Jagath Dheerasekara captures ordinary lives with an uncertain future.
thinkBright Club
Wednesday, 11th January - 11PM - Wednesday, 25th January - 11PM
@ The Famous Spiegeltent
If you think that TED is thought provoking and intellectual yet on the whole not funny enough, Sydney Festival has taken it upon itself to broaden the appeal.
freemusicplayParra Opening Party
Saturday, 14th January - 4PM
@ Parramatta Streets and Parks
The Sydney Festival First Night has come a long way since the first time it took over the city in 2008. Having comprehensively left its mark on the Sydney CBD, this year the Festival is taking its pedestrian mojo a little further west for a reprise of last week's street side, entertainment bacchanal. This Saturday the Festival revs up for a second attempt, as Parramatta gets the chance to light up with a Parra Opening Party all its own.
artfreeperformingthinkPicasso Celebrity Talk: Rafael Bonachela
Wednesday, 11th January - 6PM
@ Art Gallery NSW
While Bonachela may dance with an economy of movement, with his words he's generous to a fault.
artfreeHindu Tattoo
Thursday, 19th January - 6PM
@ The Standard
Every six years, pilgrims descend on the Ganges for either the Kumbh festival or Ardh Kumbh Mela, each larger than the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca. These two festivals are famous, as are the burial rites along the river's banks. With much of this culture along the river having a spiritual...
artfreeFour Interesting Young Polemics
Wednesday, 25th January - 6PM
@ Art Gallery of NSW
Art After Hours gets ideas in four short, persuasive slices.
artfreeCasual Cosmology
Friday, 27th January - Sunday, 29th January
@ China Heights
Chrissie Abbott brings her mad, polychromatic future to Sydney.
artfree3 Exhibitions
Friday, 27th January - Tuesday, 7th February
@ Gaffa
Rural themes and isolated places dominate these shows.
artCulture Jammers: Dean Sewell
Saturday, 11th February - Sunday, 10th June
@ Museum of Sydney
A covert movement with overt messages gets exposed at the Museum of Sydney.
artmusicSound Kapital
Friday, 3rd February - 8PM
@ CarriageWorks
Three Beijing bands ease into the year of the dragon.
artfree4 Exhibitions
Wednesday, 1st February - Saturday, 18th February
@ Firstdraft
Artists who play with appearances, and Iceland.
musicplayBondiesta
Sunday, 12th February - 1PM
@ Bondi Pavilion
Newly rebirthed by the White Party's high-fashion party aesthetic, and renamed as this year's 'Bondiesta', the festival brings this new style to its old digs.Bondiesta's inaugural run will see music across two stages from Clave Contra Clave winners Mi Tierra, Tribalismo's army of DJs and drummers, batucada provided by Rhythm Brazil and more. To go with the sounds, the festival also offers dance workshops, latin craft how-tos, South American food and art markets in the Bondi Pavilion. Also in the pavilion is Emmanuelle Bernard's black and white photo show Rio in Bondi, illustrating the parallels between the two famous beach cities.
artfreeOccupy the Future
Saturday, 4th February - Saturday, 3rd March
@ Cross Art Projects
Four artists respond to an inspiring, troublesome and invigorating movement.
artfreeMother India
Saturday, 11th February - Sunday, 20th May
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales
Two artistic visions of suffering from the subcontinent.
artfreeWundercrete
Friday, 24th February - Friday, 10th February
@ Eastern Bloc Gallery
Two small aftermaths in this group show.
artArt Month 2012
Thursday, 1st March - Saturday, 31st March
@ All around Sydney
A lot of Sydney's festivals push the boundaries of expansiveness, but few manage to cover a month wall-to-wall the way that Art Month lays claim to March. It's a solid thirty one days of hooking-up contemporary art, artist initiatives and Sydney galleries with an appreciative general public. Returning for a third year, the festival offers you the chance to wend your way into the Sydney art world as it briefly claims some space for you in art locations from the rambunctious to the serene.
artfreeArt at Night
Thursday, 8th March - 6PM - Friday, 23rd March - 6PM
@ All around Sydney
Visiting galleries of an evening has really started to catch on in Sydney. As its contribution to this widening field, Art Month is hosting six nights of Art at Night, with six Sydney precincts opening their doors late. Each evening one gallery hosts an art bar and FBi DJs, with a constellation of late-opening galleries around it. So take your love of art out after dark.
artplayArt Cycle
Saturday, 10th March - 11AM - Saturday, 24th March - 11AM
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
All the art you can get on two wheels.
artfreeBeer and Fries
Sunday, 11th March - 3PM
@ galleryeight
Sydney artist Kath Fries gets about. Dropping sculpture in cemeteries, winning her way to Tokyo with the Japan Foundation's New Artist Award and now a selection of installations in Millers Point's for Scorch at galleryeight. The show casts tree branches in bronze, mixing them into art with nylon, charcoal and a touch of mess....
artfreeMatch Box ARI Tours
Saturday, 10th March - 2PM - Sunday, 18th March - 1PM
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
Artists show you round art spaces run by artists.
artfreeJohn Kaldor in Conversation
Wednesday, 14th March - 6PM
@ Customs House
ABC arts maven Fenella Kernebone talks to Sydney's premier public art patron.
artfreeMagnum Photographers
Wednesday, 29th February - Saturday, 24th March
@ Stills Gallery
A photographic visitation from a pioneering photojournalism cooperative.
artfreeThe Rocks Pop-Up Project in March
Thursday, 1st March - Saturday, 31st March
@ Rocks Pop Up on George St
Local artists huddle up for the Rocks Pop Up's Art Month.
artfreeArt Bank Open Day
Saturday, 10th March - 2PM
@ Artbank
Take an uncommon peek into the massed cultural holdings of our national art-loan service.
artplayOxford Street Design Store Launch
Tuesday, 6th March - 6PM
@ Oxford Street Design Store
Art blog Tough Titties steps out of the internet and into retail.
artMOP vs Pompom
Wednesday, 7th March - Sunday, 1st April
@ MOP & Pompom Galleries
A new gallery elbows into a familiar space, as these two group shows face off.
artfreeJoanne Saad: I Want to Know What Love Is
Wednesday, 23rd May - Tuesday, 6th March
@ Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
See big love on screen, unadulterated.
artHome Front
Saturday, 31st March - Sunday, 9th September
@ Museum of Sydney
Get a glimpse at the life in Sydney's wartime past.
artfreeInfinity
Thursday, 22nd March - 6PM
@ The Compound
A kaleidoscopic installation dropping into Chippendale for one night only.
artfreeNew Works by Emerging Artists 2
Wednesday, 14th March - Sunday, 1st April
@ Firstdraft
Stained glass, knitting, carpentry and book-loving at this group show.
freethinkEarth Hour 2012
Saturday, 31st March - 8PM
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks
The Hour started in Sydney in 2007, and has become an international event in the years since. Get unplugged, as small acts lead to bigger things.
filmA Dangerous Method
Thursday, 29th March - Thursday, 19th April
@ Various cinemas
Take a dramatic turn in the early history of psychology.
artfreeperformingCelestial Radio
Thursday, 29th March - Wednesday, 4th April
@ Museum of Contemporary Art
A mirrorball boat broadcasts Sydney soundscapes from out on the harbour.
artfreeMCA Opening Weekend
Thursday, 29th March - Sunday, 1st April
@ Museum of Contemporary Art
After an absence of more than a year, the Museum of Contemporary Art is rebuilt, refit and ready to bring you more art than ever before. Its innards have been expanded, a white, lego-like addition fused to its northern edge and a cafe upstairs now offers you a view with your mid-art breaks. For its Opening Weekend, the MCA lights itself up to take its first contingent of new guests, with talks, art and events to keep you busy for three full days of artistic exploration.
artLauren Brincat: Shoot from the Hip
Wednesday, 28th March - Saturday, 21st April
@ Anna Schwartz Gallery
Moody video cycles and triangular sculpture feature in this solo show, Lauren Brincat's first at a private gallery.
artfreeMarking Time
Thursday, 29th March - Sunday, 3rd June
@ Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
Opening the show as the first temporary exhibition for the newly-refurbished MCA is an exhibition whose focus settles on the passing moments.
artfreeCigdem Aydemir: Extremist Activity
Wednesday, 28th March - Saturday, 14th April
@ A-M Gallery
See how much one woman can smuggle in the name of art.
artfreeWomen With Clever Hands
Saturday, 31st March - Saturday, 9th June
@ Object Gallery
Bean reds, cyanide greens and earthy oranges bring Arnhem Land to Sydney.
artfree2 Exhibitions
Thursday, 19th April - Sunday, 6th May
@ MOP
Paper Mill directors reflect and Justin Balmain's breathless love story.
artfreeHead On Photo Festival 2012
Friday, 4th May - Sunday, 3rd June
@ All around Sydney
Urban market gardens, Rio nights and roller derby at Head On's third instalment.
artfreeOpen Weekend
Saturday, 12th May - Sunday, 13th May
@ Art Gallery of NSW
The Art Gallery finds its missing hoard of Aussie art and throws you a party to celebrate. As well as offering ongoing shows like the Archibald and the newly opened Australian Symbolism exhibition, the weekend will fill itself with art and the ideas around it. Thomas Keneally will narrow his focus to colonial Sydney, architect and acting director talk up the new space and its design, Wendy Whiteley talks about the life and work of Brett, and Delia Falconer, author of Sydney, talks about the same. And there's plenty more music, film and workshops where that came from.
freethinkTEDx Sydney 2012
Saturday, 26th May - 9AM
@ CarriageWorks
Katie Noonan, robots and an animated corpus bring this year's Sydney ideas fest to life.
artfree3 Exhibitions
Thursday, 17th May - Monday, 28th May
@ Gaffa
Tessellated watermelon, migrant landscapes and some dead things.
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