National 4 – now and four ever
Image: Kieren Seymour, Trojan Bitcoin, 2021, installation view, The National 4: Australian Art Now, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2023, oil on canvas, image courtesy and © the artist, photograph: Anna Kučera
Four is the magic number for the National 4: Australian Art Now collaborative art exhibition: it’s the fourth iteration of the biennial event and it kicks off tomorrow with a four-day opening program across four locations.
The National 4 brings together the curative expertise and unique spaces of four of Sydney’s foremost institutions: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Campbelltown Arts Centre (C-A-C), Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia). Together, they will deliver more 48 new artist projects involving over 80 artists from across Country, generations and communities.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring full-colour reproductions, essays by the exhibition curators, profiles on each of the exhibiting artists and texts by Jennifer Higgie and Ellen van Neerven (Mununjali Yugambeh). The publication is available to purchase from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
“Collectively the artists in The National 4 contribute to broader conversations across a range of critical ideas, including intergenerational learning, community and social interconnectedness, the role of language, and personal narratives that acknowledge broader social and political issues,” the curators said in a joint statement.
The National 4: Australian Art Now is a free exhibition and opens tomorrow across four Sydney cultural institutions:
