Melbourne Art Fair 2025 to Spotlight First Nations Artists
First Nations artists will account for over a third of artists exhibiting at Australia’s oldest art fair, which returns under new leadership. Save to My Ocula
Melbourne Art Fair (MAF) has announced the lineup of its 18th edition, which will welcome 70 galleries and Indigenous art centres to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) from 20 to 23 February 2025. Last year, the fair hosted 60 exhibitors.
Australian exhibitors account for over 90 percent of participants, with returning galleries including established national dealers like Sullivan+Strumpf (Melbourne/Sydney/Singapore), STATION (Sydney/Melbourne), and Vivien Anderson Gallery (Melbourne). Asia-Pacific gallery Ames Yavuz (Sydney/Singapore), who recently announced their expansion to the U.K., also returns for a consecutive year.
The majority of international representation is located in the VIDEO sector, curated by Rachel Ciesla. This includes Cooper Cole (Toronto), Esther Shipper (Berlin/Paris/Seoul), Tania Leighton (Berlin/Los Angeles), and White Space (Beijing), presenting collectable moving-image work by artists such as Sara Cwynar, Ceal Floyer, and Oliver Laric.
Led by new director Melissa Loughnan, this year’s MAF will focus on First Nations artists, who account for over 40 of more than 100 artists represented across the fair’s five sectors.
Four Indigenous-owned art centres—MOA Arts on Moa Island (Mua Lag), Munupi Arts & Crafts Association at Garden Point (Pirlangimpi), Papunya Tjupi Arts (Warumpi) near Alice Springs, and Wik & Kugu Arts Centre at Cape York Peninsula (Aurukun)—will once more partake.
The Victorian First Peoples Art and Design Fair, which will officially launch in 2027, will be showcased in an exhibition featuring recent works by 37 Victorian First Peoples artists and designers.
Supported by Loughnan, the Young Galleries sector—which subsidises galleries founded after 2015—has doubled in size, registering 19 exhibitors, including Void_Melbourne, FUTURES (Melbourne), and Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.
A former independent gallerist, Loughnan said she is ‘especially proud of the expanded Young Galleries sector, which highlights emerging talent and promises a bright future for contemporary Australian art’.
Last year, Australia’s oldest art fair similarly saw an increase in gallery participation after updating its biennial format to an annual model, citing strong interest from the local market.
‘As we look to the future, Melbourne Art Fair continues to be instrumental in shaping the cultural and creative identity of the region,’ Loughnan added. —[O]
Main image: Sara Cwynar, Red Film (2018) (still). Courtesy the artist and Cooper Cole.
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