MCA director Suzanne Cotter said Mehretu was one of the art world’s most exciting living painters. “The experience of Mehretu’s paintings is nothing short of a visual and physical event,” she said.
Magritte was a leading figure of surrealism, the 20th-century art movement that explored ideas and the unconscious mind, radically influenced that century’s visual language and celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
The exhibition will take visitors from the artist’s earliest works to his landmark contributions to surrealism and the renowned paintings of his final years before his death in 1967.
Magritte’s The false mirror was once owned by surrealist photographer Man Ray.Credit: The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
Travelling to Australia will be Magritte’s The False Mirror (1929), which was once owned by photographer Man Ray and is now in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
In addition to more than 80 paintings, the exhibition includes rarely seen photography, film and archival materials that shine a light on lesser-known aspects of the artist’s practice to reveal his subversive humour.
The Art Gallery has developed the exhibition in association with the Magritte Foundation in Brussels and the Menil Collection, Houston, home to the most comprehensive Magritte collection outside Europe.
The vast majority of loaned works have never been seen in Australia.
Arts Minister John Graham said the three artists were among the most influential and recognisable of their generations.
The government was ambitious to ensure Sydney was a “global cultural hub where art and creativity is celebrated, a place where locals and visitors can experience the most exciting and cutting-edge cultural offerings, from around Sydney, NSW, Australia, and the world”.
Julie Mehretu is coming to the Museum of Contemporary Art.Credit: Josefina Santo
Art Gallery director Michael Brand said Fei had documented China’s rapid urbanisation, globalisation and digital revolution for more than two decades.
Mehretu, who will visit Australia for her first exhibition, said abstraction was “something that you cannot define, you cannot necessarily hold it”.
“There is an opaqueness to how you think about and how one experiences the painting. My interests are not in trying to dictate, or determine, or explain, or try to give any information to anyone in that way.”
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