Art Gallery of South Australia unveils 2025 exhibition program

The Art Gallery of South Australia has announced its 2025 program, revealing a major exhibition of fifty trailblazing women artists, the Ramsay Art Prize 2025 and the Tarnanthi Festival – which celebrates its tenth anniversary.

“In 2025, visitors to AGSA will experience the works of artists who push boundaries and challenge assumptions, from women who defied social conventions at the turn of the twentieth century to produce artworks of global significance, to the Ramsay Art Prize where audiences will feel the pulse of artistic practice in Australia right now,” said Emma Fey, Acting Director, AGSA.

“In 2025, we are thrilled to celebrate ten years of Tarnanthi – AGSA’s festival of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art that has introduced close to ten thousand artists to more than two million visitors in events across our state.”

“We hope our exhibition program, alongside our flagship public programs including First Fridays, Neo and Start at the Gallery, will continue to inspire audiences young and old,” said Fey.

Exploring the art and lives of fifty women artists and revealing their vital role in the story of modernism, Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940, is a new exhibition presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The first major exhibition of its kind, Dangerously Modern will feature more than 200 works of art by both celebrated and rediscovered women artists, spanning paintings, prints, sculpture and ceramics.

Opening in 2025 – marking the fiftieth anniversary of International Women’s Year – the exhibition will premiere at AGSA in Adelaide from 24 May to 7 September 2025 before being presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney from 10 October 2025 to 1 February 2026.

The artists featured in the exhibition were part of an unprecedented wave of women travelling from Australia to Europe and beyond from 1890 to 1940. Overcoming centuries of social constraints, they pursued international professional careers, and Dangerously Modern celebrates their contribution and critical successes – as active participants in the development of international modernism.

Also opening in May, the $100,000 Ramsay Art Prize returns in 2025, offering Australian artists under the age of 40 working in any medium a career-defining opportunity, funded in perpetuity by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation. Selected by an esteemed judging panel, the finalists will feature in a major exhibition at AGSA with the winning work acquired into AGSA’s collection.

Spring heralds the opening of AGSA’s acclaimed Tarnanthi Festival – which marks its tenth anniversary in 2025. Internationally recognised and critically acclaimed, the 2025 Tarnanthi Festival will present a major exhibition at AGSA featuring outstanding works from previous festivals, sparking fresh insights and unique dialogues between works. Across the state, partner venues will present dozens of exhibitions, showcasing the vibrancy and expansive practice of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

Alongside an extensive program of artist talks, performances and workshops, the much-anticipated Tarnanthi Art Fair returns from 17 – 20 October, offering audiences a unique opportunity to ethically buy works of art by First Nations artists from across the country.

“In 2025, the Art Gallery of South Australia continues to champion the work of contemporary artists across its exhibition program while shedding new light on important Australian female artists from the past through Dangerously Modern,” said The Honourable Andrea Michaels MP, Minister for Arts.

“This year’s exhibition program highlights the breadth and depth of AGSA’s extraordinary collection and the Malinauskas Government is proud to be a continued supporter of our state’s vital cultural institutions. I’m looking forward to a year of thought-provoking and magnificent exhibitions at AGSA in 2025.”

The 2025 program also highlights the work of South Australian artists, who are the focus of two displays: a presentation of SALA feature artist Sue Kneebone and new work by Guildhouse Fellow Kyoko Hashimoto.

Extending beyond the footprint of AGSA’s building are a number of co-presentations and tours including Morris & Co opening in March 2025 at Carrick Hill.

Featuring rarely seen objects from the Carrick Hill archive as well as artworks from AGSA and private collections, this exhibition showcases the artistry and skill of William Morris, one of the most prolific and well-known designers of the nineteenth century.

Opening in 2024 and continuing through 2025 are the exhibitions Radical Textiles and Reimagining the Renaissance.

For more information about the Art Gallery of South Australia and its exhibition program, visit: www.agsa.sa.gov.au for details.

Images: Grace Crowley, born Cobbadah, New South Wales 1890, died Sydney 1979, Miss Gwen Ridley, 1930, Glen Riddle, Barraba, New South Wales, oil on canvas on board, 72.0 x 53.0 cm, 87.2 x 68.5 x 5.5 cm (frame); Purchased 1995 with the assistance of South Australian Government Grant, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide | Alison Rehfisch, born Woollahra, New South Wales 1900, died Pymble 1975, Oranges and lemons, c 1934, oil on canvas, 50.0 x 40.0 cm stretcher, 63.0 x 52.7 x 4.5 cm (frame); Purchased 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, © Estate of Alison Rehfisch | Hilda Rix Nicholas, born Ballarat, Victoria 1884, died Tombong, New South Wales 1961, The pink scarf, 1913, Paris, oil on canvas, 80.5 x 65.0 cm; Gift of Mrs Roy Edwards through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1993, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide