Go, See, Experience: MECCA’s Guide to What’s On in Winter
June 10 | 3 minute read
Words by Catherine Garrett
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition
Art Gallery of South Australia
Adelaide, SA
$30 ($20 Members, $25 Concession)
11 JULY – 8 NOVEMBER 2026
There’s nothing like a traditional winter exhibition, and the Art Gallery of South Australia has a blockbuster. Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition opens in July and brings 57 masterworks from the USA’s Toledo Museum of Art to Adelaide, tracing the radical shift from Impressionism through to Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. Alongside icons including Monet, Matisse and van Gogh, the exhibition also highlights influential female artists of the time including Berthe Morisot, one of the leading figures of French Impressionism, and celebrated American abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler, whose luminous works helped redefine post-war painting.
Tickets available here.
Hero image credit: Berthe Morisot, ‘In the Garden at Maurecourt’, 1884.
Cut X Paste Collage Workshops
Sydney and South Coast, NSW
From $22
THROUGHOUT JUNE
If you’re feeling crafty, talented collage artist Emma Anna regularly hosts Sydney collage workshops via her company Cut X Paste. A collage workshop is the perfect excuse to switch off and do something a little different with friends – for novices and creative show-offs alike! In June, the schedule includes two very special Collage Forage events on the NSW South Coast as part of the Fungi Feastival – a celebration of all things fungi, including fine dining, art and workshops! See the Cut X Paste Events page for details and bookings.
MONA – Museum of Old and New Art
Hobart, TAS
From $39 ($5 Tasmanians, $33 Concession)
11 – 22 JUNE 2026
If you’re heading to Tasmania this winter, make time for MONA. The Museum of Old and New Art remains one of Australia’s most provocative cultural experiences, best explored slowly on a cold Hobart afternoon. And if you happen to be there during Dark Mofo (11 – 22 June 2026), MONA’s cult midwinter festival of art, music, fire and spectacle, the city takes on an entirely different energy. You need to see it to believe it!
Are you lonely tonight? I’m so lonesome I could cry.
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, VIC
Free
3 JULY – 30 AUGUST 2026
Opening at Melbourne's Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) this July and August, Are you lonely tonight? I’m so lonesome I could cry. is an exhibition that brings together 11 contemporary artists exploring intimacy, vulnerability and emotional disconnection in modern life. Spanning sculpture, tapestry, painting, moving image and installation, the exhibition is a timely reflection on loneliness as a shared modern experience.
Among the standout artists is Melbourne-born, LA-based Polly Borland, whose unsettling sculptural works transform anxiety and emotional vulnerability into distorted yet deeply human forms (Borland's work is also held in the MECCA Collection). The exhibition also includes work by Kayla Mattes, Natasha Matila-Smith, Melissa Nguyen, Kelly Yu and Lucy Liu, whose practices explore everything from internet confession culture to companionship, identity and emotional interiority.
Polly Borland, ‘BOD’, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf. Photo credit: Chris Roque / Nino Mier Gallery
World Food Books
Melbourne, VIC
Free
If you’re into art and design, a hidden Melbourne gem is World Food Books on the sixth floor of the heritage-listed Nicholas Building at 37 Swanston Street, just a short walk from Flinders Street station. They have limited opening hours but it’s a treasure trove for rare new, second-hand and out-of-print books and journals. It’s small but perfect! On the ground floor of the building is the equally small but perfect Cathedral café and wine bar for coffee or a cocktail.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Humlebæk, Denmark
UNTIL 6 SEPTEMBER 2026
If you happen to be in Copenhagen for Euro summer – first of all lucky you. And second of all, we insist you get the train to Louisiana, which must be one of the most spectacular modern art galleries in the world. Perched on the coast north of the city, it combines sea views, a world-class sculpture garden and one of Europe's finest collections of modern and contemporary works.
This northern hemisphere summer, don't miss Sophie Calle’s Something Missing?, exhibiting until 6 September 2026. The celebrated French artist has built a career exploring intimacy, memory and human connection through photography, text and installation. Part-detective, part-storyteller, Calle transforms ordinary encounters into deeply moving works that blur the boundaries between art and life. It's thought-provoking, witty and emotionally resonant, lingering long after you've left the gallery.
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Aotearoa (NZ)
Free
UNTIL 30 AUGUST 2026
It is no secret that the stories of women in the arts are only now getting the recognition they've long deserved – and Edith Collier is no exception. Born in Whanganui in 1885, Collier was one of the earliest pioneers of modernism in Aotearoa (New Zealand), yet her name remains far less known than it should be.
This exhibition – at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū – gives us a chance to discover and celebrate her incredible body of work, created both at home and during the nine years she spent studying in Europe from 1913, where she trained alongside artists including Frances Hodgkins and Margaret Macpherson (later Preston). Under their influence she developed a bold, experimental style rooted in post-Impressionism that is full of colour. The exhibition features key works from the Edith Collier Trust – many rarely seen in Christchurch. A long-overdue moment!
Image credit: Edith Collier, ‘Buildings, Leinster Square’, c. 1918. Collection of the Edith Collier Trust, in the permanent care of Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery.
