Art Month Sydney returns in 2016 with new artistic director and fresh programming ideas for 7th annual event celebrating Sydney’s creative eco system

Art Month Sydney returns in 2016, from 1 March – 20 March, with new Creative Director, Barry Keldoulis at the helm. This follows Barry’s recent success as Director of Sydney Contemporary art fair in 2013 and 2015 and the Melbourne Art Fair in 2014. The dynamic program, inspired by the creative producers of Sydney, will expand across the city and inhabit new spaces and unexpected locations. Comprised of Exhibitions, Talks, Tours, Experiences and the much-loved Precinct Nights, Art Month Sydney will highlight the galleries, institutions, ARIs, art schools, artists and curators that generate Sydney’s marketplace of ideas.

The Collectors’ Space, an annual exhibition that celebrates private art collections, partners with long term sponsors, AON, and, for the first time in 2016, BresicWhitney, to present an exhibition at an unoccupied inner city house. The space, announced only weeks before the exhibition opens, will exhibit works from the collections of Sally Dan- Cuthbert, Courtney Gibson, Danny Goldberg, and Jasper Knight. The domestic setting of the Collectors’ Space will provide a domestic context not normally associated with a public exhibition of contemporary art.

This year, Art Month introduces an additional curated exhibition called Green Eyed Monster Eating its Own Tail. This exhibition will showcase artists that make art  about art and the art world. Artists include Tracey Moffatt, Tom Polo, Heath Franco, Grant Stevens, Elvis Richardson, Gordon Bennett (John Citizen) and PJ Hickman.

Precinct Nights return in 2016, beginning with a Mardi Gras-inspired queer night in East Sydney on Thursday, 3 March. Queer performers will activate restaurants, bars and retail stores during the night, while Alaska Studios hosts a queer cabaret in their untouched basement space. In addition, a pop up bar will be held in Crown Lane at Creative Space 99.

This year, Art Month will be working in partnership with Parramatta’s Information Cultural Exchange on the new project titled 'Mother’s Spice', it is a multimedia performance presented by a cast of newly arrived migrant, asylum seeker and refugee mothers living in Western Sydney. They will use spice as a performance element and a trigger to perform their own stories as inspired by their personal memories, journeys, experiences of motherhood and life in Australia.

A number of Sydney galleries have also been confirmed to take part in the 2016 program, including Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery who will be doing a book launch and talk with Daniel Boyd.   In addition, Brenda May Gallery and artist Todd Fuller invite the public to contribute to his participatory animation 'The Unite Project,’ responding to the work through drawing, colouring, writing or collage. 107 Projects will present Audiocraft is a day for radio producers, podcasters and documentary storytellers to come together and talk, listen and learn about making great stories with sound.