The big-ticket event for Melbourne Art Week will take place inside the Royal Exhibition Building. There, 70 leading Australian and international galleries, representing more than 300 artists, will gather as part of the Melbourne Art Fair. But there are other events happenings (many of them free) around the city as part of Melbourne Art Week, including pop-up exhibitions, food and art collaborations, late-night openings and artist performances on trams.

Some of the city’s galleries, museums and stores will stay open late into the night as part of the Art After Hours program, which includes a late-night talk at ACMI with artist David Rosetzky; a screening of Patricia Piccinini’s video work Swell at Screen Space; and an art-inspired launch at Dinosaur Designs’ new Strand Melbourne store.

Another highlight will be Fehily Contemporary presenting Ken and Julia Yonetani’s The Last Suppermarket, on Saturday August 16. It is an interactive installation replica of a supermarket in which each item is made from white salt. Visitors are given a shopping basket to fill, take to the cash register, then take home.

We think you might like Access. For $12 a month, join our membership program to stay in the know.

SIGN UP

The free public lecture and forum program includes Going Public – Art in the Street with a panel discussion on street art and its future at the Melbourne Museum on Saturday August 16, and Asian Perspectives on Contemporary Art on Sunday 17.

This being Melbourne, the event has incorporated food and restaurants into the program. Look out for video art projections on the wall of Chin Chin and a series of pop-up exhibitions at Cutler & Co and Cumulus Up. Also with a particularly Melbourne flavor will be Sylvia Schwenk’s World Domination. It is a piece that explores the relationship between performance and the everyday and will be showing on the free City Circle tram

Aesop’s flagship Collins Street store will remove every product from its shelves, and use the store’s space to present The Sketches of Rain, a pop-up exhibition curated by Melbourne Art Fair Ambassador Theodore Wohng. It showcases emerging artists including Madeline Kid and Michelle Hamer.

At the Exhibition Building try out the Angry Penguin, a pop-up restaurant offering a European-inspired menu created by chef Ian Curley.

The Melbourne Art Fair runs from August 13 to 17 at the Royal Exhibition Building. Melbourne Art Week runs from August 11 to 17 in various locations around the city.

melbourneartfair.com.au