Following its acclaimed, four-month-long run at the Museum of Australian Photography in Melbourne, Snakes and mirrors – a sublime new body of work from internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Petrina Hicks – is now making its European debut with her show’s opening today at Michael Reid Berlin.

All works from Snakes and mirrors – including this year’s Korea-Australia Arts Foundation Prize-winning piece, Mnemosyne IV – are now on view at our Berlin gallery.

Hicks’s arrival at Michael Reid Berlin comes after a remarkable year for the artist. In addition to her Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) show and her Korea-Australia Arts Foundation award, it follows the record-breaking secondary sale of her 2005 work Shenae and Jade, followed by another landmark auction result for her 2013 work Venus, and an acclaimed solo exhibition in Perth, Australia. “Petrina Hicks has been at the forefront of a tidal wave of visual change, aesthetically and in terms of market value,” noted Michael Reid OAM on the occasion of the two Deutscher and Hackett auctions and their extraordinary results.

For enquiries, please email colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

Melbourne/Naarm painter Chelsea Gustafsson makes her European debut in presenting a full solo exhibition of new paintings at Michael Reid Berlin, taking place in mid 2025. Gustafsson’s highly charged and mysterious still life miniatures oppose their scale, offering viewers a kaleidoscope of stories within each tiny tableaux.

For more information about Chelsea Gustafsson’s Berlin exhibition, please contact colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

In his first exhibition with Michael Reid Berlin, William Yang demonstrates his extraordinary artistic and cultural legacy. Comprised of fourteen key photographs spanning five decades, Yang’s titular exhibition is a curated assemblage of iconic and important works of social documentary. Lensed at the front lines of the parties, protests and performances through which LGBTQ+ identity, autonomy and politics came to be defined, Yang’s radically intimate, diaristic images are regarded as one of the most important social archives of the last 50 years. On view are a selection of photographs largely pulled from three seminal thematic exhibitions, Sydneyphiles, Bloodlinks and Friends of Dorothy.

Visitors to Yang’s first Michael Reid Berlin show will recognise among his subjects some of the most important and influential figures in the story of recent art and culture, including Pina Bausch, Jenny Kee, Linda Jackson, Brett Whiteley and Cate Blanchett. These creative cynosures appear alongside less familiar faces who have nonetheless loomed large in the artist’s own story, and as the stars of his most iconic and indelible images. In John’s Bedroom, 1980, Yang captures a young man named Allan hunched coyly in the bedroom of a popular Surry Hills gay hangout. Allan would later become the subject of William Yang’s masterpiece, Allan, which documents the ravages of the AIDS virus with dignity and tenderness.

On two occasions Yang’s own likeness appears in this exhibition, Self Portrait #2, 1947/2008 and William in Scholars Costume, 1984/2009, two principal images in the artists oeuvre. Displayed chronologically, these photographs unpack Yang’s Chinese-Australian identity, illustrating his experience of having to “come out” twice.

Propelling his works rich capacity for storytelling are handwritten notes, journalistic recollections scrawled across the surface of his photographic images. These wonderfully insightful visual devices reanimate Yang’s subjects, offering intimate reflections on how the pictures came to be.

For more information regarding photographs available to acquire, please contact colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

Supernatural pools a spectacular selection of photographs in the first solo exhibition ever staged in the German capital for leading Australian contemporary artist Tamara Dean.

This survey exhibition has been specially conceived to coincide with Dean’s showing in the world-famous outdoor photography festival, Photo La Gacilly. To celebrate the artist’s exciting career milestone and the expanded presence of her work in Europe, we are thrilled to present two previously unseen images – Sunken Forest and Tickled Pink – both making their world debuts as part of Dean’s Supernatural show.

Together with some of the final remaining editions of Dean’s most popular and acclaimed photographs, these two newly available works have now coalesced in a dazzling display that delights in the enmeshment of natural and human worlds.

All works from Supernatural by Tamara Dean are available to explore and acquire online and will be on view at Michael Reid Berlin until Sunday, 1 September. To request a catalogue and discuss works from the series – including the final remaining editions of Dean’s works Crossing Realms and Passion – please email: colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

In 1948, a craft room was established in Pukatja Community, at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in South Australia for the Anangu women to hand spin sheep’s wool and loom it into floor rugs and wall weavings,

This storied history makes Ernabella Arts the oldest, continuously running Indigenous Art Centre in Australia.

We are honoured to present online an exhibition of works by Vivian Thompson, Langaliki Lewis, Marissa Thompson, Elizabeth Dunn, Janelle Thompson, Lynette Lewis, Sonia Lewis and Melissa Lewis.

Get in touch: colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

Continuing our month of collaboration with Michael Reid Clay, from 8–17 May we will present Cathy Franzi’s latest body of work, On the Edge / am Rande, as a part of Berlin Design Week 2023.

This year, the theme for this international festival of design is #resilience.

Franzi’s works build on this, having been created after a botanical residency at a threatened site of extraordinary biodiversity in WA.

From the Red Kangaroo Paw to the Stirling Range Coneflower (pictured above), Franzi’s stunning vessels celebrate the unique beauty of Australian plant life, immortalising common and rare species alike, as their environment changes and their prevalence in the landscape is threatened.

In 1948, a craft room was established in Pukatja Community, at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in South Australia for the Anangu women to hand spin sheep’s wool and loom it into floor rugs and wall weavings,

This storied history makes Ernabella Arts the oldest, continuously running Indigenous Art Centre in Australia.

We are honoured to present an exhibition of works by Elizabeth Dunn, Rupert Jack, Lynette Lewis, Janice Stanley, Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM, Fiona Wells & Tjimpuna Williams.

Get in touch: tomaustin@michaelreid.com.au