The finest art galleries in Melbourne as picked by a local curator

As Australia’s self-proclaimed cultural capital, Melbourne is home to a thriving and active arts scene. In addition to visual arts, Melbourne has an established design and contemporary craft scene as well as a lively zine and DIY sector. From a plethora of artist-run initiatives and independent spaces to larger cultural institutions, Melbourne’s arts culture is as diverse as it is vast.

Beyond established spaces, creativity permeates the city: it is easy to encounter art in Melbourne as part of everyday life, from pop-ups to frequent festivals and markets, and of course, the famous laneways filled with street art. Beyond the CBD, the inner north neighbourhoods of Collingwood and Brunswick (both a short tram ride away) are home to many small galleries and artist studios, as well as excellent bars and restaurants. Almost all galleries and museums are free to visit, which makes it easy to spend a day gallery-hopping.

A local arts writer and curator highlights the best galleries and museums in Melbourne.

City

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

Best For: Thought-provoking contemporary art
Location: 111 Sturt Street, Southbank, VIC 3006
Price: Free entry

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) is located in the heart of Melbourne Arts Precinct in Southbank, with NGV International and Buxton Contemporary both a short walk away. The eye-catching building is designed by Wood Marsh, and houses a cavernous and vast interior that allows for immersive and ambitious exhibitions of contemporary art by both Australian and international artists. Some recent exhibition highlights include Mithu Sen, and a survey of Australian artist Paul Yore. Most of ACCA’s exhibitions are driven by rigorous conceptual and thematic links, which can be a bit hit-and-miss. For seasoned art lovers or students of contemporary art, this is worth a visit.

Craft Victoria

Best For: Contemporary craft and design, and the best gift store in town
Location: Watson Place (off Flinders Lane), Melbourne VIC 3000
Price: Free entry

Craft celebrates one of the best elements of Melbourne’s cultural scene: its incredible craft and design communities. While modest in size, Craft’s galleries and gift shop highlights the best of contemporary craft and design, across fields including jewellery, ceramics, glass, furniture design and more. The annual Fresh! graduate exhibition nurtures the work of emerging talent, many of whom go on to become industry leaders in the years to come. A visit to Craft is not complete without a trip to the toilet, which is home to an unlikely exhibition space titled ‘The Smallest Room’. The shop here might be the best gallery gift shop in town.

Koorie Heritage Trust

Best For: Indigenous art from southeast Australia
Location: The Birrarung Building, Federation Square Square, Cnr Flinders & Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Price: Free entry

Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT) is situated in Federation Square, across from The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and ACMI (formerly Australian Centre for the Moving Image). This unique cultural hub collects and displays Koorie Aboriginal art and culture from southeast Australia, and undertakes advocacy, professional development and training. KHT fosters an ever-changing exhibition programme, bringing the works of contemporary practitioners into dialogue with works from the collection. Recent highlights include the ‘Blak Design’ programme, which showcased contemporary Indigenous design practices including jewellery making and ceramics. KHT’s contemporary art exhibitions nurtures and supports young talent, including through the annual open-call group exhibition titled Koorie Art Show, and the ‘Young Mob’ exhibition for artists aged between 5-16.

National Gallery of Victoria

Best For: Indigenous collection, and the ever-changing kid’s gallery
Locations: NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road & The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square, Flinders Street & Russell Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Price: Free entry, tickets for special exhibitions (16-34 AUD)

As the country’s oldest art gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is a mammoth cultural institution that spans two sites within easy walking distance: the NGV International and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. While NGV International is a popular destination for its annual calendar of blockbuster masterpiece exhibitions, make sure you don’t miss the in-house children’s gallery (on the ground floor) for its imaginative and playful interpretation of major exhibitions and themes. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia is also a must-visit for its vast collection of works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island artists, which are displayed across the ground-floor exhibition spaces and free to visit.

Collingwood & Brunswick

Arts Project Australia

Best For: Vibrant contemporary art
Location: Collingwood Gallery, Level 1 Perry Street Building,Collingwood Yards,30 Perry Street, Collingwood VIC 3066
Price: Free entry

For more than 50 years, Arts Projects Australia (APA) has empowered artists with intellectual disabilities via its studio and exhibition programme to become professional artists. APA operates across two locations: the artist studios in Northcote at 24 High Street, and a gallery space in Collingwood at the Collingwood Yards Precinct. While the studio is not open for public viewing, the gallery at Collingwood offers visitors a chance to see the extensive range of works produced by APA artists there. At the gallery, visitors can encounter works including painting, drawing, ceramics, and sculpture, covering a range of distinctive personal styles and subjects.

Bus Projects

Best For: Supporting the next generation of artists
Location: Ground Floor, 7 Little Miller Street, Brunswick East, VIC 3057
Price: Free entry

Bus Projects is one of the most established artist-run initiatives (ARIs) in Melbourne. As places where creative decisions are led by artists, ARIs play a vital role in the broader arts sector as independent (and most often underfunded) spaces where artists can present experimental and critical ideas. Having worked at Bus Projects as their Artistic Director since 2023, I have seen first-hand the importance of ARIs (including Bus) as places where many early-career artists have their first solo exhibitions, and are able to test new ideas to new audiences. The collegiate aspect of ARIs is demonstrated through Bus Projects’ ongoing collaborations and support of other artist-run spaces in Melbourne, including TCB, Seventh, Kings ARI, Blindside, Trocadero and more.

Haydens

Best For: A new commercial gallery model
Location: 1/10 – 12 Moreland Road, Brunswick East, VIC 3057 (entry via laneway through to Donald Street)
Price: Free entry

Haydens is part of a new generation of commercial galleries, with a focus on supporting early-career artists and presenting an exhibition programme that reflects socially engaged art practices. In addition to the main gallery space, Haydens operates as a functional studio complex where dozens of Melbourne-based artists work. While Haydens represents just five early-career artists, the expanded exhibition programme brings together many more collaborative projects and additional artists into the mix, so each visit to Haydens looks different.

Unassigned Gallery

Best For: Fun and accessible exhibitions
Location: 55 Edward Street Brunswick VIC 3056
Price: Free entry

Describing itself as a ‘grassroots multi-purpose creative space’, Unassigned Gallery is one of the most exciting new galleries to open in Melbourne. It’s a breath of fresh air within the city’s arts ecosystem, where critical rigour exists alongside fun and accessibility, and a space that eschews the Melbourne artist’s reputation for always dressing in black. In addition to an ever-evolving gallery programme of early-career artists, Unassigned hosts a range of community events and workshops run by artists, while contributing back to the broader community through mutual aid efforts. Unassigned Gallery serves as a reminder that art should be, and can be, for everyone.

West Space

Best For: Contemporary Australian artists
Location: 102/30 Perry Street, Collingwood VIC 3066
Price: Free entry

Sitting somewhere between an artist-run initiative and an independent arts organisation, West Space presents exhibitions by some of the most notable early- and mid-career contemporary Australian artists. Spanning both a main gallery and window space, West Space engages with artists whose work pushes boundaries. The recent exhibition by HOSSEI (accompanied by an album of songs) was a delight. The gallery is part of the larger Collingwood Yards precinct, alongside Arts Projects Australia and Liquid Architecture, and frequently collaborates with its industry peers. It is also home to the arts publication un Projects, which shares its office space. After a visit, stop by Smith Street for a selection of restaurants, cafes, and bars.

Elsewhere

Australian Tapestry Workshop

Best For: One-of-a-kind textiles gallery and workshop
Location: 262-266 Park Street, South Melbourne, VIC 3205
Price: Free entry

A must-visit for any textile lover, the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere. The ATW weavers work in collaboration with practicing contemporary artists to translate their work into handwoven tapestries. They achieve this by using the Gobelin technique, where detailed images are created by tightly packing horizontal threads over vertical ones. The slow process of tapestry creation makes a visit to the ATW a unique experience, as you can watch the weavers at work in their open sun-lit studio. There are two gallery spaces that host a changing suite of exhibitions that highlight contemporary textile works. Whether you’re familiar with tapestries or new to the medium, a visit to the ATW will transform your understanding of the artform.

Bundoora Homestead

Best For: A taste of local history mixed with contemporary art
Location: 7 Prospect Hill Dr, Bundoora VIC 3083
Price: Free entry

Melbourne is home to a number of council-owned galleries throughout the suburbs, and Bundoora Homestead is the public gallery in Darebin. While it is some distance from the city centre, it is worth a visit for the National Trust-protected Queen Anne-style Federation mansion it is situated in, surrounded by a verdant garden. In addition to showing the Darebin art collection, Bundoora Homestead presents an exciting contemporary art programme featuring the works of Australian artists (both local and national) in a non-traditional gallery setting. The age and history of the building makes it an interesting context to present works that challenge Australia’s colonial history.

Gertrude Contemporary

Best For: A leading studio artist programme
Locations: Gertrude Contemporary, 21 – 31 High Street, Preston South, VIC 3072 & Gertrude Glasshouse, 44 Glasshouse Road, Collingwood, VIC 3066
Price: Free entry

The highlight of Gertrude Contemporary is its core studio artist programme, which has launched the career of dozens of Australian artists including Renee So, Reko Rennie and Emily Floyd. The culture at Gertrude Contemporary is shaped by the studio artists, whose works form a large component of Gertrude’s exhibition programme and annual calendar. In addition to the gallery spaces at the primary site in Preston South, Gertrude runs a standalone space called Glasshouse in Collingwood that hosts solo presentations of the current studio artists. It is here you can get to learn more about the artist’s individual practices.

Footscray Community Arts Centre

Best For: A true community arts centre
Locations: 45 Moreland St, Footscray VIC 3011
Price: Free entry

Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC) is a much-loved part of Melbourne’s art community, located on the banks of the Maribyrnong River. It was founded 50 years ago by a group of artists, unionists and activists in Melbourne’s west as a community arts centre where art could be enjoyed by all. This social and cultural awareness still shapes FCAC’s artistic programme to date, which includes not only art exhibitions but also performances, festivals and artist residences. FCAC is home to the ArtLife programme for d/Deaf and disabled communities, or people with lived experience of disability. After a visit, head nearby to Footscray for a delicious selection of Vietnamese and Ethiopian cuisine.

Monash University Museum of Art

Best For: Research-driven exhibitions
Locations: Building F, Monash University, Caulfield campus, 900 Princes Hwy Service Rd, Caulfield East VIC 3145
Price: Free

Located on the Caulfield campus of Monash University, a visit to Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) is worth a short train trip out of the city centre. As a university museum, MUMA boasts an impressive record of engaging contemporary exhibitions that are driven by research and learning, but are still accessible for non-academics and the general public. MUMA’s programme includes ambitious solo presentations by international artists, many of whom are showing in the country for the first time. The museum is also located directly next door to the Monash’s Art, Design and Architecture faculty, and is an enviable and immediate resource for the art students there.