In 2013 there was much happening in the world. It was the year that Aotearoa New Zealand legalised same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so; that Edward Snowden leaked classified documents about mass-surveillance programmes of the US and allied governments; that the Oxford Dictionary named ‘selfie’ as the word of the year; that Nelson Mandela sadly passed away; that Frozen and The Wolf of Wall Street hit the box offices; and that Pope Francis was elected, making history as the first Latin American to hold this position. Amidst all this, 2013 was also the year that the Sydney Contemporary art fair launched, first as a biannual event and later as a yearly fixture in the Southern Hemisphere’s art calendar.  

“Since launching in 2013, Sydney Contemporary has grown into the largest and most influential gathering of contemporary art in Australasia,” writes Zoe Paulsen in her 2026 Director’s Letter, published in celebration and anticipation of this year’s milestone: the 10th edition of the fair. “It is a place where artists are discovered, galleries build lasting relationships, collectors encounter works they will live with for years, and audiences connect with contemporary art, some for the very first time.”

Impressively, a handful of the galleries presenting at this year’s edition have shown at every Sydney Contemporary to date, including the Aotearoa-born STARKWHITE. Founded in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 1999, STARKWHITE later expanded to Tāhuna Queenstown in 2021, followed by Australia in 2022, when they launched a gallery called 1301SW in Naarm Melbourne. They opened their fourth space in Sydney on Gadigal land, in 2024. At Sydney Contemporary 2026 the team will present an exhibition that foregrounds perceptions and memory, focusing on our often unseen, forgotten and/or overlooked experiences. It will feature works from artists who straddle analogue and digital production, including Ayka Go, Billy Apple®, Fiona Pardington, Jonny Niesche, Jelena Telecki, Márton Nemes, Petra Cortright, Rose Nolan and Tim Bučković.

Other key galleries from Aotearoa include Gow Langsford, PAULNACHE, and Fox Jensen and Fox Jensen McCrory. The latter will present the works of the self-taught Azerbaijani artist Niyaz Najafov in Australia for the first time. Najafov’s works combine rawness, drama and a certain psychological charge that makes them unique. The gallery recently wrote on its Instagram, “Niyaz Najafov makes Still Life paintings but clearly there is little, if anything, that is ‘still’ about these extraordinary works. His fecund blossoms lean dangerously out over the rims of his precocious, wonky vases, so much so that any sense of visual stability vanishes and with that the comfort that a polite floral arrangement should instil.” They will also present other major international artists, including German sculptor Jan Albers and Australian painter Aida Tomescu, both of whom use abstraction to explore colour and form in different ways. Figurative painting will be presented through the eyes of UK-based artist Gideon Rubin.

For those who visited the Aotearoa Art Fair earlier in the year, there will be a crossover of familiar Australian galleries now presenting on home soil. MARS Gallery, for example, will exhibit a new selection of work under the title Radical Joy. The curators aim “to celebrate and explore the necessity of joy through art in dark times.” This sentiment is lightly echoed in Paulsen’s letter. “In an environment where artists need to earn a living and galleries continue to invest in creative careers, Sydney Contemporary plays an important role in supporting a thriving contemporary art ecosystem.” It is by no means an easy time to be an artist.

MARS will provide an antidote to trying times in showing the camp commentary of performance artists The Huxleys. Their sparkly, surreal and absurd worlds will contrast the often pun-based visual and verbal humour of Kenny Pittock, a multi-media artist who makes all kinds of works, including giant ceramic sculptures of found, crumpled shopping lists and Polaroids of swans captioned “swanning around”. Aotearoa-born artist Kohl Tyler, who is now based in Naarm Melbourne, will also show works with MARS, who continue their legacy of supporting emerging artists to establish themselves on the international scene.

Similarly, Alcaston Gallery’s presentation promises to be a truly special display. A rare release of one of Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori’s (c.1924–2015) iconic paintings of her beloved home Country, Bentinck Island, Queensland, will be displayed. Having only picked up a paintbrush in her 80s, in 2005, Gabori remains one of Australia’s most influential and important contemporary artists, who documented memories of Bentinck Island before severe drought and a cyclone in the 1940s made it uninhabitable.

Alcaston will also show pieces by Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, a highly respected senior artist and ngangkari (traditional healer) who has won the 2015 and 2016 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, the 2017 Wynne Prize and the 2019 Len Fox Painting Prize. Her large-scale paintings will draw from and build on her major 2025 solo show at Bundanon Art Museum, New South Wales, curated by Rachel Kent. Alongside this will be sculptural works made from reclaimed and engraved road signs by Binygurr Wirrpanda, a senior artist, lawman and Chairman of Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre. Last year he was also part of the major exhibition Yolŋu Power: the art of Yirrkala at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gadigal Sydney.

Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, who was responsible for the grand sequinned entrance to Sydney Contemporary 2025 by acclaimed Aotearoa artist Lisa Reihana, will also be showing notable practitioners, many of whom straddle the fine line between art and collectible design. Fine Arts, Sydney, Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin and Martin Browne Contemporary are also worth looking out for.

Mitchell Oakley Smith, a journalist, editor, curator and author, is curating this edition’s Talks programme for the first time. He tells Art News: “I was privileged to speak at the inaugural Sydney Contemporary in 2013, and have attended almost every year since. Curating this year’s Talks programme feels like a full-circle moment, and an opportunity to reflect on what this cultural institution means to the city.” He plans to expand the notion that art fairs are solely places for collecting by asking how the fair format shapes cultural conversations and supports artistic communities. The diverse roster of speakers—including artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, designers and cultural thinkers—will discuss how art creates moments of encounter, experimentation and dialogue while exploring themes that include the resurgence of painting and craft-based practice, shifting global narratives and the evolving (and ever more challenging) economics of creative practice.

While it’s tempting to use this anniversary as a moment to look back on what’s changed since 2013, when Sydney Contemporary started, the programming and gallery presentations invite another approach: to look at the now and the future of art in Australia, Australasia and internationally. “Contemporary art is always about what comes next. The artists whose careers are still unfolding. The collections that continue to evolve. The conversations and ideas that will shape the decade ahead,” concludes Paulsen’s letter. Three years into her position as Director, it will be exciting to see where she takes the fair next.