An Art Lover's Guide to Melbourne

When looking for must-see artworks in Melbourne, there’s really no sense in starting anywhere but the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) International. Sitting across from the Art Centre Melbourne in Southbank, the NGV is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum and isn’t much younger than the city itself. The NGV has over 76,000 works across its entire collection, but at NGV International, visitors will mostly find a deep selection of international art from across Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas, including works by Picasso, Rembrandt, and Monet.

The other half of the National Gallery of Victoria is the Ian Potter Centre over in Federation Square. This is where you’ll find many other famous art pieces in Melbourne, as the center has 20 galleries exclusively dedicated to Australian art, including many works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. Amongst its paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs are seminal works by Tom Roberts, Grace Cossington Smith, Emily Kam Kngwarreye, and John Brack, which reflect the Australian experience in its many dimensions.

A short walk from Flinders Street Station, Hosier Lane is Melbourne’s most popular street art spot. An explosion of graffiti and street art plasters the walls of this otherwise ordinary city alley, elevating it to one of the city’s most famous attractions and a centerpiece for many art tours and walks in Melbourne. Hosier Lane is an easy entry point to the city’s creative world for visitors, and because it’s constantly changing, it’s a fitting representation of Melbourne's dynamic art scene.

As an exhibition space, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) is a great destination for those wanting to discover what’s happening in the contemporary art world. From its rusty yet modern Southbank facility, ACCA hosts a revolving door of Melbourne's most diverse art exhibitions, often commissioning dynamic and experimental pieces to display. However, it also places high importance on its role as a public cultural center, delivering many education programs, as well as holding events, screenings, and performances.

Few places in Melbourne have played such an important and influential role in Melbourne's art history as the Heide Museum of Modern Art. Now a museum of modern and contemporary art in the parklands of Bulleen in eastern Melbourne, the Heide started as a meeting place for a circle of now–renowned local modernist artists. Despite its distance from the city center, the Heide showcases distinctive local and Australian art from the 1930s onwards across its five gallery spaces and sculpture park.

ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, exists to remind visitors that art is a dynamic concept that can be expressed in many different mediums. Another Federation Square cultural hub member, ACMI celebrates screen culture and the technology that has gifted us everything from film and TV to video games and cutting-edge interactive experiences. Its permanent exhibition on the history of moving images is paired with rotating temporary exhibits, screenings, and programs. The center occasionally hosts film festivals, including the annual Melbourne Women in Film Festival.

One of Melbourne's most interesting art galleries is the Dax Centre on the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus. Exploring concepts of mental health and psychological trauma through the lens of art, the Dax Centre is a non-profit that exhibits work by artists with experience living with mental health issues. The gallery aims to break down stigmas and start conversations around mental health using its collection of 16,000 works of art and by hosting special exhibits, events, and educational programs.

Yes, art can have a message and offer deep cultural meaning, but as ArtVo in Docklands shows, it can also just be fun. ArtVo offers immersive gallery experiences where you can see creative, interactive art pieces. The dreamscapes, 3D installations, and trick art of this family-friendly gallery are designed to be engaging—posing for photos here is not just allowed but encouraged.

Street art isn't hard to find in Melbourne; it graces the walls of buildings throughout the city. However, one of the most hidden-away public art installations in Melbourne just so happens to be deep in the heart of the CBD at Presgrave Place—although it’s more of a back alley than a “place", lying just off the Howey Place arcade on Little Collins Street. This inner-city street art spot features an eclectic arrangement of framed artwork, graffiti, and bizarre sculptures that almost look like they might have organically appeared one day.

What do you do if you have a lot of space around your vineyards on the Mornington Peninsula? Well, for the Pt. Leo Estate Winery, their solution was to turn it into a sprawling sculpture park. The Pt. Leo Estate Sculpture Park covers an immense 330 acres (134 hectares) and displays sculptures from international and Australian artists, including a piece by famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, which you can tour alongside your wine tasting.

Thanks to Melbourne’s love affair with the arts, there are many private art galleries across the city. One of Melbourne’s most prolific is the MARS Gallery in Windsor, off Chapel Street, an icon of the city’s inner south. In a state-of-the-art gallery, MARS provides a space for emerging and mid-career artists with a flair for creating adventurous and often provocative work. Besides its main exhibition space, visitors can explore its rooftop sculpture space and basement multi-screen video spaces.