Miriam Cosic

In New Era, Doug Aitken’s politically charged art insists on a dialogue with its viewers.

Charif Majdalani is one of Lebanon’s most laurelled novelists. Born in Beirut in 1960, he writes in French and has been celebrated across the Francophone world. He lived in France for 13 years from 1980 and was later a professor of French literature …

The work of French artist Camille Henrot – one of the most compelling creators of her generation – ignores the boundaries of forms and ideas.

The visionary abstractions of Hilma af Klint – now on show in a luminous exhibition at the AGNSW – demand that the history of Modernism be rewritten.

After a lifetime spent defending human rights, Geoffrey Robertson’s faith in international law is fading. But he is fighting on.

Botticelli to Van Gogh gives us a chance to see some of Europe’s greatest masterpieces without having to travel.

AGNSW’s eye-opening exhibition of modernist sculptor Margel Hinder rehabilitates the luminous work of a major Australian artist.

A new Streeton retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales reveals a painter who speaks dazzlingly to our present.

Sydney Chamber Opera’s Breaking Glass comprises four exciting new works, in which Australian women composers reimagine the myth of Odysseus, the story of the night parrot, and works by Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood.

A world-first double exhibition creates a spirited conversation between the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and reveals how their art resonates with today’s political climate.

Journalist and activist Mona Eltahawy has dedicated herself to fighting what she calls the most dangerous ideology in the world: patriarchy. “The quickest way for these men in power to show their power, to flex their muscles, is over the bodies of women … History is not linear. Just because we achieve progress in something, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to continue progressing.”

With the climate emergency displacing more and more people around the globe, Professor Jane McAdam’s research at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law grows increasingly urgent.

While father and daughter Hans and Nora Heysen both became renowned Australian artists – he for bush landscapes, she for portraits and still lifes – their work had become, until recently, somewhat overlooked.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this week offers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Bursting with colour, overwrought with emotion and rich in symbolism – the grandiloquent works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood leave the Tate to enliven the walls of the NGA in an exhibition powerful enough to convert even a non-fan.

Diverging from the usual blockbuster formula, Masters of modern art from the Hermitage excites with its rich selection from the holdings of Sergey Shchukin and Ivan Morozov.

French conceptual artist Daniel Buren continues to charm and engage with his quiet, contagious ways of seeing the world in stripes. “My biography is very simple: Daniel Buren. Born 25 March, ’38. Works and lives in situ.”

A firm believer in the importance of understanding the ‘grammar’ of visual arts, Helen Maudsley is celebrating her 90th birthday with a solo exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria. “Art is a language like literature is a language and music is a language, and you have to learn it.”

Motherhood saw artist Del Kathryn Barton wholeheartedly embrace colour, but her work’s mystical and frenetic style – on show in a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria – emerged from the troubled inner life of her own childhood. “It was a very rich part of managing my anxiety growing up, growing these deep internal creative places. It gave me a lot of fortitude.”

Suicides among ex-servicemen are alarmingly high and some believe the side effects of an anti-malaria drug are a contributing factor.

In 2009, her world was torn apart by the murder of her parents, brothers and aunt. Now, following her uncle’s long-awaited conviction, Brenda Lin faces the glare of the media again.

The spiritual and political world views of Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente.

Turner Prize-winner Grayson Perry talks about art, religion, and how he began cross-dressing at a young age.

Artist Marco Fusinato’s punk roots support a career of multimedia works that probe boundaries, such as his Venice Biennale installation that asks visitors to transform books into a pile of money.