After four decades of prominence in the Australian contemporary art scene, Anna Schwartz is announcing a new name and a new direction for Anna Schwartz Gallery, an institution which has set the standard for exhibiting and representing artists in this country.

Located in Melbourne’s Flinders Lane, ASG will cease operating in its current form after the forthcoming John Nixon exhibition ‘Artist of the Monochrome 1968 – 2020’, which concludes on 13 December 2025, and will reopen in 2026 under a new entity, Anna Schwartz Projects.

Anna Schwartz Projects will present an occasional and dynamic roster of conversations, projects and exhibitions across forms including installation, performance, publishing and music. It will build on the gallery’s uncompromising conceptual position and contribution to culture. It will embrace experimental approaches to art practice, but with a programme that is entirely project and event based offering a particular experience.

The decision to change the focus of the gallery was driven by Schwartz’s appetite to revitalise the current structure in response to the changing landscape in Australia’s art scene.

“There are many changes of perspective and purpose in the culture of art today. Engagement with design and craft has proliferated and occupies much of the attention previously devoted to protagonistic visual, installation and performance art. There is, though, a very welcome mushrooming of artist-run initiatives which appropriately represent the new generations of artists. In their ingenious spaces: garages and found office spaces, a new culture of image and object making is developing.”

“The culture and commerce of collecting has also changed. The model of deep collecting by individuals, private and public museums made a very important contribution to the lives and culture of artists and their representing galleries, but this has taken new shape” said Schwartz.

Since Schwartz’s first engagement as a gallerist in 1982 – with the artist-run project United Artists – her name has become synonymous with Melbourne’s contemporary art scene, contributing significantly to the city’s cultural landscape.

The gallery’s next chapter, in 1986, was located at 45 Flinders Lane, and renamed City Gallery. This was at a time when Melbourne’s CBD comprised mainly offices and doctors.

The current space, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, opened in 1993 as Anna Schwartz Gallery and has since hosted hundreds of artists and exhibitions which have crossed forms and continents.

As a gallerist who has sought to challenge traditional notions of art, Schwartz has identified and championed avant-garde artists, many of whom have gone on to become major voices in Australian visual art including John Nixon, Jenny Watson, Callum Morton, Rose Nolan, Shaun Gladwell, Jan Nelson, Mike Parr, Kathy Temin, Stephen Bram, Marco Fusinato, Daniel Crooks, Su san Cohn, Emily Floyd, Angelica Mesiti, David Noonan, Stieg Persson, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Tyndall, Warwick Thornton and Justene Williams.

Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks in Sydney operated for fourteen years, expanding the gallerist’s work with independent curators and international artists not previously exposed in Australia: Chiharu Shiota, Angela de la Cruz, Antony Gormley, Joseph Kosuth, AES+F, Yinka Shonibare, Katarina Grosse, Yin Xiuzhen, John Stezaker, Candice Breitz. Francesco Clemente, Daniel Buren, El Anatsui among many others.

“It has been a great privilege to work alongside artists from all over the world, to present and to further their work in Australia and overseas. It is gratifying to witness how the reception of art has matured in this country compared to the small monocultural world of contemporary art in the early eighties, and I am proud to have contributed to this expansion alongside many great artists,” said Schwartz.

Anna Schwartz Projects will work with collections and facilitate commissions and will continue to assist artists with advice and visibility, collaborating with other galleries and institutions in supporting their practices. The new entity will occupy level one of the same address on Flinders Lane.

For more information on the gallery’s final exhibitions, please visit www.annaschwartzgallery.com