ABORA – 4

Australian Biennale of Reductive Arts

August 8th – 30th, 2025

Five Walls Gallery and West Projects is pleased to announce ABORA-4, the latest iteration of a biennial exhibition exploring the evolving terrain of post-formalist and reductive art practices. Featuring artists from across Australia and internationally, with a particular focus on Sydney, Melbourne, and Toowoomba-based contributors, ABORA-4 interrogates what it means to make non-objective or “post-20th century reductive” art today. Far from a revival of minimalism or a repetition of formal abstraction, the practices showcased in ABORA-4 reflect a shared commitment to critical intent, authorship, and conceptual clarity. These artists operate within what curator Billy Gruner refers to as the “Big Circle” — a global, self-directed movement that repositions modernist values through a contemporary lens. Working outside the structures of academia and institutional approval, they forge new languages for new forms of making. The exhibition offers audiences a rare opportunity to engage with this often-overlooked field of visual inquiry — one that is precise, deeply informed, and quietly radical. As Gruner notes, “What is certain is that since the early 2000s, a post-contemporary art genre has emerged — one that is neither nostalgic nor reactionary, but grounded in its own purposeful divergence.”