25 years

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi will celebrate 25 years as the world’s largest, free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition when the exhibition returns to the 2km Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk on 20 October, 2023. 

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi began in 1997 as a one-day exhibition run by volunteers working out of the Founding Director’s lounge room featuring works by 64 artists and attended by 25,000 visitors.

In 1998, Sculpture by the Sea was commissioned to create five exhibitions around Australia for the Sydney Olympics Arts Festival ‘A Sea Change’, in Darwin, Noosa, Albany, the Tasman Peninsula and Bondi.

Now celebrating 25 years, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi has been the world’s largest free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition for over two decades, exhibiting 2,691 sculptures by 1,129 artists from 51 countries.  It is visited by up to half a million people each year. Most of Australia’s leading sculptors of the last 30 years have exhibited numerous times including May Barrie, Bert Flugelman AM, Inge King AM, Stephen King, Michael Le Grand, Ron Robertson-Swann OAM, Michaelie Crawford & Julie Turpin, and Ken Unsworth AM.  The exhibitions international profile has resulted in some of the biggest international names in sculpture exhibiting, including: Sir Anthony Caro, Phillip King CBE (England), Sui Jian Guo, Chen Wen Ling (China), Kozo Nishino (Japan), Fletcher Benton (USA) and David Černý (Czech Republic).

Join the celebrations as we Celebrate Sydney – 25 years of Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi!

READ THE BONDI EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAYS