Sydney Contemporary turns 10 this week and the city's biggest art fair is spilling out of Carriageworks

Australia's biggest contemporary art fair just turned into a citywide event, and it's happening right now.

Sydney Contemporary kicked off today, Thursday 3 September, and runs through Sunday 6 September at Carriageworks for its tenth edition. More than 100 galleries and 500 plus artists are packed into the venue, making it the largest and most diverse gathering of contemporary art in the region, and this year it isn't staying inside the building.

For the first time, the fair's Installations program has spilled out into public spaces around the city. Kamilaroi artist Reko Rennie has wrapped the front staircase of Sydney Fish Market in a monumental new work called ALWAYS, complete with two large scale totemic sculptures, and it stays up until 14 September, well after the fair itself wraps. Over at Pier Pavilion in Barangaroo, artist Joan Ross has a free video installation running alongside the fair. Both are free to visit and don't require a fair ticket.

It's the biggest public art push Sydney Contemporary has ever done, curated by José Da Silva, Director of UNSW Galleries, and it's a genuinely smart way to mark a milestone edition. Rather than just throwing a bigger party inside Carriageworks, they've handed art to people who never planned on buying a ticket.

For the fair itself, entry starts at $42 for an Any Day Ticket, with free entry for kids under 12 and concession pricing available. If you want the full experience, Thursday's Art Night runs 5:30pm to 9pm for $77, and Friday Night is $52 from 4pm to 8pm, both with live performances, bars and food on top of general fair access. Fair hours proper run 11am to somewhere between 4pm and 6pm each day depending on which one you pick.

Ten years in, Sydney Contemporary has gone from a niche art world date to the one weekend a year the city's art crowd properly turns up. With the fair running until Sunday and the public installations lingering well beyond that, there's no excuse to miss it entirely, even if Carriageworks itself isn't your scene.

Grab a day ticket, wander Carriageworks, then swing past the Fish Market before the installation comes down.