The Inaugural NGV Triennial

The NGV Triennial is nearly upon us!

The NGV Triennial is like the World Cup, but for art. It’s a fancy word for a mega exhibition that only comes around every three years. The Triennial brings together the work of over 100 artists and designers from 32 countries.

For artists and art-lovers, this big deal is a meticulously-curated slice of the world’s best art and design, across cultures, scales, geographies and perspectives. And for the National Gallery of Victoria, this is the first one.

“The NGV Triennial explores cutting edge technologies, architecture, animation, performance, film, painting, drawing, fashion design, tapestry and sculpture.”

The comprehensive lineup would take all day to run through artist by artist, so we’ve highlighted a few of the best, so you get a feel of what we’re dealing with.

“Visitors have an opportunity to look at the world and its past, present and future through the eyes of some of the most creative minds working today.”

Nick Cave (USA)

Cave’s “soundsuits” are something to witness – these psychedelic costumes are the definition of visually loud. Made to deal with the trauma of the 1992 L.A. Riots, when wearing one all markers of race, gender, age, sexual identification and class are hidden.

We Make Carpets (Netherlands)

Dutch design and art collective We Make Carpets takes everyday items and turns them into larger than life carpet-pattern installations. To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, their latest work was made from tens of thousands of florescent cocktail stirrers, decorative paper umbrellas and metallic-tassled cocktail sticks arranged into colourful wall murals and floor works.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico)

Anything from nothing to whatever – that’s what Lonzano-Hemmer does. His words, not ours. He’s an electronic artist and he creates large-scale interactive installations in public spaces. He uses hi-tech gadgets, custom-made interfaces and loves robots, sensors and other digital doo-whackies.

The NGV Triennial is running from December 15 2017 – April 15 2018 and admission is free.

words by niall roeder.