Installation view of Mass by Ron Mueck (2017), on display at NGV Triennial at NGV International, 2017 Photo: Sean Fennessy.
2018 could be described as the year of the biennale and triennial. In total, there will be five major exhibitions staged across Australia this year (1), with the NGV Triennial the latest addition to the genre.
While it opened in December, its run extends through 15 April, overlapping with the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia (3 March – 3 June) and the 21st Biennale of Sydney, which is presented across multiple venues on and around Sydney Harbour (16 March – 11 June) – two of Australia’s most established biennales reaching back to the 1970s.
So how does an institution – one that is newcomer to the medium – create a point of difference? What is the tone of this Triennial, and what does it say about art making now? These are questions that The National equally faced in 2017, when it also joined the biennale playing field.
Read: Do we need The National?
With the inaugural unveiling by NGV International set to put Melbourne on the biennale map, early numbers suggest the newcomer has got it right.
More than 500,000 people have visited the NGV Triennial since its opening, putting it on track to blitz the record-holding Melbourne Now exhibition, which was staged by the NGV in 2014 and drew a crowd of 753,000 visitors.
As the Triennial’s catalogue’s opening pages state flatly: ‘In 2013 the exhibition Melbourne Now set a new benchmark for the ambition and scale of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria and set in motion a new counterpoint to our Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibitions.’
Clearly, the in-house blockbuster seems to be the new future for Australian art museums.
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Installation view of Xu Zhen Eternity – Buddha in Nirvana, the Dying Gaul, Farnese Hercules, Night, Day, Sartyr and Bacchante, Funerary Genius, Achilles, Persian Soldier Fighting, Dancing Faun, Crouching Aphrodite, Narcissus Lying, Othryades the Spartan Dying, the Fall of Icarus, A River, Milo of Croton (2016–17) on display at NGV Triennial at NGV International, 2017; Photo: John Gollings
New kid on the biennale block
Like the Biennale of Sydney (BoS) and the Asia Pacific Triennia (APT, presented in Brisbane), the NGV Triennial is an international spectacular that combines art world “stars” alongside Australian artists in the attempt to not only bridge global conversation, but to obliterate this point of difference.
The catalogue introduces: ‘By being globally engaged and informed, this exhibition aspires to reflect Melbourne’s unique perspective on the world.’
Of note, the Adelaide Biennial, The National, The NGA Indigenous Triennial, and the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial are all exhibitions that exclusively present Australian artists.
So how spectacular is the NGV Triennial, and is that spectacle really what equates to big exhibition success in our times?
Walking into the gallery, the tone of this exhibition is high voltage from the get-go. Spanning the gallery’s foyer with a kind of monolithic authority is the work of Chinese artist Xu Zhen (pictured above) – a 16 meter long replica sculpture of a famous Buddhist statue that is irreverently overrun with 3D scanned and cast Greco-Roman, Renaissance and Neoclassical sculptures.
It fuses Eastern and Western cultural heritages in order to break down boundaries – one whispers in the ear of the other, while the other gazes in the eye of now. It’s a big work; it’s a big people pleaser, but in truth, it is also a big conversation that it offers; using a foundation of religion and ideology, this space is being usurped by new grounds for worship – that is the use of technology and entertainment.
Moving through and into the exhibition, viewers encounter one hyper-saturated space followed by another, overdosed from a sensory perspective as walls, floors, ceilings, surfaces and colour create immersive environments. Needless to say it is a hit with the punters.
Picture this line up: Xu Zhen’s sculpture leads to Hassan Hajjaj’s vibrant Moroccan-inspired Noss Noss studio and cafe with its audience photobooth, then on to a suite of works by Olaf Breuning that similarly reference social media, such as Emojis II (2015).
Uji (Hahan) Handoko Eko Saputro installation for NGV Triennial (2017); photo ArtsHub
Visitors then enter a highly engaged space created by Uji (Hahan) Handoko Eko Saputro, which combines Javanese mythology with youth culture and underground comics, and then to a newly commission work by American textile artist Pae White, (Untitled) that uses adhesive vinyl wallpaper and acrylic string. It feels like you are caught between dazzle camouflage and sting art.
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Installation view of Pae White Untitled (2017), on display at NGV Triennial at NGV International, 2017; Photo: Shaughn and John
Across the foyer is Yayoi Kusama’s Flower Obsession (2017) installation, a new commission and version of her dot obliteration. It presents a neutral, familiar domestic space that is gradually covered in colourful dots by participating viewers, and in the NGV version, red flowers.
Regardless of what direction you step forward first, the visitor is engaged totally. I was not surprised to hear a visitor remark: ‘I remember as a kid art galleries never used to be this impressive.’
How much of this Triennial is about the work of now, and how much of it is about the experience economy that big exhibitions are designed to tap into?
The possible answer to this lies in the fact that while the exhibition is divided into five themes – Movement, Change, Virtual, Body and Time – they are incredibly loose. If anything, these themes are more about the presentation of contemporary works rather than trying to present a greater thesis, which is what curator Mami Kataoka is doing for this Biennale of Sydney, same as Erica Green has done with her themed Adelaide’s biennial Divided Worlds, and the APT and Dobell Drawing Biennale also do.
A strength of this NGV Triennial is how it forces visitors to move through its collection to discover works of art. The presentation of Ron Mueck’s mass of 100 large-than-life resin-cast skulls (pictured top), each measuring 1.5m x 2m, is presented on the upper floor and embedded in the 18th century galleries.
Mueck’s is not an easy work to find, and I think the role that Instagram has played has set up a kind of popular treasure hunt for punters – while, in the meantime, they discover the depth of holdings by the gallery. It gets people out of the ground level with the promise of more. Smart.
The Mueck – along with the works by Yayoi Kusama and Xu Zhen, teamLab, Candice Breitz, Sissel Tolaas, and Alexandra Kehayoglou – are among twenty large-scale new artworks commissioned for this NGV Triennial.
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teamLab Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement (2017) interactive digital projection, (duration variable) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne © teamLab, courtesy Ikkan Art Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary and Pace Gallery
If we dig deeper into the catalogue’s provenance on each work, it would show that an overwhelming number of works have been purchased by the Gallery. It is not unlike the model employed by the APT and QAGOMA, which has built a substantial Collection through the legacy of the exhibition, rather than just a “fly in fly out” hit.
Installation view of Alexandra Kehayoglou’s carpeted landscape with mirrored ceiling, Santa Cruz River (2016-2017); Photo Gina Fairley
The experience economy and instagramable art
The NGV Triennial is a very Instagramable show. There are even some works, such as Alexandra Kehayoglou’s carpeted landscape and mirrored ceiling, Santa Cruz River (2016-2017), and Hajjaj’s Noss Noss photobooth, which specifically invite that kind of interaction from viewers. Other works like Kusama’s piece and Mueck’s skulls, while less direct in inviting the “iPhone snap” as participatory, are equally cognisant of this economy parallel to their curatorial clout.
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Installation image of Hassan Hajjaj, Noss Noss (2014) on display at NGV Triennial at NGV International, 2017; Photo Tom Ross
Pair that with extended hours events like Triennial EXTRA over January – which alone drew more than 85,000 people into the Gallery with its performances, DJs and food – and it would appear that the NGV had some very clear box ticks and benchmarks when curating this show.
Balance that with something like Richard Mosse’s epic film multi-channel work, Incoming (2015-2016), which is internationally recognised as a really important piece, and this exhibitions starts to find some depth.
Using thermal imaging developed for military use, Mosse’s film is a document to the flight of refugees following the bombings of Syria. The piece was co-commissioned by the NGV and the Barbican Art Gallery, London.
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Installation view of Richard Mosse Incoming (2015 –2016), which is on display in NGV Triennial at NGV International, 2017; Photo Sean Fennessy
While Mosse has shown considerably in Australia, to find those trump moments with globally recognised art works by branded artists is part of the biennale recipe, and to take the accolade of debuting that work in Australia is really important – let alone for its commissioning.
The film stimulates an emotion of empathy with audiences, as does Candice Breitz’s Love story (2015-2016), and other works across the exhibition that encourage the big questions of our times.
So these two things – depth and the kind of social currency that comes with engagement and fun – go hand-in-hand, like a push-me-pull-me experience, to become the formula for big scale exhibition.
The place of the designer in a contemporary art biennale
In terms of the NGV’s history of blockbusters, it has been skewed in many ways towards the traditional. It has the highest number of Masterpiece Blockbusters staged in Australia, so the role of the Triennial is really important in terms of balancing that scope and reputation.
The institution has strongly advocated for the absorption of design into the gallery environment, and again it is a point of differentiation from what Melbourne Now so successfully defined and placed on solid ground.
While this holds true to the institutions vision and character, some works that tip their hat to a design legacy feel slightly awkward in their fit. A good example is the work of Chinese haute couture designer Guo Pei who has a whole gallery of Marie Antoinette inspired costumes on mannequins, or again Iris van Herpen’s tech-inspired fashion, again presented on mannequins.
Another is the commissioned project by ‘smell designer’ Sissel Tolaas (Norway), in which she will recreate the scents of Melbourne; and an installation of chairs, row upon row, by Japanese designer Nendo inspired by Manga.
NGV has tried to stay aligned with the brand it has so carefully nurtured over recent years, for its attention to design and fashion. Tony Ellwood, Director NGV, explained: ‘This exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to build the NGV’s collection of contemporary art and design.’
The big question is whether the NGV Triennial is merely a trigger to that old Sydney-Melbourne rivalry? In Sydney there is the Biennale, the Dobell, and The National, and Brisbane and Canberra have their versions too. It is almost as though each state institution has claimed this space in their own way, and Melbourne had to come up to speed.
Overall, they have pulled it off well. It will be interesting to see how it develops with time and how its vision will become more formalised. It is definitely a space to watch – something so loud and bold as the Inaugural 2018 NGV Triennial will not rest quietly.
The NGV Triennial is on display at NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne, until 15 April 2018.
(1.) The biennale style exhibition to be presented during 2018 are: Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of SA and other venues (3 March – 3 June); the 21st Biennale of Sydney across multiple venues (16 March – 11 June); the third Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial at the Art Gallery of NSW (7 July – October); the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane (24 November – 28 April 2019), and the NGV Triennial.
The National: New Australian Art is due to return March 2019, and the 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, Defying Empire, at the National Gallery of Australia, recently closed (May – September 2018).
