NIRV-ART-NA

MELBOURNE NOW, 22 November 2013 to 23 March 2014, THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and NGV International. Free.

(Scroll down for a complete programme of free events this week end.)

Melbourne Now is the most ambitious exhibition ever mounted by the National Gallery of Victoria, with more than 400 artists’ works mustered by 30 curators and sprawled across multiple levels of both its St. Kilda Road (international) and Federation Square (Australian) locations.

There is more art, more beauty, more mesmerizms and potential epiphanies, more fizz and pop and good old-fashioned thrills, even more bollocking arty-farty conceptualisms in Melbourne Now than I could possibly fairly reflect upon before its closing date, four months hence, on March 23, 2014.
But, I will try.

Today’s media preview was “Nirvartna” indeed, with at least 200 of the exhibition’s artists dispersed to posts by their works throughout the two galleries. I can’t recall such a remarkable font of ideas, free for the tapping, ever being offered to media before. “Talk to them,” was NGV director, Tony Elwood‘s open invitation.
Imagine.

Lucy Irvine described the sinewy steel skeleton she fashioned to support the contorted trunks of her mesmerising sculpture, the size of a small car; “a nuanced mediation on the nature of surface and skin”. Patricia Piccinini, daintier and prettier than you might imagine the creator of such disturbing/loveable suckling humanoids as The Young Family to be, explained her work for Melbourne Now, The Carrier. It is a hairy, rock-jawed, life-like man-creature patiently extending huge hands in the manner of a sedan chair to support an elderly woman against his back. “It’s about the nature of servitude, the nature of us.” (Main picture, top: Patricia PICCININI born Sierra Leone 1965, lived in Italy 1968–72, arrived Australia 1972 The carrier 2012 silicone, fibreglass, human and animal hair, clothing 170.0 x 115.0 x 75.0 cm Collection of Corbett Lyon and Yueji Lyon, Lyon Housemuseum, Melbourne, proposed gift © Patricia Piccinini, courtesy Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Photo: Peter Hennessey Supported by Corbett and Yueji Lyon)

Mischa Hollenbach, half of the phenomenal Perks And Mini (PAM) partnership that disseminates extraordinary, original art and fashion to more countries than he can now remember, explained how his motivation to experiment so relentlessly, in painting, music, video, design, and fashion, is not about art or business, but: “Just being human.”

Julia DeVille stood quietly in a lush, shadowy room of flocked black wallpaper set with banquet platters and elegant decanters of her precious creatures; fetal deer and calves, miniscule mice, birds and kittens. One calf rested, soft and lovely in death, glossblack fur salted with crystals, a delicate, diamente garland glinting between closed eyes. “He was never born,” Ms De Ville said sadly. For a pro-animal rights campaigner, her messages, poignant, deathly, heartbreakingly lovely, are hard to ignore.

Of the 200-odd artists on-tap at Melbourne Now, I captured chats with a paltry 12 in our allocated three hours. But, what chats. In the next few weeks as Melbourne Now’s momentum ramps up, Voxfrock will bring you posts on some of our favorite works including by artists Susan Dimasi of MaterialByProduct, Johanna Preston of Preston Zly, Toni Maticevski, and many intriguing others including elaborations on the meanings  of life, the universe and everything by Ms Piccinini, Ms Irvine, Mr. Hollenbach and Ms De Ville.

Melbourne Now’s first weekend will be celebrated with hundreds of free events in and around the National Gallery of Victoria, Friday November 22, Saturday 23 and Sunday 24, from 10 am to 5pm. For a complete programme, click here. The following is a short excerpt only.

Talking it up: Opening Weekend Floor Talk series
The artists, designers, architects and curators involved in the exhibition will discuss art, design, fashion, sound, performance, urbanism and sustainability in Melbourne.
Fri 22 Nov, NGV International
11.30am Tim Fleming & Peter Ho, PHOOEY Architecture, 12.30pm Rory Hyde, 1.30pm Anastasia Klose
Fri 22 Nov, NGV Australia
2.30pm Danielle Whitfield, 3.30pm Fleur Watson
Sat 23 Nov, NGV Australia
11.30am Hotham Street Ladies, 12.30pm Brian Martin, 1.30pm Emily Floyd, 3.30pm Jess Johnson
Sat 23 Nov, NGV International
12pm Darren Sylvester, 1pm Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, 3pm Meredith Turnbull
Sun 24 Nov, NGV Australia
10.30am Mark Raggatt, ARM Architecture, 11.30am Alexi Freeman, 12.30pm Simone LeAmon & Edmund Carter, 1.30pm Gareth Sansom, 2.30pm Julia deVille, 3.30pm Grant Petty, CEO Black Magic Design
Sun 24 Nov, NGV International
11am Stewart Russell, 12pm Destiny Deacon, 1pm Brook Andrew, 2pm Patrick Pound, 3pm Marco Fusinato

Sat 23 Nov, 2–3pm NGV International, Clemenger Auditorium BBDO, Ground Level
Key curators will present a series of 15 minute talks about how they helped to imagine and build the complex and ground-breaking Melbourne Now exhibition.
Speakers Max Delany, Senior Curator, Contemporary Art; Katie Somerville, Senior Curator, Australian Fashion and Textiles; Ewan McEoin, guest curator, Design, and, Fleur Watson, guest curator, Architecture.
Sat 23 Nov, 2–3pm NGV International, Grollo Equiset Garden
Urban Commons Kitchen Garden & Wayward Forest
As a major element of the Melbourne Now program, The Kitchen Garden and Wayward Garden is a dynamic and productive landscape that will breathe new life into the garden spaces at NGV International over summer. Designed by award-winning practice Urban Commons, and merging cutting edge architecture, design, landscape and contemporary art, this project unlocks new ways to engage children with the wonders of nature and help them learn about sustainability, food production, health and nutrition.
Sun 24 Nov, 12-1pm & 4-5pm NGV International, Great Hall
Dance performance: P.O.V. Curated by Antony Hamilton, the premier performance of P.O.V. will launch Melbourne Now’s dance program in the NGV’s Great Hall. The piece will place the audience squarely within the performance environment, inviting them to cross over from spectator to participant. Seated in a grid pattern on swivel stools, each person will have their own unique perspective on the performance. Proximity, reactions and interactions – whisperings, rushes of air, the growing intensity of movement, the risk of closeness. P.O.V. blurs boundaries and shifts perspective, creating space to observe and participate.

Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au