The NGV and Ian Potter Centre have announced their Spring/Summer Season of exhibitions and installations headlined by 'Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse'.
The NGV’s Spring/Summer Season will enliven NGV International and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia throughout the warmer months with a dynamic program of exhibitions, collection displays, events and more.
With the summer blockbuster exhibition, Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, as its centrepiece, the season presents never-before-seen world-premiere works by leading contemporary artists, as well as major exhibitions that examine popular artists and artworks in exciting and unexpected ways.
The NGV’s Spring / Summer Season
- The NGV has officially announced its Spring / Summer Season
- The announcement recaps the major exhibitions and teases new ones for the rest of 2022
- The blockbuster will be a retrospective of fashion designer Alexander McQueen
Explore Melbourne’s latest art events, exhibitions and performances here.
Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse
An Australian first, the NGV are putting on an extensive Alexander McQueen exhibition
Celebrating the legacy of one of the late twentieth century’s most acclaimed fashion designers, Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse is the first partnership between the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA) and the NGV.
The exhibition features more than 110 designs by McQueen alongside over 70 works of art, including painting, sculpture, photography and decorative arts. The juxtaposition of garments and artworks highlights McQueen’s creative process and many inspirations, as well as offering audiences an opportunity to gain a deeper appreciation of his artistic legacy today. Alexander McQueen will be launched on Saturday 10 December 2022 with the highly anticipated event, the NGV Gala.
Broken Spectre
NGV to world-premiere 20-metre widescreen panorama of the unfolding Amazon crisis
Richard Mosse’s world-premiere moving image work Broken Spectre is a powerful response to the devastating and ongoing impact of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest. Broken Spectre is presented across an immersive 20-metre panorama widescreen and depicts three visually arresting narratives that were filmed over three years in remote parts of the Amazon Basin. Each cinematic narrative shifts in scale and medium – from satellite to microscopic imagery – in order to draw attention to a distinct perspective of this urgent environmental issue. Premiering at NGV International on 30 September 2022, the work has been co-commissioned by the NGV, VIA Art Fund, the Westridge Foundation, and Serpentine Galleries in London, and was created in collaboration with cinematographer and editor Trevor Tweeten and composer Ben Frost.
Jewellery and Body Adornment from the NGV Collection
Jewellery and Body Adornment from the NGV Collection, opening 27 August 2022, highlights the power of one of the oldest known artforms. Featuring an exquisite selection of works from antiquity to the present day, the display presents jewellery making traditions and body adornment practices across different material, cultural and geographical contexts. Reflecting the breadth and formal variety of body adornment, the multidisciplinary works on display have been sourced across the NGV’s many collecting areas, including Indigenous Art, Antiquities, Decorative Art, Australian Art, Asian Art, Fashion and Textiles, and Contemporary Design and Architecture.
The Global Life of Design
From 6 October 2022, The Global Life of Design investigates the influence of global trade and exchange on design traditions from the early modern era to the current day. Drawing upon works from the NGV Collection, the exhibition highlights how art and design have been shaped by the movement of people and resources. From pigments to produce, timber and textiles, the global exchange of commodities shaped and defined design traditions, leading to breakthroughs in technology, the rise of luxury markets and the development of consumer culture.
MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission
The MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission is a major five-year series that each year invites a female designer or architect to create a new and significant work for the NGV Collection. For the inaugural commission – to be unveiled 6 October 2022 – world-leading Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao will create a large-scale architectural installation entitled La ropa sucia se lava en casa (Dirty clothes are washed at home). The installation incorporates hand-made textiles and drawings with architectural structures, and draws attention to ideas of labour, community and gender. The five-year series is enabled by a significant contribution from MECCA Brands through its philanthropic program, M-Power, which champions and elevates women in art and design. This series marks the single largest commitment to an Australian cultural institution in the brand’s history.
Rigg Design Prize 2022
The first major exhibition of advertising and communication design in the NGV’s history, the Rigg Design Prize 2022 brings together and highlights the creativity that underpins the work of eight outstanding Australian-based agencies. Now in its ninth edition, the triennial Prize is Australia’s highest national accolade for contemporary design bestowed by a public gallery and seeks to celebrate and draw focus to a different field of design practice every three years. Opening 7 October, the 2022 Prize reveals the capacity of advertising to influence contemporary life, society and culture, and asks eight agencies to respond to a brief highlighting the centrality of creativity in shaping our world.
China – The past is present
Juxtaposing the NGV’s historical and contemporary collection of Chinese art and design, China – The past is present emphasises the legacy of Chinese cultural and artistic traditions and their ongoing influence in contemporary Chinese culture. Spanning three millennia and an array of art forms – including painting, calligraphy, ceramics, metal works, lacquer ware, textiles, furniture, video, posters, photography and mixed media – the exhibition creates an anachronistic dialogue between ancient artisans and contemporary artists. The exhibition opens 8 October 2022 at NGV International.
Fred Williams: The London Drawings
Fred Williams is celebrated as one of Australia’s most significant abstract landscape painters, yet his work as draughtsman of the human figure is less known. Fred Williams: The London Drawings, opening 21 October 2022, reveals the full range and power of his drawing oeuvre. In the first exhibition dedicated to William’s London period, this exhibition features major series of drawings made at the zoo, in the music halls, and on the streets of London.
NGV Architecture Commission
A reimagining of The Parthenon is coming to Melbourne at the NGV
On 16 November 2022, the annual NGV Architecture Commission returns for its seventh iteration with Adam Newman and Kelvin Tsang’s Temple of Boom, an evocative reimagining of The Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens (447 BCE). As part of the commission, the image of the Parthenon – a symbol of Western art, culture and civilisation – will be overlayed with artwork by local contemporary artists, adding further layers of meaning and complexity. The project invites audiences to reflect on the hidden histories that arise when this ancient building is viewed in new and surprising contexts, as well as the effect of time on all architecture.
Freedom of Movement: Contemporary Art and Design from the NGV Collection
Opening 3 December 2022, Freedom of Movement: Contemporary Art and Design from the NGV Collection features more than 60 works of recently collected art and design by some of the most recognisable names working today, including nendo, Shilpa Gupta, Erwin Wurm, KAWS and Alex Prager. Offering a dynamic survey of the State collection, the exhibition provides audiences the chance to experience popular and beloved works in new and surprising contexts, as well as to appreciate the spectacular correlations and interrelationships between art and design. Presenting many works in conversation for the very first time, Freedom of Movementhighlights the diversification and growth of the NGV Collection over a ten-year period. Freedom of Movement will be accompanied by a re-staging of the popular NGV Kids exhibition, Julian Opie: Studio for Kids, which was developed by the NGV in collaboration with the artist in 2018.
The NGV Spring/Summer Season 2022-23 will be on display from August 2022. Further information and tickets are available via the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE
