'The Picasso Century' will herald the return of NGV Friday Nights with 36 incredible live music acts and Spanish bars and cuisine set to ignite Melbourne Winter Masterpieces.
The NGV is such an inspiring cornucopia of cultural events that no sooner than its summer Friday Nights series is supposed to end, it announces Melbourne Winter Masterpieces is exploding into life.
From June 10, NGV’s The Picasso Century will be set to the alluring soundtrack of some of the city’s most renowned musicians; Ngaiire, Emma Donovan & The Putbacks, Harvey Sutherland, Snowy Band, Hobsons Bay Coast Guard, Surprise Chef, Horatio Luna…the list goes on and on.
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36 different acts will be playing across NGV’s winter Friday Nights series until October 7, while the gallery’s Garden Restaurant is handed over to Matt McConnell and Jo Gamvros’s Bar Lourinhã.
Every day for lunch (11:30am – 4pm) and on Friday evenings after 6pm, the garden will be filled with the flavours of Jamon croqetas, manzanilla-braised beef cheek and blood orange crème caramel, while soulful vocals, DJ sets, instrumental jazz-funk and ambient groove aim to transport audiences back to the joie-de-vivre Picasso encountered when he moved to Paris in 1904.
Similarly, the NGV’s Yering Station Wine Bar and Pommery Champagne Bar in the Gallery Kitchen will serve a menu of share plates and meals including Jamon and manchego croquetas, spiced beef albondigas (Spanish meatballs), empanadas, churros and Basque-style burnt cheesecake.
The Garden Terrace Bar will also feature mulled and dessert wine, blankets and heaters. They’ve pretty much thought of everything.
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Despite the dazzling display of musical and culinary excellence, the main attraction still remains The Picasso Century, a world premiere presentation charting the extraordinary career of Pablo Picasso in dialogue with the artists, poets and intellectuals he interacted with throughout the 20th century, including Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Françoise Gilot, Valentine Hugo, Marie Laurencin, Dora Maar, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Tanning and Gertrude Stein.
The exhibition is exclusively developed for Melbourne by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, and will present over 70 works by Picasso alongside over 100 works by more than 60 of his contemporaries.
Tony Ellwood AM, NGV Director, said: ‘NGV Friday Nights compliments The Picasso Century exhibition and offers an enriched after-hours experience that immerses visitors in the artworks and places from the exhibition, along with music performances and DJ sets by some of Melbourne’s best musical talent and Spanish style cuisine. A wide range of visitors can enjoy NGV Friday Nights with its unique food, dining and music offering, all discovering the masterworks on loan from Paris.’
NGV Friday Nights lineup
10 June – NGAIIRE & Kia
17 June – Emma Donovan and the Putbacks & Zjoso
24 June – Horatio Luna & Nauva
1 July – Proto Moro & Millú
8 July – Elle Shimada & Billos + Klomp
15 July – Hobsons Bay Coast Guard & Andras
22 July – Myllo & Loure
29 July – ACOPIA & Vincent Sole
5 August – Polly and the Pockets & Louis McCoy
12 August – The Seven Ups & Harvey Sutherland (DJ set)
19 August – Solomon Sisay & Afrodisiac
26 August – Snowy Band & Andras
2 September – Velvet Bloom & Kalyani
9 September – Birdsnake & Pjenne
16 September – Surprise Chef & College of Knowledge
23 September – Polito & Vincent Sole
30 September – Traffik Island’s Shadow Band & Sina
7 October – Sweet Whirl & The Dollar Bin Darlings
NGV Friday Nights will run from 10 June – 7 October at NGV International, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne. Further information and tickets are available here.
