CAMILLE HENROT: PLAY YOUR PART
22 May 2020 – 4 Oct 2020, 10am – 5pm | Free entry | NGV International
Camille Henrot, the French-born, New York City-based contemporary artist, will be celebrated in an Australian-first survey of works that take a playful and inventive approach to addressing existential questions, in May 2020.
The exhibition will feature recent watercolours that explore aspects of human psychology, and the artist’s Interphones series of telephone sculptures that playfully draw attention to our relationship to authority and technology. In these interactive works, Henrot invites visitors to pick up a customised telephone and respond to prompts such as ‘Would you ever have sex at work? Is Google right about you? Are you gluten-free? Press control for yes. Enter for no.’
Featuring key works created by the artist over the past decade, Camille Henrot: Play Your Part will include the immersive room-scale installation The Pale Fox 2014, a companion piece to Henrot’s award-winning film Grosse Fatigue 2013, for which she won the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale. Grosse Fatigue attempted to tell the story of the universe whereas The Pale Fox is a meditation on our shared desire to understand the world intimately through the objects that surround us. Characterised by what Henrot has called a ‘cataloguing psychosis’, this vast installation features en masse more than 500 objects encompassing photographs, sculptures, books and drawings, including objects made by the artist as well as collected via eBay.
1 May – 25 October 2020, 10am – 5pm | Free entry | The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
Ivan Durrant, a leading exponent of photorealism, and natural raconteur, will be celebrated in a major survey paying tribute to five decades of his extraordinarily diverse career since the 1970s, at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 1 May 2020.
Ivan Durrant: Barrier Draw is the most comprehensive survey of Durrant’s work to date. Featuring over 100 multi-disciplinary works from the Melbourne-born artist, the exhibition will also unveil a new larger-than-life sculpture inspired by his controversial back catalogue. Drawn extensively from Durrant’s personal collection, the exhibition also includes major works from public and private collections from across Australia.
‘A prolific artist and provocateur, Ivan Durrant has created one of the most audacious bodies of work in Australian art,’ said Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV. ‘With his work first exhibited at the NGV in 1979, we’re delighted to welcome Ivan back to pay tribute to his extensive career and provide a platform to unveil an unmissable new work.’
The exhibition chronicles the evolution of Durrant’s diverse career, including his earliest folk paintings depicting an idyllic childhood in the countryside, which were a sharp contrast to his own experiences having grown up in an orphanage; his realist paintings, short films and sculptures of the 1970s and 80s, including his race track and movie star series; politically motivated installation works including Butcher Shop 1977/78, held in the NGV Collection; and more recent evocative ‘soft-focus’ paintings of the 1990s and 2000s.
PLANS FOR THE PLANET: OLAF BREUNING FOR KIDS
29 May 2020 – 4 October 2020, 10am – 5pm | Free entry | NGV International
Contemporary artist Olaf Breuning presents a large-scale participatory exhibition for children that plays to young people’s universal love of adventure and theme parks while referencing Breuning’s thoughts about life. Drawing from popular culture and inspired by the artist’s love of video games and movies from his youth such as Jurassic Park, the exhibition is an adventure of self-discovery.
WE CHANGE THE WORLD
8 May 2020 – April 2021, 10am – 5pm | Free entry | The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
Tackling global issues including climate, tolerance and social change, today’s children and young people are arguably the leading activists of our time, urging the world to think about how our actions are influencing our future.
We Change the World takes the positive influence of this generation on shaping our worldview and, through the work of contemporary artists and designers, explores how creativity and expression is important at personal, community and global levels.
The exhibition encourages all visitors, and especially school students and young people, to engage with the work of prominent Australian and international artists from the NGV Collection who focus on some of the big issues of today as well as celebrating everyday life.
We Change the World highlights the contribution of creative minds and challenges us to consider our own potential for change, empowering young people, but also those of all ages, with the permission to be creative, speak up or speak differently.
