Sculpture & Installation

Letgo room, 2015, is a major site-specific installation by leading Chinese artist, activist and public intellectual Ai Weiwei.

Ken Unsworth: Truly, Madly has been developed in close association with artist Ken Unsworth and is the first major exhibition of…

Palace of the Republic presents new paper sculptures and a range of plastic assemblages made over the past decade by…

Jess Johnson is obsessed with building worlds.

Taiwan-born, New York and Paris–based artist Lee Mingwei is renowned for his participatory practice that encourages active exchange and moments…

As an artist who places her own life at the centre of her practice, Tracey Emin is renowned for working…

This essay examines a series of international art projects presented as John Kaldor Art Projects (JKAP) at the National Gallery…

Bamboo groves are synonymous with the Japanese landscape, and crafting items from bamboo is one of the oldest technical skills…

[In my] work … the act of making is a process of experimentation leading to new knowledg

Ichwan Noor is a Yogyakarta-based artist renowned for his large-scale sculptures of hybrid human, animal and technological forms.

The 1960s and 1970s were significant decades in the development of Australian sculpture.

You don’t necessarily have to see the pieces … just as they are … but as what they could be,…

By contemplating fantastic rocks or mountains in miniature, scholars were transported in imagination to the wilds of nature.

Lee Bul’s practice mines the potential of performance and sculpture to investigate the body, particularly cultural constructions of the feminine…

Waiting for the signal is a major installation that drew global attention to Purnomo’s practic

An interview with artist Robert Andrew on the creation and future care of his work Moving out of Muteness (2013),…

Guy Stuart is a Melbourne-based artist, born in Canberra in 1942.

The term ‘surreal’ has become commonplace today, and somewhat watered-down, inferring a rather harmless visual oddity, dreamlike imagery or non-logical…

Gods, Heroes and Clowns draws on the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection to explore works of art associated with the…

Bodhisattvas are individuals filled with compassion who, rather than enter Nirvana after attaining enlightenment, remain in the life–death cycle to…

The commoners is an installation comprising nine ‘ghost’ figures suspended from a metal roof-like struct

A: Only 1 – but how many lightglobes does it take to replace an artwork? Some time ago I posted a…

Discovering the first cast of The thinker When the great American Rodin specialist Professor Albert E.

At the hub of the great tradition of figurative art in medieval Europe is Christ himself, isolated and exemplary, even…

In the 1960s Donald Judd proposed a new way of making and experiencing art, breaking ground in the exploration of…

As you leave the retro cool of  mid-century Australian design and furniture pieces of the Mid-Century Modern  exhibition, you may…

This marble torso is an outstandingly well-preserved representation of an athletic male body in its prime.

Shields bearing a large wooden face or mask at their centre were erected in the prow of large war canoes used…

Upright slit-drums standing in groups out in the open are unique to Central Vanuatu and occupy a focal position in the…

On Thursday 23 February 1984 the front page of the Melbourne Age featured a photograph of a 25-year-old Keith Haring standing…

The Sarah Sze exhibition is extremely fragile. Please do not touch the works

Beauty or the life of things, is always deeper as hidden within than as outwardly expressed, even as life of the…

Continuing a recent series of major commissions by leading international artists for Federation Court at NGV International, Paola Pivi’s You…

Alfred Felton has long been recognised as the benefactor who transformed the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria

Early in 1905 the National Gallery of Victoria’s director, Bernard Hall, charged with making the first purchases for Melbourne under the…

A svayambhu linga is a non-figurative representation of the Hindu god Shiva, one of the three great gods of Hinduism…

 In June 2004 the National Gallery of Victoria was given a superb contemporary La-sisi malagan canoe created in 1999 by the…

Identity, self-scrutiny, memory and the tensions inherent in human relationships are the core themes of Louise Bourgeois’s ar

Lee Bul lives and works in Seoul.

Few acquisitions by the Felton Bequest have offered such drama, such expectancy and such a direct tribute to Alfred Felton

Following my last blog post  on the conservation work on the NGV’s Kore (Acc.No.1045A-D4) I have some updates to share̷

We weren’t surprised to find that Anne-Marie May’s RGB (Mobile) was popular with our visitors, and we’ve enjoyed watching it…

Emil Todt, the German sculptor whose plaster figure group The gold diggers (fig.

On 3 June 1960 the National Gallery of Victoria’s deputy director, Gordon Thomson, announced to the public the Felton Bequests’…

In many Melanesian societies the traditional cultures are in transition. However, many stories have survived for thousands of years.

An awareness of time and its passing is a powerful force in Ricky Swallow’s ar

Ron Mueck’s Two women is an uncanny sculptural representation of two elderly female figure

The Department of International Painting and Sculpture in collaboration with the Departments of Photography and Prints and Drawings have recently…

Claire Lambe was born in the United Kingdom, studied at Goldsmiths College, London, and has lived and worked in Melbourne since the 1990s̷

This week the installation of Patrick Pound’s Melbourne Now work, The Gallery of Air, bega

Mexican artist Pedro Reyes in conversation with Louise Neri, Creative Associate for Visual Arts, Melbourne Festival, about the exhibition Pedro…

A playful and irrational streak runs throughout a number of works in Melbourne Now.

Founded in 2009, Slow Art Collective is an interdisciplinary artist group whose members, Tony Adams, Chaco Kato and Dylan Martorell…

The multidisciplinary artist Andrew Hazewinkel will be exhibiting a new installation of works in Melbourne Now.

On 26 February 1968 Robert Klippel’s largest Australian exhibition to date opened at Bonython Gallery Sydney in Paddingto

For several years Ian Burns has created sculptures assembled from an assortment of everyday objects which take on new resonance…

Since the 1970s Elizabeth Gower has created and exhibited intricate collages, composed from detritus of everyday life which she carefully…

Marco Fusinato is an artist, musician and sound curator who is primarily interested in the aspirations, forms and failures of…

Caleb Shea is one of a number of artists making new work for Melbourne Now.

Zoë Croggon: trial and error Zoë Croggon will present two recent works in Melbourne Now, entitled Fonteyn 2012 and Challenger…

As a small and fragmentary work of art, the Processional cross (figs 1 & 2) in the National Gallery of…

Suburban is based around eight site-specific works which I have undertaken over the past two years.

The Felton Commissions (The Barak Project) was conceived as part of an ambitious three-tiered program that celebrates the National Gallery…

Since the late 1980s Australian contemporary artist David Noonan has produced works in a range of media including painting, photography,…

Having recently begun conservation work on the National Gallery of Victoria’s Kore (Acc.N

Kohei Nawa is one of Japan’s new generation of high-flying young artist

There is music to be revealed in every object, image or place.

On 9 March 2013 a new collection display that focuses on the physical, spiritual and ecological importance of the natural…

While so many exhibitions and programs in the NGV’s large calendar of events are organised months, if not years in…

Introduction The National Gallery of Victoria holds Australia’s largest and most comprehensive collection of Chinese archaeological treasures, which consist of…

In 1958 Eric Westbrook, then director of the NGV, established a department of Exhibitions, headed from 1961 by the very…

Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the sixth century AD and flourished under the patronage of the imperial prince Shōtoku…

Flash art, 1987, is an early example of the style with which Rosalie Gascoigne’s art is often identifie

Public housing, 2003, is a key work in the German photographer Thomas Demand’s recent oeuvr

The days aren’t different enough nos 1–4, 2009–10, is a group of four bronze casts of cardboard archery targets found…

It was no coincidence that in 1861 the National Gallery of Victoria was officially opened by the governor, Sir Henry…

Welcome to the first NGV Studio Blog Entry! For the past week and a half, we have been installing The…