Inspiring Art

I was lucky to be in Melbourne a couple of weekends ago and visited the NGV to see the Triennial exhibition. It included a wonderful feast of inspiring and diverse artworks that were sometimes challenging, moving and joyful. We spent almost two days slowly working our way around the exhibits. I am wishing I had taken more photos to share but I have included just a couple here.

The piece above was amazing and combines ancient Indigenous weaving techniques with recycled materials of modern day society (plastic bottles were included as part of some of the lamps structures). It is a collaborative work by Spanish designer, Alvaro Catalán de Ocón and Yolngu weavers from Bula'bula Arts in Ramingining and was absolutely beautiful suspended above us.

This sculptural installation by Xu Zhen was massive and took up most of the space outside the Great Hall. My image shows only a small section of this monolithic sculpture which juxtaposed the ancient reclining Budda dating from the High Tang Dynasty (705-781) with various replicas of well known Greco-Roman, Renaissance and Neoclassical sculptures. It was quite awe-inspiring.

On the second floor of the gallery we found Australian artist Ron Mueck's amazing installation of large scale hand cast human skulls. Such a powerful work both in scale and meaning.

The last photo is of the very popular installation by Yayoi Kusama. This work was quite an immersive experience as viewers walked through several rooms set up to represent a domestic setting in a house which was almost completely covered in flowers. Delightful, playful and quite beautiful.

Of course there were also some very unsettling works that challenged and provoked serious and important questions like the audiovisual work by Richard Mosse that used thermal imaging and filmed incredibly moving aspects of the Syrian refugee crisis. 

When we left the exhibition after our second visit I was buzzing with ideas and also so grateful to see such an incredibly important collection of artworks and reminded about the importance of the artists voice in communicating feelings, emotions, ideas and shedding light on difficult political and social issues.