Launching Melbourne Now
Public Programs
Date: Fri 22, Sat 23 & Sun 24, 10am – 5pm
Venue: NGV International & NGV Australia
Melbourne Now is the largest and most far-reaching initiative ever undertaken by the National Gallery of Victoria. This unprecedented collaboration brings together over 30 curators alongside more than 300 artists, architects and designers of fashion, jewellery and product design to explore creativity in the city.
Opening Weekend of Melbourne Now will launch this incredible exhibition through a series of programs which will showcase how the artists, designers and architects involved have used the city of Melbourne as a source of inspiration. Talks, performances, screenings and workshops will celebrate and challenge the way in which audiences interact with art and the city and engage adults and children alike.
Ash Keating: Endurance Painting Performance
Date to be announced
In an endurance painting performance, Ash Keating will reinvent the bluestone walls of the NGV. Using 25 paint-filled fire extinguishers Keating, wearing a grey hoodie, will spray and throw paint on to an enormous banner fixed to the northern wall of NGV International. The resulting mural will decorate the gallery’s exterior, cheering morning commuters and delighting pedestrians for the length of Melbourne Now.
Talking it up: Opening Weekend Floor Talk series
The artists, designers, architects and curators involved in the exhibition will discuss art, design, fashion, sound, performance, urbanism and sustainability in Melbourne. Free, Gallery spaces as below.
Fri 22 Nov, NGV International
11.30am Tim Fleming & Peter Ho, PHOOEY Architecture | 12.30pm Rory Hyde | 1.30pm Anastasia Klose
Fri 22 Nov, NGV Australia
2.30pm Danielle Whitfield | 3.30pm Fleur Watson
Sat 23 Nov, NGV Australia
11.30am Hotham Street Ladies | 12.30pm Brian Martin | 1.30pm Emily Floyd | 3.30pm Jess Johnson
Sat 23 Nov, NGV International
12pm Darren Sylvester | 1pm Lyndell Brown and Charles Green | 3pm Meredith Turnbull
Sun 24 Nov, NGV Australia
10.30am Mark Raggatt, ARM Architecture| 11.30am Alexi Freeman | 12.30pm Simone LeAmon & Edmund Carter| 1.30pm Gareth Sansom | 2.30pm Julia deVille | 3.30pm Grant Petty, CEO Black Magic Design
Sun 24 Nov, NGV International
11am Stewart Russell | 12pm Destiny Deacon | 1pm Brook Andrew | 2pm Patrick Pound | 3pm Marco Fusinato
Opening Address: All About Melbourne Now
Sat 23 Nov, 2–3pm | NGV International | Free, Clemenger Auditorium BBDO, Ground Level
Key curators will present a series of 15 minute talks about how they helped to imagine and build the complex and ground-breaking Melbourne Now exhibition.
Speakers Max Delany, Senior Curator, Contemporary Art; Katie Somerville, Senior Curator, Australian Fashion and Textiles; Ewan McEoin, guest curator, Design, and, Fleur Watson, guest curator, Architecture.
Urban Commons Kitchen Garden & Wayward Forest
NGV International | Free, Grollo Equiset Garden
As a major element of the Melbourne Now program, The Kitchen Garden and Wayward Garden is a dynamic and productive landscape that will breathe new life into the garden spaces at NGV International over summer. Designed by award-winning practice Urban Commons, and merging cutting edge architecture, design, landscape and contemporary art, this project unlocks new ways to engage children with the wonders of nature and help them learn about sustainability, food production, health and nutrition.
Community Hall
Daily (excl Tue) 22 Nov – 23 Mar, 10am – 5pm | NGV International
The visually striking, architecturally designed Community Hall is a space dedicated to Melbourne’s diverse communities. Over one hundred days it will host numerous community groups and will feature diverse programming including performance, design collectives, choirs, reading groups, recycling initiatives, cake-making and writers groups. Throughout Opening Weekend, Community Hall will host the following programs:
Talking Now will involve discussions and debates on art, culture, ideas and all things Melbourne.
Designing Community Hall | Debbie Ryan of architecture and interior design firm McBride Charles Ryan will discuss the process of designing Community Hall alongside Rory Hyde, Architect. Fri 22 Nov, 1pm
City as Motif | Artists Ash Keating, Ross Coulter and Louise Forthun, and Curator, Contemporary Art, Jane Devery discuss how they have been inspired by the city of Melbourne. Sat 23 Nov, 11:30am
Artists working with the NGV collection | Artists Arlo Mountford, Susan Dimasi, Veronica Kent & Sean Peoples (Telepathy Project), and Assistant Curator Contemporary Art, Serena Bentley discuss how they have used the NGV collection as a catalyst for their works. Sun 24 Nov, 12.30pm
Show-Off
From community choirs to cutting edge sound collectives, fashion designers, performance artists, dancers and poets, the NGV has scoured the streets to bring audiences the finest Melbourne has to offer.
Fri 22 Nov
2pm Ancient Memories | 2:30pm Performance Poets | 4pm Ancient Memories
Sat 23 Nov
1:30pm DJ Principal Blackman | 2:30pm Darren Sylvester | 3.30pm Dance Club launch: Bodyelectricdance Studios
Sun 24 Nov
3pm The Social Studio – TSS Chai
Show & Tell
Fri 22 Nov
10am Chess: Critical Position International chess master Leonid Sandler will be simultaneously versing all comers.
Sun 23 Nov
10am Show and Tell launches Collecting Melbourne through a display and Q and A with Melbourne’s most unique and diverse collectors.
Dance Performance: P.O.V.
Sun 24 Nov, 12-1pm & 4-5pm | NGV International | Free, Great Hall, Ground Level
Curated by Antony Hamilton, the premier performance of P.O.V. will launch Melbourne Now’s dance program in the NGV’s Great Hall. The piece will place the audience squarely within the performance environment, inviting them to cross over from spectator to participant. Seated in a grid pattern on swivel stools, each person will have their own unique perspective on the performance. Proximity, reactions and interactions – whisperings, rushes of air, the growing intensity of movement, the risk of closeness. P.O.V. blurs boundaries and shifts perspective, creating space to observe and participate.
Melbourne Now will be on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and NGV International from 22 November 2020 – 23 March 2014. 10am – 5pm. Free entry.