Would you like a burger with that? NGV puts variety on the menu

Does size matter when it comes to art? Melburnians can be the judge at this year’s NGV Triennial, as it takes the full, multi-fit measure of the world’s contemporary offerings, showcasing everything from a 6.8-metre thumb to the tiniest of swimming pools. Whether you prefer your art overwhelming or easily digestible, here’s our selection of 10 works you won’t be able to miss, or won’t want to.

The biggest

Really Good, 2016

Credit: David Shrigley

Known for works of biting social commentary, British artist David Shrigley created this 6.8-metre thumbs-up in the wake of the Brexit vote. When it was unveiled on the fourth plinth of London’s Trafalgar Square in 2016, observers were divided over what he was getting at. Did this misshapen digit really mean that Britain’s future was on the up, or was something more acerbic being said? Melburnians can be the judge when it parks itself outside the NGV water wall next month.

I LOVE YOU EARTH, 2021

Credit: George Darrell

As art celebrities go, they don’t come much bigger than Yoko Ono, and her “message to Melbourne”, will be projected, billboard-style, onto Roy Grounds’ fortress-like NGV facade. The pioneering 90-year-old artist might now be living the quiet life in upstate New York, but she’ll bring some counter-cultural kudos to St Kilda Road come December 3.

Mun-dirra

Credit: Renae Saxby

From closer to home comes this 100-metre fish fence, the largest woven artwork ever produced in Australia. It was made by 10 artists and their apprentices in the community of Maningrida in Arnhem Land. Woven over 18 months from nearby jungle vine, the multi-panel artwork invites visitors to learn more about Yolngu culture.

Megacities

Credit: Mas Agung Wilis Yudha Baskoro

Covering a combined population of more than 100 million people, this ambitious photographic survey captures the street life of 10 megacities (defined as those with populations exceeding 10 million). Ten street photographers captured their fellow citizens as they navigated the crowds, either squashed inside a train carriage, praying en masse, or selling vegetables on a disused train track. More than 500 images will transport Melburnians to cities including Cairo, Mexico City, Tokyo and Seoul. Our hometown will feel positively modest in comparison.

All In, 2021 and Reaching Out, 2020

Thomas J.Price, Reaching Out, 2020 (detail).Credit: Damian Griffiths

These 3.65-metre sculptures by British artist Thomas J. Price tackle issues of identity, representation and power. His bronze figures – one a young man with hands in pockets, the other a woman transfixed by her mobile phone – look familiar enough, but their size challenges the viewer to look anew. Price elevates the ordinary and defies the traditions of statuary in which predominantly male white figures are given (often misplaced) heroic status. As one observer noted: “When he asks in his sculptures ‘What if, instead of celebrating excellence, we acknowledge the ordinary?’ he turns the grand gesture of the monument on its head.”

The smallest

Private Waters, 2020

Credit: Courtesy of Nazgol Ansarinia

Nazgol Ansarinia’s 3D-printed resin objects are exquisite tiny replicas of 52 private swimming pools built in her home town of Tehran during the late 1960s. Installed during a now-distant era of optimism, when Iranians looked to the West, the pools were drained and discarded following the 1979 revolution that introduced strict modesty laws which still hobble the lives of women in particular. Don’t expect your garden-variety round or rectangular versions here: these jewel-like replicas come in intriguing shapes and stand as potent symbols of lingering resistance.

Comedian, 2019

Credit: Zeno Zotti

Consisting of nothing more remarkable than a banana and duct tape, Maurizio Cattelan’s Triennial offering is bound to be a crowd magnet. You can hear the anti-art wits now, decrying the fact that their kids could do that (and possibly have). Mercifully, the banana will be changed every three to five days, which is more than can be said for attitudes to contemporary art.

Ceramic hamburger

Credit: Courtesy of Song Wei

As burgers go, they are super-sized whoppers, but at 23cm x 23cm, Song Wei’s intricately patterned ceramic sculptures offer snack-sized art with some big questions to digest. Decorated with traditional Chinese motifs, the burgers capture the clash between tradition and Western influences, and convey the artist’s uneasy sense of being caught between two worlds.

Free Radicals, 2020

Credit: Carolyn Lazard

Big questions are also raised in this dust-filled hourglass by American artist Carolyn Lazard. Filled on both sides with granite dust from a quarry in Pennsylvania, Lazard’s hourglasses offer a powerful statement about environmental racism, as neighbouring communities, primarily inhabited by people of colour, literally have their breath stolen away. Lazard draws on personal experience of chronic illness to explore the minefields of race, gender and disability.

The end, 2020

Credit: George Darrell

Traditionalists might be alarmed by the sight of Ryan Gander’s animatronic mouse breaking through the gallery wall, but the accompanying audio is charming and thought-provoking enough to forgive the intrusion. The mouse’s philosophical narrative, voiced by Gander’s young daughter, poses simple questions about humanity’s most pressing problems. Not only is this one of the smallest exhibits in the show, we’re already calling it as the cutest.

Triennial is at NGV International, December 3 - April 7, free entry. ngv.vic.gov.au

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