Visit your favourite museums and galleries around the world via virtual tours
Pretty much everything may be shut down due to COVID-19, but many museums and galleries are open for virtual business, and you’ll be helping some famous cultural institutions in the process.
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All major public venues around the world have closed but that doesn’t mean we can’t get our culture fix.
Art museums and galleries internationally, like theatres and concert houses, are trying to stay relevant and accessible through their online and virtual offerings while they wait out the crisis.
Australia’s world-famous Sydney Opera House is among the latest to take the step, announcing a remote schedule.
Here’s a handy guide to seeing the true wonders of the art world (including the best Down Under) from the comfort of your own home. Tell us which ones you rate.
Guggenheim, Bilbao
Frank Gehry’s sculptured titanium and steel building, on the banks of the Nervión River, is one of the world’s most distinctive art spaces. The gallery has an interactive tour that takes viewers around its collection of post-war American and European painting and sculpture – Rothko, Holzer, Koons, Kapoor and others. You may not be able to travel to Bilbao in Spain’s Basque Country right now but that doesn’t mean you can’t still visit the gallery.
Guggenheim-bilbao.eus
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Amsterdam’s van Gogh Museum is home to the largest collection of the artist’s work in the world, including more than 200 paintings, 500 drawings and 750 letters. You can visit the museum right now via the Google Arts & Culture virtual tour. And yes, you will see Sunflowers and many other favourites – still life pieces, landscapes and other work. Taking the virtual tour you can move around at your own pace, then zoom in to see the detail and read the accompanying descriptive plaques. The museum also has its own YouTube tour with the first part just released and more instalments to come.
vangoghmuseum.nl/en
MoMA, New York
Founded in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art was the first museum dedicated to collecting and presenting art from the modern era. The institution’s holdings showcase some of contemporary art history’s most famous paintings, from the likes of van Gogh and Picasso. Again Google Arts & Culture will take you on a virtual tour but only presents 129 artworks, but they are some of the world’s most notable, including Henri Rousseau’s The Dream, van Gogh’s The Starry Night, and Cézanne’s The Bather. There’s plenty more art to ogle on the website.
moma.org
The Louvre, Paris
Nothing really compares to visiting The Louvre and standing in front of the Mona Lisa yourself, regarding the Leonardo da Vinci-painted artwork’s enigmatic smile. Mind you, you have to fight the crowds. The Parisian venue isn’t even bothering to make its most famous possession available online because it has to hold something back for visitors when it reopens. In the meantime you can wander virtually around parts of the former fortress turned museum from your home. Via its virtual options you can check out the remains of the landmark’s old moat, then enjoy a wander through other medieval remnants. And you can take a gander at the impressive Egyptian Antiquities collection, which starts with a sphinx, as it should.
louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
It’s one of our most stunning galleries and has a range of virtual offerings featuring tours of exhibitions and a collection featuring a whopping 75,000 pieces. You may not be able to visit right now but go online and you’ll feel like you are really there. Visit the NGV Channel on the gallery’s website and take a virtual tour of the gallery or any exhibitions that take your fancy.
ngv.vic.gov.au
Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle
Recorded in January 2018, the exhibitions PAINTING MEMORY: From the Collection and EVERYTHING CHANGES: Tim Maguire 2002-2017 are already documented in a 3D showcase of the gallery building, recording some of the gallery’s most iconic art works from a very respectable collection. That’s handy. As an interactive and educational resource it’s valuable and can now be enjoyed by everyone despite the gallery’s closure. Works of art in the virtual display include pieces by William Dobell, Margaret Olley, John Olden and Brett Whiteley.
nag.org.au
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The NGA is developing a suite of digital content to keep its community in Australia and across the globe engage with our national collection and current exhibitions. National Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich says now, more than ever, we need art to inspire us, to provide relief and help see the world in new ways.
“Now, when the simple act of people coming together is difficult, we will develop new digital pathways to share our exhibitions and the national collection, engage our audiences both young and old, and inspire people to be creative,” he said. “We can’t just be a gallery in Canberra, we need to be a gallery for the nation and beyond.”
So the NGA is developing online tours of some current exhibitions, as well as highlights from the national collection. It will also have new ways for audiences to interact with its collection on its social media channels.
The Gallery will also profile and develop new resources and activities for educators and families to use at home to support kids and students of all ages.
In addition, much of the Gallery’s national collection of around 160,000 works of art is available to explore online.
The NGA also plans to launch a new digital collection access tool in coming weeks that will expand access for online visitors and give the public a new way of searching the national collection.
nga.gov.au
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
QAGOMA audiences can stay connected and inspired at #homewithQAGOMA on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and via regular blog posts. QAGOMA has produced a video of Mavis Ngallametta: Show Me the Way to Go Home, the gallery’s stunning current major exhibition.
The video will be accessible via YouTube and you can link to other videos including one featuring exhibition co-curator, Katina Davidson, sharing some artwork highlights.
Deanna Borland-Sentinella (performer, improviser and Artistic Director of D:Create) is doing her ‘Planet Protector!’ tour for kids inside the Water exhibition at GOMA. This content will be available exclusively on the QAGOMA YouTube channel. On Borland-Setinella’s virtual tour kids and families, audiences can discover how artists have been inspired by the environment and learn how we can work together to protect our planet.
There will be more developments in the digital space in coming weeks so stay tuned to the website. Of course you can also browse through the collection online any time as a pleasant diversion.
qagoma.qld.gov.au
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
You can connect with a range of current digital offerings all accessible via this major contemporary art gallery’s website. You will find interviews with artists including Shaun Gladwell, Janet Laurence and John Mawurndjul. MCA’s blog Stories and Ideas has a range of curatorial essays and conversations and video content including artist interviews from exhibitions such as recent Sydney International Arts Series Cornelia Parker and The National 2019.
MCA’s mobile phone app mca.art allows you to see what is currently on display including the Biennale of Sydney exhibition, you can see the artists and their works plus there is a short introduction by the artistic director Brook Andrew.
mca.com.au
Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), Hobart
Everyone’s favourite gallery may be closed but it’s business as usual for Tattoo Tim, Mona’s human artwork who is still sitting in the closed gallery. Tim is a live human artwork devised by Wim Delvoye, the Belgian artist famous as the creator of Mona’s poo machine artwork, Cloaca Professional. You can watch Tim live streamed at mona.net.au/tim and on YouTube
Tim has sat at Mona for over 3,500 hours since 2011. There’s also a film about him on the Mona website.
Tim will be at Mona from 10am until 4:30pm daily, with the live stream continuous during those hours, though he might nip off for a bathroom break occasionally. There are other films and works from the collection available online too. Tassie here we come! Virtually speaking.
mona.net.au
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is offering filmed experiences of current exhibitions including 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, Shadow catchers, Under the Stars and ARTEXPRESS 2020. The Gallery has also been a partner of Google Arts and Culture since 2012, which makes a selection of our digitised collection available to an international audience. The Gallery’s website offers Art Sets, which enable visitors to bring together material from across the Gallery’s website – for themselves or to share – and organise it on a personalised page. Visitors can select artworks, as well as artist profiles, video, audio, and add their own images and commentary.
The Gallery has additional online offerings, such as a YouTube channel which provides audiences with videos about exhibitions, public talks and programs, art and artists and more.
artgallery.nsw.gov.au
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
The Art Gallery of Western Australia will continue to share its collection and exhibitions online with #agwayourway. The gallery has more than 17,500 works in its collection so that should keep you busy for a while.
artgallery.wa.gov.au
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