NGV welcomes back the world with a Triennial splash

National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood was not going to let COVID-19 get in the way of this year’s Triennial, which will open next week to spectators.

Model Mikaela Schreuder at the National Gallery of Victoria’s new Triennial exhibition, which will open on December 19. Picture: Aaron Francis

After three years of planning and nearly $10.5m in the making, National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood was not going to let COVID-19 get in the way of this year’s Triennial, which will open next week to spectators but without some of the international artists and designers.

The Melbourne gallery’s second Triennial features works from more than 100 artists and designers from more than 30 countries, an impressive reopening of the international gallery, which has been closed since March.

Mr Ellwood said he was confident the exhibition would have gone ahead even if tough restrictions had continued.

“(Cancelling) was just not an option,” he said.

He said the Triennial was a culmination of years of research into emerging, mid-career and senior artists, many carefully juxtaposed in a nuanced presentation with each other and the NGV’s own collection.

“We’ve never been as ambitious as we have been with this exhibition,” he said.

South African artist Porky Hefer has several works in the exhibition, including an orange octopus made from hand-felted cigarette butts, a marine creature mutated by polluted oceans.

He said he was pleased to know his “children are safe” in the gallery but upset that COVID restrictions prevented him from seeing his works as part of the exhibition.

“I’m so sad, it was one of the moments that I was waiting for, to walk in there and see something completely different,” he said.

“It really is an important part for me to see when people get such pure joy from them. That’s really why I do it, I do it for the reaction.”