OBSERVER: The Arts with Peter Kemp
YAYOI KUSAMA RETROSPECTIVE AT NGV
Yayoi Kusama
From polka dots to pumpkins and more: Australia’s largest Yayoi Kusama retrospective exhibition opens exclusively in Melbourne with new, world-premiere work.
The NGV celebrates the illustrious career of iconic artist Yayoi Kusama with a world-premiere blockbuster exhibition spanning her eight-decade practice, including the global unveiling of the artists most recent immersive mirror room work.
Curated by the NGV especially for Australian audiences, the exhibition Yayoi Kusama features 200 works, including many never-before-seen in Australia and a record breaking number of the artist’s showstopping immersive works.
Displayed across the entire ground floor of NGV International, Yayoi is one of the most comprehensive retrospective exhibitions of the artist’s work ever presented globally and the largest ever mounted in Australia.
The exhibition also includes the Australian debut of Dancing Pumpkin, a towering five-metre-tall yellow-and-black polka-dot bronze sculpture newly acquired by the NGV.
Conceived by the artist in 2020, Dancing Pumpkin takes her iconic motif to new heights, allowing audiences to walk under the towering sculpture.
The exhibition also features the Australian premiere of The hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe, 2019, which visually entangles viewers within six-metre-high tentacular forms covered in yellow-and-black polka dots.
Another highlight is Narcissus Garden, a new variation of the installation Kusama first presented unofficially at the Venice biennale in 1966. This installation comprises of 1400 stainless silver balls, each 30cm in diameter and presented en masse as visitors enter the Gallery.
As the metallic speres reflect one another, they create an infinitely recurring landscape that envelopes the spectator.
NGV International’s public spaces have also been transformed by Kusama’s signature polka dots, extending the sensory experience of Kusama’s work beyond the exhibition galleries t include a site-specific artwork for the NGV’s iconic waterwall, and Dots Obsession, an installation of enormous, inflated spheres that will float playfully over visitors’ heads in the Great Hall.
Extending Kumasa’s kaleidoscopic worldview beyond the walls of the NGV, Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees envelopes more than 60 plane trees along Melbourne’s iconic grand boulevard St Kilda Road in a pink-and-white polka-dotted artwork.
Exhibition closes April 21.
National Gallery
of Victoria (NGV)
MAPh
Sculpture Park: Renaissance: A Journey of Transformation
Sonia Payes.
In this site-specific installation MAPh’s sculpture park, Sonia Payes embraces the sculptural possibilities of photographic medium. Payne’s interpretation of possible future examines the impact of human intervention on the planet.
These otherworldly and yet familiar landscapes may seem apocalyptic but they illustrate Payes’ unwavering faith in our species capacity to adjust and preserve.
Exhibition closes March.
MAPh
860 Ferntree Gully Rd.
Wheelers Hill
Bunjil Place
May our Frock, greet your Frock – Frock A Whanaungatanga
An exhibition and workshop by legendary Tâgata Moana (People of the Pacific) art collective, the Pacific Sisters.
Bringing to life the artistic traditions of te\he Moana, as you move through the exhibition visitors will encounter nui aitu (new ancestors) avatar adorned in the Sisters’ intricate handmade garments alongside ancestral taonga and measina (treasured cultural items) drawn from collections of Museum Victoria.
Exhibition closes Sunday March 9.
Bunjil Place
2 Patrick Northeast Drive
Narre Warren
OPERA
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Presented by Melbourne Opera.
Billed as the opera event of 2025, Melbourne Opera’s multi-million dollar production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg will see opera lovers converge in Melbourne from February 16 -22.
Audiences will experience a 4.5-hour production of Wagner’s epic – and only – comedy with multiple intervals across the afternoon and evening Themed catering will be available.
Staged at the resplendent world heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Buildings the production comes from the visionary Suzanne Chaundy, the visionary director behind he groundbreaking internationally acclaimed Ring Cycle Cultural Festival in 2023.
Season: February 16 – 22. Venue: Royal Exhibition Buildings Carlton. Time start 3pm. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.
On Friday February 21 there will be a special celebratory Wagnerian dinner on stage. For more details and to book your table, please email info@melbourneopera.com
Peter Kemp