Traversing Chinese philosophies, spiritual beliefs, associations with nature, art practices, use of materials and social and political movements, China – The Past Is Present emphasises the legacy of Chinese cultural…

In 2011 Robbert Roos, Director of the Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, commissioned Dutch architect Florian Idenburg and Chinese architect Jing Liu of New York—based practice SO – IL…

In this intimate garden scene, a pair of sparrows, harbingers of good fortune, chatter among tall plants.

Lacquer, a tree sap from the Chinese lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum) species, is processed and pigmented with ground cinnabar, a red mercury sulphide pigment of which vermillion is the human-made…

Handmade by artist Sheila Hicks’s small studio in Paris, Nowhere to go, 2022, is nonetheless epic in scal

One of a series of essays featuring the answers to questions posed to artists participating in the Megacities project of NGV Triennial 2023 In this third decade of the twenty-first…

Art Nouveau is a decorative style that thrived  between 1890 and 1914 throughout Europe and the United States

Melbourne-based artist Rel Pham’s TEMPLE, 2022–23, is an installation exploring, recontextualising, and evaluating the contemporary digital experience using Caodaist, Buddhist, and Taoist concepts and structu

‘To write a good story, you have to bleed a littl

Popular during Japan’s Edo period (1600–1868), erotic shunga (春画; literally ‘spring’ pictures) served a range of purposes, from art and entertainment to self-pleasure aids and sex-educational material for young cou

From the sixteenth century onwards, global trade transformed the market for luxury goods in Europe.

Technical analysis of maiolica in the NGV Collection At first glance these maiolica wares, beautifully decorated plates and jugs from centuries ago, appear deceptively simple in design and solidly sound….

An understanding of materials, how to source them, use them and even create them is a defining characteristic of the human species.

The colour blue is dominant in the work of Yolŋu artist Dhambit Munuŋggurr, who first discovered the hue in 2005, when she was left wheelchair bound after a car accident…

Writer and curator Justin McGuirk investigates the complex Triennial commission Ore streams, 2016–17, by Amsterdam-based design duo Formafantasm