Audio Descriptions: Triennial 2020

Hear detailed descriptions of ten artworks from the NGV Triennial 2020 produced in collaboration with Description Victoria.

Each artwork has an audio track with the artwork description plus some factual information. Some artworks also have a second audio track which shares a piece of music or soundscape selected to complement the work.

Click on the images to enlarge them. Image captions are available at the bottom of this page.

ARTWORK 1: ATONG ATEM, MORAYO, 2015

Detailed description:

Related music:
For her Studio series, Triennial artist Atong Atem was inspired by Malian photograher Seydou Keïta, and has selected this piece of instrumental Malian music to accompany Morayo.

Song credit
Dieneba Seck, Edward John Campbell Ashcroft, Paul Jonathan Ivan Vials, ‘An Ga Mali’, released 2019

ARTWORK 2: LEE UFAN, DIALOGUE, 2017

Detailed description:

ARTWORK 3: VICKI WEST, REFLECTION, 2020

Detailed description:

Related music:
Vicki West’s work Reflection also explores Tasmanian Indigenous cultures and histories. To accompany the description of this work, Judith Ryan AM, Senior Curator, Indigenous Art at NGV, selected this piece of music by Peter Sculthorpe, which relates to an episode in Tasmanian history where colonial soldiers forced sixteen people to jump off a cliff at Quamby Bluff.

Song credit
Peter Sculthorpe, performed by Del Sol Quartet and Stephen Kent ‘String Quartet No.14, Quamby I. Prelude’, released 2014 Courtesy of Sono Luminus

ARTWORK 4: PIERRE MUKEBA, IMPARTIALITY, 2018

Detailed description:

ARTWORK 5: TALIN HAZBAR, ACCRETIONS 1-5, 2020

Detailed description:

Related music:
Artist Talin Hazbar selected this piece of music for its communication of suspended time and space, and the constant minute change of underwater life and creation.

Song credit
Nicolas Boscovic and Tom Hillock ‘Clockwise’, released 2019

ARTWORK 6: KENGO KUMA & ASSOCIATES, BOTANICAL PAVILION, 2020

Detailed description:

Related music:
This piece, playing in the Botanical pavilion, weaves layers of recordings from the bamboo garden in the Royal Botanical Gardens. As artist Geoff Ness describes, ‘the timber used in the Pavilion was collected from the gardens during the Millennium Drought, so the sounds of rain and thunder could be read symbolically as the breaking of the drought, sounds of hope’.

Song credit
J. David Franzke

ARTWORK 7: PORKY HEFER, BUTTPUS, 2020

Detailed description:

Related music:
To accompany artist Porky Hefer’s Plastocene – Marine Mutants from a Disposable World, this piece of music featuring percussion, synthesiser and sound effects has been selected for listeners to enjoy.

Song credit
Ian Boddy, ‘Bioluminescence’, released 2019

ARTWORK 8: NARI WARD, LAST WORDS OF JOHN BROWN, 2018

Detailed description:

ARTWORK 9: CECILIE BENDIXEN, CLOUD FORMATIONS, 2020

Detailed description:

Related music:
Artist Cecilie Bendixen selected this piece of music for its minimalistic nature. Clouds are forms generated from a system of actions, something similar can be said about minimalistic music.

Song credit
Sam Cleeve, ‘Endless Light’, licensed 2021

ARTWORK 10: DHAMBIT MUNUNGGURR, BEES AT GÄṈGÄN, 2019

Detailed description:

Song credit
‘Desert at Night’, field recording, Northern Territory, Australia, 2011

Artwork number 1: Atong Atem Morayo 2015, printed 2019 from the Studio series 2015, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2019 © Atong Atem

Artwork number 2: Lee Ufan Dialogue 2017, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Andrew and Judy Rogers and Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest, 2020 © Lee Ufan, courtesy Pace Gallery, New York

Artwork number 3: Vicki West Reflection 2020 (detail), Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Nick Allen and Helen Nicolay and donors to the NGV Annual Appeal 2020. © Vicki West / Photo: Chris Flood

Artwork number 4: Pierre Mukeba Impartiality 2018, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Anne Ross, 2020 © Pierre Mukeba, courtesy of GAGPROJECTS

Artwork number 5: NGV Triennial 2020 installation view of Talin Hazbar Accretions #1-5 2020 Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Proposed acquisition with funds donated by Gordon Moffatt AM, 2020 © Talin Hazbar. Photo: Sean Fennessy

Artwork number 6: NGV Triennial 2020 installation view of Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tokyo and Paris (architecture studio); Kengo Kuma (designer); Geoff Nees (artist) Botanical pavilion 2020, Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Proposed acquisition with funds donated by Connie Kimberley and Craig Kimberley OAM, 2020 © Kengo Kuma and Geoff Nees. Photo: Tom Ross

Artwork number 7: NGV Triennial 2020 installation view of Porky Hefer’s Plastocene – Marine Mutants from a Disposable World series 2020, Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Proposed acquisition with funds donated by Barry Janes and Paul Cross, Neville and Diana Bertalli, 2020 © Porky Hefer. Photo: Sean Fennessy

Artwork number 8: Nari Ward Last words of John Brown (red version) 2018, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Barry Janes & Paul Cross, 2019 © Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul

Artwork number 9: NGV Triennial 2020 installation view of Cecilie Bendixen’s Cloud Formations collection 2020, Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Proposed acquisition with funds donated by Neilson Foundation,

Artwork number 10: Dhambit Munuŋgurr Bees at Gäṉgän 2019, Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds supported by the Orloff Family Charitable Trust, 2020 © Dhambit Munuŋgurr, courtesy Salon Indigenous Art Projects, Darwin

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