A trio of finger-painting robotic dogs will share star billing with conceptual artist Yoko Ono, iconic fashion house Schiaparelli and British art heavyweight Tracey Emin in the third iteration of NGV Triennial, the National Gallery of Victoria's behemoth exhibition of contemporary international art and design, opening in December.
Featuring more than 100 artists, and free to the public, the exhibition will take over the entire NGV International building — including the facade, which will feature a large text-based work by Ono, in the form of a question for Melburnians.
Inside the gallery, three robo-dogs — designed by Boston Dynamics for industrial applications such as data collection, and subsequently trialled, controversially, in law enforcement — will take up residence in a purpose-built art studio, where they will paint every day for the duration of the Triennial.
The instigator of the project, US-based Polish artist Agnieszka Pilat, says robots aren't coming for our art just yet. While the dogs use AI to operate within their surroundings, their creative capacity is limited: "I'm very directly telling the robot what to do and how to operate.
"There's a lot of anxiety about AI and robotics, and I want to show that actually in human years, these robots are young children, and they're silly," Pilat says, likening the dogs' work to a child's finger painting.
"I think it's artists' responsibility [to engage with new technology], and we have the ability to play on a much smaller scale before something becomes global."
Pilat's project is perhaps the perfect headliner for NGV Triennial: a marriage of art and design that grapples with the tech future.
It's one of 25 world premiere projects commissioned specially for the exhibition, sitting within a larger program of new and recent works, subdivided into three loose themes: Magic, Matter and Memory.
The line-up of artists, spanning more than 30 countries, is eclectic: Big names such as UK satirist David Shrigley sit alongside emerging artists; British art world heavyweights Tracey Emin and Yinka Shonibare rub shoulders with drag luminary Raja Gemini (of RuPaul's Drag Race fame) and instafamous creators such as Australian performer Smac McCreanor; textile artists and painters mix it up with animators and product designers.
"That false distinction between art, craft and design is something that we want to challenge throughout the Triennial," says Myles Russell-Cook, NGV's senior curator of Australian and First Nations art.
Russell-Cook is one of a team of 20 NGV curators who have collaborated on this edition, working across departments and specialisations.
"It's a real all hands on deck [situation] — any idea is a good idea … And I think the result is, you get really exciting innovations that you wouldn't get otherwise," he says.
Russell-Cook has led one of the major new commissions: a 100-metre long woven "fish fence" made by women artists from Maningrida, Arnhem Land.
Inspired by fish traps common to the area, Mun-dirra will be presented in a maze-like formation, through which audiences can walk.
"It's a beautiful celebration of women's practice and the matrilineal knowledge transfer that takes place in western Arnhem Land, through weaving: the passing down of stories; the passing down of techniques; the passing down of the magical recipes that go into creating the beautiful dyes," says Russell-Cook.
Textiles are the stars of this Triennial: Another major new commission is a 40-metre-long tapestry by Mexican product designer Fernando Laposse, who works with Indigenous artisans and materials such as sisal and corn leaves.
Modelled on the narrative-led Bayeux Tapestry, Laposse's work will tell the story of avocado production in Mexico: a battle between crime cartels and local militia led by women.
"There's quite a lot [of works] in the show around plants, trees, and the more-than-human world view," says Ewan McEoin, NGV's senior curator of contemporary art, design and architecture.
Other textile highlights include a colourful installation of massive fabric boulders by Paris-based senior US artist Sheila Hicks, and an allegorical woven work by mid-career US artist Diedrick Brackens.
McEoin says this year's Triennial is more "tactile" and focused on "material cultures" (as opposed to digital works) compared to previous editions, reflecting a general shift in artists and audiences in the wake of COVID.
"[There has been] a reappraisal of what was important or fundamental, and the return to things that are very tangible and physical was a consequence of that — a sort of refocusing on things that might be seen as being more traditional," he explains.
"Maybe it's [part of a] yearning for a simpler time [and] a slowing down — we all slowed down. But also, I do think there was a very strong sense of our relationship to nature as a human species [as a result of the pandemic]."
NGV Triennial will open December 3 at NGV International, Melbourne.
