NGV's inaugural Triennial of contemporary art kicks off next week and is shaping up to be one of the essential art events of the summer, with new works from Japanese installation legend Yayoi Kusama, Chinese couture superstar Guo Pei (whose canary-yellow cape gown won Rihanna the red carpet at the Met Gala in 2015), Japanese collective teamLab and Australian sculptor Ron Mueck. All up there are 100 artists from 32 countries.
But the NGV has just made the program even bigger, with the NGV Triennial EXTRA festival, running from January 19 to 28.
For ten days, culinary rockstar Andrew McConnell, the man behind basically every bucket list restaurant in the city (Cutler and Co, Cumulus Inc and Ricky and Pinky, to name a few) will bring Supernormal to NGV's Garden Restaurant, turning the venue into 'Supernormal Natsu' (natsu is the Japanese word for summer), with a new and exclusive pan-Asian menu. We're talking hand rolled chilled udon noodles with summer herbs and a soft egg (pictured) or a salt water duck dish with pickled peach and mustard oil. You can also get picnic bentos (order the vegetarian or vegan ones in advance) with vegetables, pickles, seaweed salads and savoury dishes.
Parts of the gallery will be open from 6pm until midnight each night of NGV Triennial EXTRA, making this a seriously exciting after-hours arts experience. There'll be DJ sets every night from a massive line-up of musical talents: Miami Horror, Dan Sultan, Regurgitator's Quan Yeomans and Ben Ely, Nina Las Vegas, Eliza Wolfgramm from The Avalanches, Tex Perkins and Midnight Juggernaughts.
There are also performances, readings and talks taking place around the gallery: actors from Bell Shakespeare will be performing bite-sized excerpts of the Bard's work and dancers from Chunky Move will be performing five new works among the art works in the Ron Mueck exhibition on level two. You can "speed date a Muslim" and find out all you wanted from Hana Assafiri and friends about their faith, and hear Alice Pung read from her book Her Father's Daughter, about her relationship with her father, who escaped from the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Read more about the NGV Triennial line-up.