Featured Events in Southbank in February, 2025 (May Updated)

Curated by the NGV in collaboration with the artist especially for Australian audiences, the exhibition Yayoi Kusama includes many works never-before-seen by local audiences as well as a diverse display of the artist’s popular immersive rooms, including the global unveiling of the artist’s most recent immersive infinity mirror room work. Comprising more than 180 works, the exhibition is the largest ever exhibition of the artist’s work in Australia and one of the most comprehensive retrospectives of the artist ever presented globally. Featuring painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, video and installation, the exhibition reveals the astonishing breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice. Yayoi Kusama will be displayed across the entire ground floor of NGV International and extend into NGV’s public spaces and the surrounding Melbourne Arts Precinct including NGV’s iconic Waterwall, Great Hall, and Federation Court. A major highlight of the exhibition will be an impressive assembly of Kusama’s iconic immersive installations, including her infinity rooms that ingeniously use mirrors to create the visual illusion of infinite space. A new, never-before-seen kaleidoscopic infinity mirror room, currently in development especially for the exhibition, will make its global premiere in Melbourne. The exhibition also includes the Australian debut of Dancing Pumpkin, a towering 5-metre-tall bronze sculpture newly acquired by the NGV with the support of the Loti and Victor Smorgon fund. Conceived by the artist in 2020, Dancing Pumpkin takes her iconic motif into new and surprising conceptual terrain and allows 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 6 metre-high tentacular forms covered in yellow-and-black polka dots. A further highlight will be the presentation of Narcissus Garden, a new iteration of the installation Kusama first presented unofficially at the Venice Biennale in 1966. This installation comprises 1400 stainless silver balls, each 30cm in diameter and presented en masse as visitors enter the Gallery. The NGV will have an opportunity to acquire this work for its Collection through the 2024 Annual Appeal, which invites philanthropic donations of any size. Our public spaces will also be transformed by Kusama’s signature polka-dots, extending the sensory experience of Kusama’s work beyond the exhibition galleries to include a site-specific artwork for the NGV’s iconic Waterwall and an installation of enormous balloons that will float playfully over visitors’ heads in NGV International’s Great Hall, titled Dots Obsession.

Looking fifty years into the future, Reimagining Birrarung: Design Concepts for 2070 presents a series of provocations for the lands and waters of the Birrarung (Yarra River). Focusing on ecological regeneration, public access and connectivity across the catchment, this exhibition asks what it means to acknowledge a river as a living and integrated natural entity.

Asia TOPA is Australia’s major triennial of Asia-Pacific performance. Asia TOPA returns 20 February – 10 March 2025 with an extraordinary program of new art and performance from across the Asia-Pacific. Every three years, Asia TOPA brings the best of Asia-Pacific arts, culture and ideas to Melbourne for a three-week-long celebration that spotlights our diverse and dynamic region. The 2025 triennial includes breath-taking new work across dance, theatre, music, visual art and beyond, alongside a new nightlife program and opportunities to connect with artists and creative communities. Asia TOPA is a place to connect with our global neighbours, bringing cultural innovators and artistic visionaries from across the Asia-Pacific to our city. The 2025 triennial is led by Creative Director, Jeff Khan and a new team. With a spirit of openness and curiosity, Asia TOPA creates a dynamic space to build connections, exchange bold new ideas and imagine new possibilities for the future. Join us for an unmissable three-week, city-wide adventure of dynamic performances, captivating exhibitions, thought-provoking talks and immersive late-night events that will inspire, surprise and captivate.