The 2026 NGV Triennial opens in Melbourne this December

Featuring more than eighty projects — including major new commissions — the exhibition brings together artists and designers from across the globe alongside emerging voices, spanning painting, video, sculpture, installation, fashion, textiles, ceramics and design. Works are presented in dialogue with the NGV’s own historical collections, creating a conversation between the contemporary and the canonical.

Transformation is the organising impulse of this edition: material, cultural, technological, personal, political and societal change. The exhibition frames the present as a site of continuous flux, inviting audiences to slow down and look more carefully.

The artist and designer list is expansive and genuinely international. Among those represented are Jenny Holzer, Wolfgang Tillmans, Zanele Muholi, Kiki Smith, Sarah Sze, Nicolas Party, Rineke Dijkstra, Kent Monkman and Wu Tsang. Australian and Pacific voices feature prominently, with works by Christian Thompson, Tai Snaith, Louise Paramor, Lonnie Hutchinson, Tui Emma Gillies and Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows among those included.

The Triennial has established itself since its 2017 debut as one of the most significant recurring survey exhibitions in the Asia-Pacific — a large-scale, accessible platform for contemporary practice that draws audiences well beyond the usual gallery-going public. This fourth edition continues that ambition.

The 2026 NGV Triennial is on show at NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Naarm/Melbourne, from 13 December 2026. Free entry.