This summer, visitors to Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) will cross a vast riverbed landscape created from over 100 tonnes of rock, when the major themed exhibition ‘Water’ opens from 7 December.

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said Riverbed 2014 was an ambitious work by internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson that would radically transform the ground floor gallery spaces.

‘Evoking a pre-historic or post-apocalyptic landscape, the monumental site-specific installation has to be seen to be believed. It’s being presented for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere here at GOMA having only previously been shown at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark,’ Mr Saines said.

‘We invite everyone to GOMA this summer to experience this vast landscape of rocks and streaming water, a contemporary work that will take us on a journey and ask us to slow down and contemplate our place in the world.

‘We are thrilled to be showing Riverbed here in Brisbane, at the same time as Olafur Eliasson’s career survey continues at the Tate Modern until early January 2020,’ Mr Saines said.

Minister for Environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Minister for Science and Minister for the Arts Leeanne Enoch said ‘Water’ would feature more than 40 works by leading international and Australian artists.

‘It promises to be a fascinating and timely exhibition that examines the significance of one of life’s most vital elements,’ Minister Enoch said.

‘The artworks featured in ‘Water’ will make connections with many of the major environmental and social challenges faced by the world today.’

Tourism Industry Development Minister Kate Jones said ‘Water’was a must-see exhibition for anyone travelling to Queensland this summer.

‘This exhibition is a one-of-a-kind cultural experience that will demonstrate exactly why we are investing in unique events for Queensland,’ Ms Jones said.

QAGOMA’s Curatorial Manager, International Art and curator of the exhibition Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow said the exhibition explored the cultural, ecological and political significance of water.

'Occupying the entire ground floor of GOMA, ‘Water’ features among its many highlights a major interactive sculpture titled TheFact of Matter by leading US choreographer and artist William Forsythe,’ Ms Barlow said.

‘As we seek new ways to navigate rising tidelines, Forsythe’s installation, a cloud of suspended gymnastic rings, asks visitors to consider the weight and strength of their body as they lift themselves up above the ground to traverse the space. We evolved from water to breathe air, now we must find new ways to look out for each other, new ways to move and work together to meet the challenge of climate change.’

Also featured is Cai Guo-Qiang’s memorable, much-loved installation Heritage. Inspired by the clear blue lakes of Queensland’s Stradbroke Island, the work will appear in a new arrangement of more than 40 life-size animals drinking around a bright blue waterhole.

Known for the liquid beauty of her expansive canvases, Queensland artist Judy Watson, will create a major new work reflecting on the cultural memory of water including the adjacent Maiwar (Brisbane River).

‘Water’ is exclusive to Queensland and will be accompanied by an Up Late program, artist talks, panel discussions and more.

OLAFUR ELIASSON (B.1967)
Based in Berlin, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large. He is interested in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self. Art, for him, is a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world. Eliasson’s work spans sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installation. Not limited to the confines of the museum and gallery, his practice engages the broader public sphere through architectural projects, interventions in civic space, arts education, policy-making, and issues of sustainability and climate change.