Celebrating the Asia Pacific Triennial from 1993 to 2024

Thu 17 Oct 2024

For more than three decades, the much-anticipated, home-grown exhibition — The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art — has showcased an evolving mix of the most exciting and important developments in contemporary art from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific. It’s been instrumental to shaping the Gallery and Brisbane’s identity and global prominence.

As our team prepare for the 11th chapter of QAGOMA’s flagship exhibition series opening Saturday 30 November 2024 across the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, we share 11 Triennial highlights.

#1

The inaugural Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 1993 was the first project of its kind in the world to focus on the contemporary art of Asia and the Pacific. In undertaking the Triennial, the Gallery recognised the need for an ongoing series of exhibitions and forums which initiated dialogue on the art of this important geo-political region.

Among the most memorable contributions to the first Triennial, Japanese artist Shigeo Toya’s Woods III (illustrated) became one of the first large-scale installations to enter the Gallery’s Collection. Whether you’re reconnecting with the work or it’s going to be your first time, experience walking among the 30 elaborately carved tree trunks at the Queensland Art Gallery until 27 January 2024.

#2

The number of artists and collectives involved since the first Triennial is now over 840, including 70 joining us for the 11th Triennial with the latest Queensland Art Gallery Watermall installation by Thai artist Mit Jai Inn (illustrated).

#3

The number of artworks shown since the first Triennial stretches to more than 3000.

In the third Triennial, then emerging Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang returned with his narrow bamboo suspension bridge, after also being included in the second chapter. Bridge Crossing (illustrated) spanned the Queensland Art Gallery’s Watermall, enchanting visitors with a spritz of fine mist when they successfully made it past the central point. Cai, now famous for his large-scale installations, gunpowder drawings and explosion events, went on to produce the fireworks for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, before returning to QAGOMA in 2013 with his spectacular installations inspired by the Queensland landscape for the exhibition ‘Falling Back to Earth’.

#4

The Asia Pacific Triennial is built on extensive research and travel by QAGOMA curators, with the process beginning on the next Triennial before the previous one ends. We look at what’s happening across the region, what we want to learn more about, combined with conversations with artists in studios, homes and eateries, locally, in global Asian cities and distant Pacific island archipelagos. The Triennial’s vibrant character is kept current by a remarkable network of personal and professional connections between past and present artists, curators, writers.

#5

Every Triennial has featured artists from contemporary art communities that have not previously been represented in Australia, including from Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Cambodia, Myanmar, North Korea (DPRK), Tibet and Turkey. These are places many of us never get to visit in our lifetime. Continuing the tradition, works by artists from Uzbekistan, Saudia Arabia and Timor-Leste are included for the first time in the 11th Triennial.

The Mansudae Art Studio, an official artist studio in Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK), which employs artists across the disciplines of painting, drawing, embroidery and mosaics, created work specifically for the sixth Triennial in 2009 (illustrated).

#6

Construction of the new Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) began in 2004 and was completed in 2006 for the launch of the ‘The 5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ when Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho’s enormous mural It’s all about the Destiny! Isn’t it? (illustrated) greeted the visitor as they entered GOMA for the first time. Displayed across both Gallery sites, the exhibition was instantly twice the size of its previous incarnations. We were the first Australian state gallery with a second building devoted to contemporary art and GOMA is often cited as a catalyst for a cultural shift in Brisbane and Queensland. The reputation of the Triennial, already successful, was boosted and its attendance shot into the hundreds of thousands.

#7

An overwhelming response to the introduction of Children’s Art Centre programming in 1998 encouraged the Gallery to focus on delivering innovative programs for our youngest visitors. Launched in 1999, the Kids’ Triennial has become a much-anticipated component, since presenting over 80 projects in collaboration with more than 90 artists, including seven for the upcoming 11th chapter.

The installation of renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room (illustrated), the popular children’s project commissioned for the fourth Triennial in 2002, took interactive artwork to a new scale. The gallery space was transformed into a series of domestic-style rooms painted entirely white that were ‘obliterated’ through the application of brightly coloured dot stickers. The installation has had many incarnations since.

#8

Cinema programs exploring the region have made the Triennial a dynamic cross media exhibition. Opening in December 2006 for the fifth Triennial, the Gallery’s Australian Cinémathèque at GOMA has presented over 25 curated programs featuring 1280 feature films, shorts and video artworks during the past six Triennials, with another six curated programs featuring some 100 screenings scheduled for the 11th chapter.

#9

Since 2007, regional Queensland has had a taste of the Triennial too. The Kids on Tour series takes artist-designed activities to young audiences throughout the state, and travelling exhibitions have brought Triennial highlights from the Gallery’s Collection to venues across Queensland. Altogether, 80 000 people have now experienced the Triennial through touring exhibitions and programs.

#10

Contemporary live music has electrified the Asia Pacific Triennial over the years, with performances from musicians as border-defying and genre-bending as the visual artists whose work is on display. From British-Indian producer and tabla player Talvin Singh’s official artist inclusion in 2006 to Syrian electro-folk sensation Omar Souleyman’s raucous Watermall performance in 2012 (illustrated) to Indigenous Australian rapper BARKAA captivating a crowd in 2021, performers from around the world have channelled the energy and joy that activates each edition of the exhibition.

#11

Since the first extraordinary Triennial some 30 years ago, over 1400 artworks shown in the series have been acquired for your Gallery’s Collection. Here are some highlights you might remember; do you have a favourite?

Composed of 270 000 crystal pieces, Boomerang by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is shaped after the iconic Australian Aboriginal throwing tool. For the fifth Triennial in 2006, this oversized, intensely lit, waterfall-style chandelier filled the soaring space above the Queensland Art Gallery’s Watermall, as if it were in a hotel’s grand foyer.

Lightning for Neda by Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was featured in the sixth Triennial in 2009. Its six panels of intricate mirror mosaic — with 4000 shards in each panel — explore the geometric possibilities offered by the hexagon, which represents the six directions of motion (up, down, front, back, right, left) and the six virtues: generosity, self-discipline, patience, determination, insight and compassion.

Aotearoa New Zealand multimedia artist Lisa Reihana’s ambitious 32-minute video work in Pursuit of Venus [infected] showcased for the eighth Triennial in 2015, is a compelling panoramic animation that re-examines the story of Pacific exploration and encounter. This new perspective populates history with living, breathing people and their culture.

Lisa Reihana, Nga Puhi, Ngai Tu, Ngati Hine, New Zealand b.1964 / in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015-17 / Single-channel Ultra HD video: 64 minutes (looped), 7.1 surround sound, colour / Purchased 2015 with funds from the QAGOMA Foundation Appeal and Paul and Susan Taylor / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Lisa Reihana

Among the must-see works of the ninth Triennial in 2019 were the immersive installation and soundscape untitled (giran) 2018 by Australian Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones in collaboration with his long-time mentor Wiradjuri Elder Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM, and the enormous five-storey wall painting Map of Technological Ethics by Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie.

Jones’s large-scale work of almost 2000 hand-made objects reminiscent of a map of intersecting wind currents, evoking birds in flight, explores the Wiradjuri gulbanha (philosophy) of dhawura (wind), while Qiu’s eight-metre heigh, 38-metre long mural on GOMA’s Long Gallery wall depicts an archipelago of moral quandaries in applied science.

Qiu Zhijie, China b.1969 / Map of Technological Ethics 2018 / Synthetic polymer paint / Site-specific wall painting commissioned for ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, Gallery of Modern Art, 2018 / © Qiu Zhijie

Commissioned for the tenth Triennial in 2021, Hawaiian artist Kaili Chun created an elegant installation, Uwē ka lani, Ola ka honua (When the heavens weep, the earth lives), comprising more than 350 stainless-steel cables that imagine rain. Each strand of the installation holds within it a drop-like capsule of water collected by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants from around Australia.

We know so many of you have visited the Asia Pacific Triennial over the past 30 years. When it opens on 30 November 2024, the next chapter will present another incredible opportunity to encounter powerful expressions of the art, culture and experiences of the region.

Curatorial extracts, research and supplementary material compiled by Elliott Murray, Senior Digital Marketing Officer, QAGOMA

Art that takes you places
Asia Pacific Triennial
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025