10 memorable Watermall projects

We look back at all the Queensland Art Gallery’s Watermall installations from 1993 — ten memorable Asia Pacific artist projects encompassing almost three decades.  The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) was designed around the Brisbane River and the Watermall within the Gallery runs parallel to the waterway threading its way through the river city. This grand…

Go behind-the-scenes with our time-lapse videos

Have you ever been to an exhibition at QAGOMA and walked away wanting to know more — for example — how did Qiu Zhijie create his enormous five-storey wall painting Map of Technological Ethics for ‘APT9’; alternatively, what did Ben Quilty use to create a series of site-specific, hand-drawn portraits of Margaret Olley — (teapots,…

Commissioning ‘Heritage’: An installation by Cai Guo-Qiang

Over a period of six years from 2008, QAGOMA and New York-based Chinese artist Cai Guo- Qiang developed and realised the spectacular and meditative art installation Heritage 2013 — a beautiful, thought-provoking vision of our relationship with the earth and with each other. A highly collaborative undertaking, the artwork comprises 99 life-sized imitation animals from…

2013: GOMA turns 10 countdown

With GOMA turning 10 in just a couple of weeks, we look back at one of the most dramatic exhibitions held at GOMA. ‘Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth’ (23 November 2013 – 11 May 2014) showcased major new works by a global artist whose large-scale installations and explosion events have made him one of…

How did the tree get into GOMA?

While developing his exhibition ‘Falling Back to Earth’ at the Gallery of Modern Art, Cai Guo-Qiang undertook a series of research visits to locations around Queensland. On one of these trips, Cai, his family, and Cai Studio manager Kelly Ma took a tour of Lamington National Park, near the Queensland/New South Wales border. This extraordinary…

Cai Guo-Qiang ‘Heritage’ inspired by Queensland’s North Stradbroke Island

The major installation work Heritage, a ‘last paradise’ inspired by Queensland’s North Stradbroke Island, moves visitors with the symbolism behind the work. On first encountering Cai Guo-Qiang’s 2013 installation, many visitors gasp in awe and surprise, a visceral response that is at once sensory and emotional. While many contemporary works of art evoke a sense…