Making Worlds

Reena Saini Kallat Woven chronicle 2018 (detail), Art Gallery of New South Wales © Reena Saini Kallat
A display of contemporary art from across the globe from the Art Gallery’s collection
Making Worlds
Art Gallery of New South Wales
North Building
Lower level 1
Kimsooja’s monumental work Archive of mind forms the centrepiece of Making Worlds, featured in the large column-free gallery on lower level 1 of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new North Building.
This is the first time that Kimsooja’s participatory installation will be on display in Australia. Visitors are invited to collaborate in the creation of clay spheres.
Amassed together, these spheres form a gestural echo of the way in which artists create diverse new worlds. This echo reverberates throughout the exhibition, where ideas of mapping, creation, connection and the passing of time further bind the art on display.
At the threshold to the gallery, viewers are welcomed by a timely reinstallation of Ugo Rondinone’s newspaper-and-mirror installation clockwork for oracles 2010, while within the display Gail Mabo’s Tagai 2020 joins works by Reena Saini Kallat, Shireen Taweel and others which offer new maps of contemporary realities.
Occupying the eastern end of the building, and with vistas over inner-city Woolloomooloo and Sydney Harbour, Making Worlds brings together new acquisitions with existing highlights from the Art Gallery’s collection, including works by Nina Chanel Abney, Atong Atem, Koo Bohnchang, Lubna Chowdhary, Mikala Dwyer, Mira Gojak, Anish Kapoor, Tom Polo, Angela Tiatia and Cy Twombly.

Installation view of Making Worlds, featuring Kimsooja Archive of mind 2016–ongoing © Kimsooja, photo © Brett Hemmings