Given that a good percentage of the world’s population are trapped in their homes right now, walking into an art gallery seems to be an impossible dream. Thanks to the efforts of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) though, you can now be a connoisseur of the arts from the comfort of your quarantined home.

With the gallery temporally closed, NGV have opened their State Collection to the public in a digital program. Offering virtual tours, online collection galleries, eBooks and activities for children on the NGV website and across its social media channels. New content is promised regularly with deeper insights into the collection and displays each week.

‘This is a wonderful initiative from the NGV, connecting people to their community and the wider creative world at a time where so many feel isolated. While the NGV is temporarily closed to the public, this is a fantastic opportunity to show support to our world leading creative and cultural agencies and interact with the NGV’s extraordinary state collection,’ said Minister for Creative Industries, Martin Foley MP.

It is the result of a six-year digitisation project, which have allowed the majority of their collection to be viewed online. With over 75,000 works available, there is actually more of the Collection now online than would be on display at any given time to audiences physically attending the gallery. So now thanks to social distancing, you actually get to see more of what NGV has to offer, who’d have guessed?

NGV eBooks and curatorial essays to offer in-depth insight into the Collection have been made available. Recently published, free online texts include a Collecting Comme eBook and illustrated essays focused on the practice of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, the 2019 Architecture Commission In Absence by Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office, and the Collection-based exhibition; Japanese Modernism.

Virtual tours are being provided with guided tours of current exhibitions – beginning with tours of the Comme des Garçons exhibition, Collecting Comme, and NGV Indigenous Art collection exhibition, Marking Time. Viewers will be able to zoom in close to art works, as well as having the luxury of new tours and videos being offered regularly during the temporary Gallery closure, letting you virtually ‘walk’ through the Collection anytime, anywhere (though ideally staying safe in your own home).   

‘In these challenging times art has an important role to play in offering solace and inspiration. With over 90% of the NGV Collection available online and a host of content produced specially for this period, the Gallery remains accessible even while our doors are temporarily closed. We encourage people to continue to explore and enjoy the NGV Collection from home’ said Tony Ellwood AM, Director, National Gallery of Victoria.

You can explore the collection right here at this site.

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