In January 2024, leading British artist David Shrigley invites visitors to the National Gallery of Victoria to trade their own tennis balls for one of over 8,000 new balls lining the walls of his participatory artwork Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange.
This large-scale and evolving installation at the NGV is making its Australian premiere and is presented as part of the free, late-night NGV Triennial EXTRA program, 19-28 January 2024.
Visitors to Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange have the opportunity to contribute to this ever-changing artwork by exchanging a pre-loved tennis ball for a new one. Shrigley hopes that visitors can consider the joy that can be experienced through trading everyday goods, even when the goods are of equal value.
David Shrigley, Mayfair TennisBall Exchange, 2021. Courtesy David Shrigley and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Max Newson.
A previous presentation of this work Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange premiered in London in 2021 at Stephen Friedman Gallery and saw thousands of people engage with the work over three months.
Of the inspiration behind the work, David Shrigley said: ‘The Tennis Ball Exchange was initially inspired by my dog. She loves tennis balls. Dogs and human beings have different relationships to objects. My dog will fight over a tennis ball at one moment and then be completely uninterested in it the next.
‘When I first made the Tennis Ball Exchange in London I thought that people would bring in soiled tennis balls that their dogs had chewed and replace them with nice new ones. What most people actually did was create an artwork on a tennis ball which they then came and exchanged. So it became a sort of free-for-all open exhibition.’
Installation views: David Shrigley:Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange, solo exhibition, StephenFriedman Gallery, London(2021). Courtesy Stephen FriedmanGallery, London and New York. Photo byMark Blower.
Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange will be a centrepiece of the NGV’s late night Triennial EXTRA festival in January, which unfolds over 10 nights featuring live performance, DJ sets, artist pop-up talks, conversations and other creative activations in response to the works in the exhibition.
Open late to 11.00pm every night 19 – 28 January, the free program presents unique and thought-provoking experiences that explore, reflect and resonate the ideas of international contemporary art and design practitioners in the NGV Triennial exhibition, and the world at large.
IThe NGV Triennial is on display from 3 December 2023 – 7 April 2024 at NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne. Entry is FREE.