Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Encyclopedia
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The gallery is located on Sturt Street in the Melbourne Arts Precinct
Melbourne Arts Precinct
The Melbourne Arts Precinct is a series of galleries, performing arts venues and spaces in Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia. The precinct is situated less than 1 km from the Melbourne city centre in Southbank and is centred around, and near, St Kilda Road...
, in the inner suburb of Southbank
Southbank, Victoria
Southbank is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia located direct south of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne's Hoddle Grid. The northernmost area is considered part of the Central Business District and Central Activities District of the city. Its Local Government Area are the...
.
The ACCA is housed in a distinctive brown metallic building (made of COR-TEN
Cor-ten
Weathering steel, best-known under the trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as "Corten steel", is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance if exposed to the weather for several years.United...
weathering steel) designed by Melbourne architects Wood Marsh
Wood Marsh
Wood Marsh Pty Ltd Architecture is a Melbourne based Australian architectural practice founded by Roger Wood and Randal Marsh in 1983. Their design aesthetic and approach is often based on the sculptural form, a sense of drama, spatial arrangements, mood, and three-dimensional design...
. The building has won Australian architectural awards for its monolithic sculptural form and has been compared to a Sandcrawler from Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
. The interior has vast spaces with the capacity to display a variety of works.
The adjacent Malthouse Theatre shares a courtyard and is a venue for contemporary performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
. The combined complex goes by the name of Ngargee, which is a Bunurong
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
- that is, local Aboriginal tribe and guardians - word describing gathering for celebration.