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WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS
Exhibition story

Dawn Ng / Singapore b.1982 / The Earth is an hourglass (still; detail) 2024 / Single-channel 4K video: 38:33 minutes, colour, 16:9 / Installed dimensions variable / Purchased 2024 with funds from the Melbourne Art Foundation and the QAGOMA Art Foundation / © Dawn Ng

‘Worlds within Worlds’ explores how the symbolic and stylistic features of art from the Baroque period (around 1600–1750) have been invoked by contemporary artists, who – like their predecessors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – are reflecting on a world in flux.

These works suggest parallels between Baroque and contemporary artists in their desire to interrogate structures of religion and power, the changing relationship between humans and nature, and ideas of decay and destruction.

'Worlds within Worlds: Baroque Traditions, Contemporary Visions' is on display from March to August 2026 in Gallery 4, QAG. To make the most of your visit, check the exhibition dates, get information on getting here and parking, and find out about Gallery accessibility.

Feature image: Dawn Ng / Singapore b.1982 / The Earth is an hourglass (still; detail) 2024 / Single-channel 4K video: 38:33 minutes, colour, 16:9 / Purchased 2024 with funds from the Melbourne Art Foundation and the QAGOMA Art Foundation / © Dawn Ng

In this still from a three-channel, colour video work, three screens are visible. The central screen shows a young girl, wearing red, reading braille. The left-hand screen shows a detail view of a scroll painting called Early Spring 1072, by renowned Song-dynasty artist Guo Xi. The right-hand screen shows a landscape of tall fir trees and open skies.

CURATOR'S ESSAY
A view of gallery visitors walking through an installation that takes the form of transparent black columns, which are made of the tape from inside video casettes.

LIST OF WORKS
In this towering, two-metre-tall oil painting, Tintoretto depicts Christ rising from the grave, illuminated by a rising sun. Christ carries a red-and-white banner in his left hand, while his right hand delivers a gesture of blessing or benediction to the awakening soldier positioned below. In its original church setting – likely as an altarpiece placed high above churchgoers – the foreshortened figure of Christ would have delivered an even more dramatic sense of the miracle of life defeating death.

Introducing 'Worlds within Worlds'
A black-and-white photograph of a shabby-looking dinosaur statue installed in a garden space

Explore Baroque themes
This portrait-oriented, black-and-white photograph depicts an unmade bed, with its white sheets rumpled. Two small tangled, wiry objects are visible on the flat on the fitted sheet.

Baroque symbolism, drama and divinity