GOMA's '21st Century: Art in the First Decade' Surveys Global Contemporary Art

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane, Australia, mounted a landmark exhibition, '21st Century: Art in the First Decade', running from December 18, 2010, to April 25, 2011. The show featured 180 works by over 110 artists from 40 countries, with 80% of the pieces acquired or commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery over the previous decade. The exhibition was curated under director Tony Ellwood, who succeeded Doug Hall, the former director who built the collection through the Asia-Pacific Triennial (TAP) starting in 1993. Notable artists included Carsten Höller, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Claude Closky, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Jorge Mendez Blake, Parastou Forouhar, SUPERFLEX, and Sharif Waked. International heavyweights like Isaac Julian, William Kentridge, Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, and Kara Walker were also featured, alongside Australian artists Fiona Hall, Louise Weaver, Shaun Gladwell, Sali Gabori, Brook Andrew, and Yvonne Koolmatrie. The exhibition highlighted early acquisitions of Asian artists such as Lee Bul, Takashi Murakami, Cai Guo-Qiang, Zhang Xiaogang, and Yukinori Yanagi. A substantial catalogue, edited by chief curator Miranda Wallace, included essays by Manuel J. Borja-Villel, Terry Smith, Rex Butler, and Claire Bishop. The exhibition aimed to comprehensively survey the first decade of the 21st century, from Rirkrit Tiravanija's relational aesthetics to Xu Zhen's supermarket reconstructions and Leandro Erlich's trompe-l'œil swimming pool.