Tony Albert at NGV

The National Gallery of Victoria will host a free after-hours conversation with artist Tony Albert and art historian Lisa Slade on April 22 at The Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne. (ngv.vic.gov.au) The talk runs from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at NGV Australia’s Fed Square theatre, with booking required and hearing loops, accessible seating and Auslan interpretation available on request. (ngv.vic.gov.au) National Gallery of Victoria said visitors can enter Wurrdha Marra from 5:15 p.m. before the event, where Albert’s 2025 etching series *Ash on Me* is currently on display. (ngv.vic.gov.au) The event pairs Albert with Slade, the Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne, in a program presented with the university. Slade joined the university after serving from 2015 to 2024 as Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia. (ngv.vic.gov.au) (findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au) Albert is a Queensland-based artist born in Townsville in 1981 and identified by the National Gallery of Victoria with the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku Yalanji language groups. The gallery lists 15 of his works in its collection. (ngv.vic.gov.au) National Gallery of Victoria said 2026 is a busy year for Albert beyond the Melbourne talk. He is the Artistic Director of the National Gallery of Australia’s 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial, *After the Rain*, which runs through April 27. (ngv.vic.gov.au) (nga.gov.au) The National Gallery of Australia said *After the Rain* opened on December 6, 2025, as a free exhibition of 10 large-scale, immersive and multidisciplinary installations by First Nations artists from across Australia. Albert leads that edition as artistic director. (nga.gov.au) A second major project follows in Sydney. The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia said Albert’s survey exhibition *Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir* opens on May 21 and runs to October 19, billed as his largest exhibition to date. (mca.com.au 1) (mca.com.au 2) The Melbourne setting also matters. National Gallery of Victoria describes Wurrdha Marra as an ongoing First Nations art and design space on the ground floor of The Ian Potter Centre that mixes collection works with new acquisitions. (ngv.vic.gov.au) So the April 22 program lands as a one-hour public conversation inside a gallery already showing Albert’s work, while two larger national projects frame the rest of his 2026 calendar. (ngv.vic.gov.au) (nga.gov.au) (mca.com.au)