Mildura Sculpture Triennial

It was the first event in Australia that promoted large scale contemporary sculpture[1] and incorporated site-specific installations and performance art in an innovative and often challenging program.

[2][3] Mildura, a regional agricultural centre on the Murray River in Victoria at the border of South Australia and New South Wales was well positioned to attract interstate visitors to the event despite its remoteness; "...the most unlikely place to sponsor the most way-out art exhibition yet held in Australia," (Nancy Borlase in The Bulletin)[4] but as Elwyn Lynn noted; "that the Triennial, in an isolated city of 30,000, should take place at all, should attract fine entries from as far away as New Zealand and should find such local support are wonders.

In 1975 Tom McCullough, introduced a sub-title, Sculpturescape, signifying an expansion of the exhibition area to include half a square kilometre of fenced river flats below the Rio Vista homestead to which the Art Centre is attached.

[1] Artist and critic Elwyn Lynn, noting the innovative work in the 1970 Triennial, conceded "that sculpture exhibitions should be more imaginatively conceived and implemented than those of painting is here beyond conjecture.

Quite an exciting development in the use of metal is represented in David Wilson's piece, Place and Time, moving away from his earlier brutality of form, while the work of traditionalists in welded steel like Reg Parker and Robertson-Swann has a decisively dated appearance.