Guggenheim exhibition audio guide National Gallery of Victoria

Known to avoid interviews by sending a proxy, and escaping his own exhibition openings by stealth, Maurizio Cattelan and his work are complex characters to get to know.

Many of Ann Hamilton’s works involve amassing identical or similar objects. Between taxonomy and communion, 1990 – comprising 14,000 human and animal teeth – explores the interconnectedness between human and animal worlds.

This alluring pile of individually cellophane-wrapped candy is known as Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Felix Gonzalez-Torres first executed the work in the USA in 1991 as a protest against the first Gulf War.

Painter Nigel Cooke and photographer Elger Esser play with our comprehension of their work when viewed from near and far, emphasising the act of reflection, rather than the recognition of location.

Thomas Demand toys with our faith in photographs and the historical events that we remember through them. In Archive, 1995, he reconstructs the personal inventory of Nazi propagandist and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

These photo-realistic paintings by Jeff Koons overwhelm the viewer, ensuring, like the advertising world, that there is little time to recognise one’s desires before another product is thrust upon us.