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In The Gallery
Jun. 10th, 2023 01:12 pmThe Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Sydney, that is...
All from the phone...
All from the phone...
Culture On A Rainy Day
Jun. 20th, 2021 09:57 pmA visit to the Rocks district in town, on a rainy day. Close to the Circular Quay wharves & that Bridge...
And also home to the Museum Of Contemporary Art, which is obviously outgrowing its walls...
Inside, there's a wonderful collection of works by Deborah Kelly
We also had a yum-cha-style lunch/brunch at Sergeant Lok - a restaurant housed in the former 18th/19th century police station in the Rocks. I daresay the food is better now than it was back then... We certainly enjoyed it & plan to go back for their full degustation menu
Cap it all off with a nice roast beast dinner & our Rugby League team winning convincingly up in Queensland & you have a pretty damned good day!!
And also home to the Museum Of Contemporary Art, which is obviously outgrowing its walls...
Inside, there's a wonderful collection of works by Deborah Kelly
We also had a yum-cha-style lunch/brunch at Sergeant Lok - a restaurant housed in the former 18th/19th century police station in the Rocks. I daresay the food is better now than it was back then... We certainly enjoyed it & plan to go back for their full degustation menu
Cap it all off with a nice roast beast dinner & our Rugby League team winning convincingly up in Queensland & you have a pretty damned good day!!
Roads Scholar
Jun. 11th, 2019 09:27 pmBack to work after a week off... doing family stuff, travelling around, celebrating my 52nd birthday... never seem to have a holiday where everything stops... so back to work for life at a more relaxed pace...
A drive out to country New South Wales, where Winter actually happens!! Poor old OBluV8 felt the cold so much in the Canberra early-morning frost, that the engine was literally screaming from cold in the Motel car park. A panicked inspection under the hood showed nothing really wrong, but the drive belt wasn't enjoying being spun around quite so quickly at such a low temperature & was the main culprit doing all the screaming. Fortunately, it warmed up after a couple of kilometres & we proceeded through the Nation's Capital at a peaceful volume
Art Galleries were the main order of the day... though it turned out that the National Portrait Gallery was closed for renovations 'til July & we were a day early at the National Gallery for the Monet Exhibition... without a Press pass, all we could do was look at the security guard at the entrance. There is, of course, plenty more to see at the NGA, including the building's own architecture which, like a lot of Canberra's public buildings, owes quite a lot to the mid C20 Brutalism movement - lots of concrete slabs, sharp angles, drab colours... all of which serve to make the artworks inside come that much more to life in stark contrast to the, well... starkness of the Gallery itself...
Behind the art...
Windows Of Colour
Culture...
There was a new piece by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, recently purchased & installed, titled The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended Into the Heavens, which is a large yellow room, with a reflective chamber at its heart...
Many Hands...
... which lent itself to one of the stranger selfie opportunities too good to pass up...
There was also the Sky Space - a kind of architectural installation, accessible by a tunnel which brings you into a quiet space with a reflective pool & daylight wandering through. Difficult to photograph the whole thing, but great for abstract shots...
I was feeling quite Modernist by the time we left...
A drive out to country New South Wales, where Winter actually happens!! Poor old OBluV8 felt the cold so much in the Canberra early-morning frost, that the engine was literally screaming from cold in the Motel car park. A panicked inspection under the hood showed nothing really wrong, but the drive belt wasn't enjoying being spun around quite so quickly at such a low temperature & was the main culprit doing all the screaming. Fortunately, it warmed up after a couple of kilometres & we proceeded through the Nation's Capital at a peaceful volume
Art Galleries were the main order of the day... though it turned out that the National Portrait Gallery was closed for renovations 'til July & we were a day early at the National Gallery for the Monet Exhibition... without a Press pass, all we could do was look at the security guard at the entrance. There is, of course, plenty more to see at the NGA, including the building's own architecture which, like a lot of Canberra's public buildings, owes quite a lot to the mid C20 Brutalism movement - lots of concrete slabs, sharp angles, drab colours... all of which serve to make the artworks inside come that much more to life in stark contrast to the, well... starkness of the Gallery itself...
Behind the art...
Windows Of Colour
Culture...
There was a new piece by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, recently purchased & installed, titled The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended Into the Heavens, which is a large yellow room, with a reflective chamber at its heart...
Many Hands...
... which lent itself to one of the stranger selfie opportunities too good to pass up...
There was also the Sky Space - a kind of architectural installation, accessible by a tunnel which brings you into a quiet space with a reflective pool & daylight wandering through. Difficult to photograph the whole thing, but great for abstract shots...
I was feeling quite Modernist by the time we left...
1st February 2015
Feb. 1st, 2015 11:13 pmWho wrote this stuff??!!
Neil Gaiman did...!!
We went to see him last night, as part of the Sydney writers Festival. He read extracts from his latest book & performed pieces with the criminally under-rated string quartet Fourplay
A wonderful writer, a captivating reader & he even sings... kind of...
Neil Gaiman did...!!
We went to see him last night, as part of the Sydney writers Festival. He read extracts from his latest book & performed pieces with the criminally under-rated string quartet Fourplay
A wonderful writer, a captivating reader & he even sings... kind of...
The Cycle of Death... & Life
Jan. 17th, 2013 10:47 pmA funeral today... for one of the Loved One's Bar colleagues,who died of cancer at 72 early this week. A simple & quite moving ceremony, very well attended by his family, friends & a large contingent from the Bar. Apparently he knew Barry Crocker quite well too...
Shopping for a new printer, then dinner & a movie in Newtown. 'Samsara' is recommended viewing. Perhaps not as stunning as 'Baraka' & not quite as unifyingly themed, but a wonderous 98 minutes nonetheless
I played some tracks from the album I recorded with Joshua back in the early Noughties this morning, having unearthed the CD in my search for things to put on the iPod. I did some good stringwork in that band, if I do say so myself... & nobody else is likely to, as they'll never hear it... Joshua was a good songwriter & a creative sound programmer ~ it's just a shame he couldn't sing very well & that his love of the green weed prevailed over his creativity. Recording sessions & rehearsals towards the end of my time in the band consisted of 90% sitting on the couch, 5% talking bollocks & 5% music if we were lucky
Halcyon days indeed...
Shopping for a new printer, then dinner & a movie in Newtown. 'Samsara' is recommended viewing. Perhaps not as stunning as 'Baraka' & not quite as unifyingly themed, but a wonderous 98 minutes nonetheless
I played some tracks from the album I recorded with Joshua back in the early Noughties this morning, having unearthed the CD in my search for things to put on the iPod. I did some good stringwork in that band, if I do say so myself... & nobody else is likely to, as they'll never hear it... Joshua was a good songwriter & a creative sound programmer ~ it's just a shame he couldn't sing very well & that his love of the green weed prevailed over his creativity. Recording sessions & rehearsals towards the end of my time in the band consisted of 90% sitting on the couch, 5% talking bollocks & 5% music if we were lucky
Halcyon days indeed...
Music With Numbers
Nov. 14th, 2012 10:35 amSo, you're Brian Eno & you have a new album of minimalist, ambient music to promote. But ambient music is supposed to be accompanied by other activities... like a sit-down chat with a modern & supposedly 'radical' economist. Therefore, instead of a review, or an interview here's When Brian Eno met Ha-Joon Chang
Food for thought...
Ha-Joon Chang: These days, economics has become such an all-encompassing way of thinking that everything is supposed to justify its existence by how much money it makes. Are you making enough money as a university? Are you making enough money as a classical orchestra? I think it's a fundamentally wrong approach to life. Because economics might be the foundation, if you like … but if you try to create a world in which everything is driven by money and the market, the world will be a much poorer place.
Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music … we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to "waste time" is a miracle – but that's exactly what art is for
Brian Eno: It's to do with the act of quantification. It's part of the money thing: something that you can put a figure to immediately assumes a sort of authority, even if it doesn't deserve it.
What is the value of a park? You can't quantify it. We keep them because we've inherited them. But I'm sure there'll be a rightwing movement in the future that says, "Parks? What are they for? People just wander about in them – and there's dog shit all over the place. What's the point of that? A great big piece of real estate in the middle of London that could be generating income – we can quantify that." Quantification is a big temptation for society because it looks like control.
Food for thought...
Ha-Joon Chang: These days, economics has become such an all-encompassing way of thinking that everything is supposed to justify its existence by how much money it makes. Are you making enough money as a university? Are you making enough money as a classical orchestra? I think it's a fundamentally wrong approach to life. Because economics might be the foundation, if you like … but if you try to create a world in which everything is driven by money and the market, the world will be a much poorer place.
Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music … we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to "waste time" is a miracle – but that's exactly what art is for
Brian Eno: It's to do with the act of quantification. It's part of the money thing: something that you can put a figure to immediately assumes a sort of authority, even if it doesn't deserve it.
What is the value of a park? You can't quantify it. We keep them because we've inherited them. But I'm sure there'll be a rightwing movement in the future that says, "Parks? What are they for? People just wander about in them – and there's dog shit all over the place. What's the point of that? A great big piece of real estate in the middle of London that could be generating income – we can quantify that." Quantification is a big temptation for society because it looks like control.
At Home In The Dark
Jul. 11th, 2011 03:58 pm
There is a light that never goes out... somewhere.
In a wonderful Western manifestation of Karma, the carving my Father entered in a Sydney art show was not judged worthy of exhibition & he has been told to collect it in the next 48 hours. That's what you get for telling me I should stick to taking pictures of sunsets!!
Bitter? Me?!?
Otherwise, it's been all quiet at work, rest & play. More news when there's some to share...
