I really enjoy going and looking at art. My years of Art History and Practical Art at high school have given me a good background for understanding modern art and I don't think I go out and look quite enough.
The exhibition I saw yesterday was Patricia Piccinini's Another Life which is a kind of meditation on Genetic Engineering and all the complex emotions that are tied into it. The website I linked to yesterday has pictures of all the aspects of the exhibition and also has soundbites of the artist explaining how the works came about and what they mean to her. Well worth listening to, it takes about 15 minutes. Click here.
My favourite things were the cyclepups; little infantile motorcycles, all the same base but customised in different colours, with different details. They have the look of a small puppy who hopes you'll take it home in real life. Quite, quite adorable.
Installation art as a rule is scary to me, and I think I've worked out why. It's because you go into this space and you never quite know what will happen. Is the sculpture motion activated? Will it speak to you? Will it move? More often than not there isn't movement but you just never know.
The beasties in Another Life looked so very real, human eyes, veins in their translucent ears, folds of skin and fingernails. I found I was waiting for them to shift positions, or to blink. It was a deeply moving exhibition and I'm really glad I managed to get to it before it closed.
I bought some postcards from the gallery, some of Patricia's work, some of Peter Peryer's photography (I remember seeing his stuff in a class field trip in about 1996) and another random picture with Marilyn Monroe in it.
I *heart* art.
PoF: Black and white and warm skirt
CO: sockses.