Art in Brisbane

culture

ˈkʌltʃə/

noun

1. 1.

   the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

   "20th century popular culture"

   synonyms:

   the arts, the humanities; intellectual achievement(s), intellectual activity;  literature, music,painting, philosophy
2. 2.

   the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

   "Afro-Caribbean culture"

   synonyms:

   civilization, society, way of life, lifestyle;  customs, traditions, heritage,habits, ways, mores, values

Plenty of people will tell you that Australia is a cultural desert. Plainly, vis a vis the above definition, that is a nonsense. No group or society is culture-less as it turns out.  But I'm splitting hairs here really. Nonetheless, there's more culture knocking about here than you can shake a digging stick at, and I spent a day enjoying that fact by visiting GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) and the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane.

The galleries are entirely free, set in a very groovy complex on the South Bank of the Brisbane river, and they're great.



There was some big David Lynch exhibition on at GOMA, which you had to pay for..so I didn't bother with that. Besides, I was after some 'art-art' if you get my drift, which I'm sure you do.

On the menu was contemporary Japanese art of various stripes (printmaking, sculpture and installation) and contemporary aboriginal art (painting, weaving, basket making, totems) and a some other stuff too. Like I said, plenty to see.

First up is 'Obliteration Room' by Yayoi Kusama.

The room started out as an all white mock up of a pretty ordinary domestic space.

Then, each visitor is given a sheet of these stickers...

And you can put them any old where...

...thus obliterating the room.

I did this with mine:

Can you spot (ho ho) where I put my dots?

No one is allowed to keep the stickers or the used sheet as a souvenir (boo), but not because it's 'high art' or anything. Just because they found that stickers were getting trailed all around the rest of the gallery; so we also had to check the soles of our shoes on the way out (I had two dots on the bottom of my flip flops: I guess they have a point). 

It was kind of fun. Yayoi is quite an extraordinary character too, well worth checking out. She's prolific and very very 'out there'.

This was another installation by her....an 'Infinity Room'.

Not my own photo, this comes from the QAGOMA page, but it's not bad.

You step into a darkened space onto a little 'jetty' and they close the door behind you. It's actually physically dizzying. A simple trick of mirrors and a 'floor' of still, dark water, but it really works.

Yayoi is in her mid 80s now, but still going strong. She's wildly prolific in fact, despite the fact that she has lived in a Japanese psychiatric hospital since 1977 (self admitted). She has a studio nearby and just keeps on churning her work out. On the whole, I rather like it.

Here she is.

www.theartblog.it

It doesn't take a genius to see the similarities in what Yayoi Kusama does and these contemporary aboriginal works.

The first two are details from a series entitled 'Amata Paintings'. 

. 

I really like them...here's another one (there were at least nine of them in total). This is pretty much the whole thing barring a bit of judicious cropping to eliminate evidence of my poor photography skills. .

A smart bit of curation there I'd say.

There was a ton of other stuff, but I'll save those things for later posts. I happily spent the whole day there, and normally I've got a two hour top limit for doing a gallery. It was lovely and cool in there which probably helped, and I was able to purchase a very nice slice of Hummingbird Cake with a pot of Earl Grey, for a very reasonable less-than-$9.00 (about £4.50 to you and me), which definitely helped. 

Any place that can turn out a cake like this for that price is a culture worth celebrating in my book.