Category Archive: ART
Quilts: The Fabric of War
(1760-1900) Exhibition at the Roche Museum, 22 February, 2024 / Book and collection by Annette Gero This exhibition of applique and geometric masterpieces, all made from military fabrics, was simply stunning. Dr. Annette Gero, an acknowledged expert on quilt history, has collected these sumptuous pieces, featuring complex, intricate patterns, to mythical and historical narratives. Her book based on this collection is published by The Beagle Press and available through the David Roche Foundation House Museum, Adelaide. We saw a dazzling array of styles and subject-matter. The main image is an English Intarsia Quilt, c. 1870, by Michael Zumpf, a Hungarian,…
Continue Reading →Back to Queensland Art Gallery
Happy as a pig at QAG
(Southbank, Brisbane, December 2023) We had previously visited in 2021, and were keen to return, not merely to beat the heat. We had not been totally impressed with some of the work on offer before, either, but today we ignored the tat and saw some great things new and old. Agitprop can be beautiful too. Anne Wallace’s “Passing the River at Woogaroo Reach” (2015), inspired by survivors of Wolston Park psychiatric hospital, which gave Bedlam a bad name, is a gorgeous rendering, fit to accompany a tale with a mythic theme: We loved Rupert Bunny’s “Bathers” at QAG previously, and…
Continue Reading →McQueen M’Quakes – Mind, Mythos, Muse, Minis
(Special display at NGV, Melbourne, April 2023) The blurb – “Alexander McQueen (1969–2010) is one of the most original fashion designers in recent history. Celebrated for his conceptual and technical virtuosity, McQueen’s critically acclaimed collections synthesised his proficiency in tailoring and dressmaking with visual references that spanned time, geography and media. Showcasing more than 120 garments and accessories, Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse offers insight into McQueen’s far-reaching sources of inspiration, his creative processes and capacity for storytelling…” All true of course. And the NGV has put on a show for the ages; to see these works up-close is a great…
Continue Reading →The Cube
d’Arenberg winery, October 2022 d’Arenberg Cube is a five-storey, double-tempered glass building situated within the Mourvèdre vines of d’Arenberg winery in the little town of McLaren Vale, itself a great stop and gateway to South Australia’s famous Fleurieu Peninsula. The design concept for the Cube came from d’Arenberg’s Chief Winemaker, Chester Osborn, by way of inspiration from Toyo Ito’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London and Ernõ Rubik’s famous puzzle. Built in 2014/17 at a reputed cost of $15 million to $16 million Australian dollars, it rises, or ‘floats’ above gently rolling hills and vines, in no way creating an eyesore. You…
Continue Reading →NGV Musings
(Melbourne, May 2022) We Love the NGV very much (but not everything In it). NGV Waterwall In May, there was a wonderful display of Asian Art (NGV began collecting items in 1862 – no doubt the fruit of the Victorian Gold Rush – and now has over 2000). But first we had to re-visit (being white supremacists) the European galleries: We liked Chen Yongcai’s Harvest Season prints on paper (c. 1972): …and these superb Javanese puppets (1960s): The whole collection on display in May included ceramics, bronze vessels, mirrored and jade objets d’art, funerary designs, as well as some contemporary…
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