Posts Tagged ‘modern’

New Work, Featuring Green

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013

mostly about green web

 

With working title  ‘Mostly about Green’,  this is a detail of a work in progress, showing  the wonderful black chintz background before and after quilting.   The quilting along the edges of the strip inserts is very bright green, fluorescent.   Green is my absolute  favourite colour, just in case the red one I posted a week or two back  fooled you  ;-p    This one belongs to my Ebb & Flow series, certainly, and although both are about colour, I think the ‘Mostly About Red’ one one belongs to the Tracks series.   If you read both series statements you might agree or not, and feel free to comment – but it’s my say !

Museum of Old and New Art – MONA, Tasmania.

Sunday, June 9th, 2013

While visiting family and several friends in Tasmania recently, we made a point of going to the relatively new art museum there, MONA, Museum of Modern and New Art, at Glenorchy just north of Hobart.  I’d heard a lot about it, many people love it, and many say they don’t care for it.   I think some of those opinions are tinged by knowledge that the wealthy art patron David Walsh, who established and finances it, made his rather large pile through various highly successful gambling activities.  Tasmania is so very conservative about money.  ‘Old Money’ people don’t talk about their wealth at all, and tend to look down on ‘New Money” people, who do talk about it quite openly.  My mother was from Sydney, NSW, where they constantly and freely talk about the cost of everything, especially property and business developments.   She married into a Launceston family, who certainly knew their place on the financial ladder there – and when she talked of someone in the community, typically there was often a little qualifying comment, something like  “Of course, he could buy and sell half of Launceston…” or ,”They made a lot of money in …”  I have no idea whether she was ever right, close to right, or just tossing in such comments from habit and unfounded assumptions!  But, since one of her own aunts made a packet in Sydney industrial real estate in the ’30’s and ’40’s, and despite being a keen gambler at the dog track, she  managed and kept her fortune together well all her life, I think Mum would have been thrilled at David Walsh’s moves.  She might not have cared for some of the sexually explicit and other provocative exhibits, but it was Walsh’s intention all along to shock and challenge through art – he must be a curator’s dream patron, since nothing seems to be taboo, from what I saw, and indeed there is a focus on things that other institutions might have difficulty in justifying exhibition of them.   People are visiting in droves, and certainly talking about it.  Tourists and locals alike are also attending and talking about all the ancilliary events at MONA, too, including orchestral  concerts and wine and food events.  Tasmanian residents have free entry.  I liked that –  as although born and bred Tasmanian, I’m not living there just now and so didn’t didn’t qualify, of course.

So it’s been controversial to say the least – and not just in Tasmania.  It has had no trouble attracting publicity and reviews, and there is a lot about it online.  Here are a couple of  comments I found in the Wiki, representing quite different points of view:  First – Michael Connor of the conservative literary and cultural magazine Quadrant said that “MONA is the art of the exhausted, of a decaying civilisation. Display lights and taste and stunning effects illuminate moral bankruptcy. What is highlighted melds perfectly with contemporary high fashion, design, architecture, cinema. It is expensive and tense decay.”[10]      Then – Richard Dorment, art critic for the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said that Walsh “doesn’t collect famous names; his indifference to fashion is one of the strengths of the coollection. He likes art that is fun and grabs your attention, that packs a sting in the tail or a punch in the solar plexus.”[11]       And, they could both be right.

In another article published in the UK’s Telegraph this very weekend,  a long article profiles the man David Walsh, his eccentric and perhaps elusive character, his life and the development of the museum from concept to reality, and what the world is making of it… there are mixed opinions, and this is a long but comprehensive article, but very worthwhile reading, particularly if you’re planning to go there.  Quite fascinating.   When we visited, I’d heard far less than I now think I know, and I thought it was fabulous, Mike not so much so -and that may be putting it kindly.  I’m still fascinated.

It’s a strange rather forbidding building exterior that reminded me a little of those huge monasteries perched on precipitous mountain sides in Tibet. The first pic is the one used in the recent ‘Telegraph’ article really illustrates what I mean – and perhaps it was taken on a cold dreary day just like the day we visited –

MONA forbidding exterior

 

And this next photo, in a kinder light, is courtesy Australian architect Lindsay Johnston:

MONA exterior   LINDSAY JOHNSTON

 

This building complex, however, is not perched on a mountainside but sits on a slightly elevated site above the River Derwent, lodged in a hollowed-out sandstone hill (we wondered how they got planning permission for that in a green state like Tasmania? ) 

MONA massive sandstone walls

You go in at the top and descend to the bottom where you pick up your ‘O’ – an adapted iTouch device, and then self paced you wander through exhibits of old and new art.  Your path through the several floors of galleries regularly brings you face to face with massive limestone walls rising from the bottom to the top floor.   In the pic above are people watching a water display that shoots out droplets to form words of the day’s headlines and popular search engine words.   it was rather mesmerizing.  The walls are awesome in their rockbolted state for stability, although the geologist in our party was not sure they had been correctly bolted, according to his underground experience.  Water was entering and running down the walls in places, and it definitely felt like being in a mine.

MONA massive sandstone walls 2

Your ‘O’ senses where you are in the museum and what works are around you – and on it each of the near works is pictured, and when you touch the pic it takes you to basic information, perhaps some review or critique ( called ‘wanks’) although not every work has a wank app – and you can vote on whether you love it or loathe it – no in between opinions – you like it or you don’t …  and I loved that decisive approach, although found it hard once or twice and then just refrained from giving my opinion.  It tells you then how other museum visitors have rated that work.  That was fun, to me, to know how my voting compared.  Of course, it really doesn’t matter, does it, as love it or loathe it is a personal choice only, and in the end, who cares?   There is often humour, and often ugliness, there is lots of old and new beauty run through with themes of sex and death predominating.  Many exhibits are definitely confronting – you can read about them elsewhere, written about by people far more erudite in art matters than myself… I just happily made my way among them, loving or hating as I went.   After about 3 hours I was mentally exhausted and although I would like to see more, we didn’t have time to go back on this visit.  It will keep, as long as water levels don’t rise more than a metre or two. 

I was thrilled to be able to see Sidney Nolan’s “Snake” in its entirety:

Sidney Nolan Snake    Lindsay Johnston Photo Lindsay Johnston

You just can’t get any idea of its overwhelming power from the pages of a book or tv doco.  It’s never been previously hung it its entirety in Australia, and I learned just now that Walsh’s apartment windows afford him a commanding view of the total installation.  Well its the least he could have in return for the massive debts and running expenses for the museum!  I’ll go back sometime, and look forward to that.

 

Art Deco in Montevideo’s Old City

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Walking through the Ciudad Vieja, Old City, Montevideo, towards the Plaza Independencia the other day, although I was shopping and had met Mike for lunch, I also happened to have my camera with me, as I always try to do.  It’s one of the reasons I favour a tiny digital one over a larger one that might take better pics perhaps, but I’d hardly ever have it with me. I passed by the lovely little plaza, Plaza Zibala, around which quite a few of the graceful old buildings have been renovated or are under transformation.  I love the art deco period, and this city is a treasure trove of buildings and antiques from that era.  This is one of my favourites around that plaza –for the clean lines forming simple trims on the walls of the building, and the absolutely beautiful door at the main entry.

Having a Go

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

The monthly newsletter from the Contemporary Quilt Group, CQG, a subgroup of the West Australian Quilters’ Association WAQA, just arrived in my inbox.  I am a very remote member of both,  (still hoping to resume residence in Aus)- and these e-letters keep me abreast with what’s happening back there.  Recently  a group of The Modern Quilt Guild  http://themodernquiltguild.com/ formed in Perth, and apparently at a recent CQG meeting someone suggested that the CQG should to ” have a go” at that style of quiltmaking, and quoting from the newsletter this was  “received entusiastically. Many members wish to try modern quilt techniques that include using traditional blocks, but in a contemporary way”  which they’ll be exploring at a future meeting.  Excuse me CQG girls – absolutely nothing has ever stopped any of you from experimenting with irregular piecing or using traditional  design characteristics including blocks in a ‘new’ way – and nothing has stopped you taking a fresh look at colour, using whatever fabrics you wish, modern or not – and nothing’s prevented you from personally focusing on the more functional bed covering role of what we all do.

What is happening is that this movement is attracting attention from many younger and some older people who have not previously been involved making quilts, and who would prefer generally to make quilts for practical purposes. These people are not phased by style and organisational customs or rules that have grown up around the whole craft of quilting over the past 2-3 decades.  The dreaded ‘quilt police’ have been sidelined, and the emphasis is on practicality plus fun, networking and pleasure in accomplishment.  The time taken to make a functional attractive bed quilt is being slashed as modern designs requiring less piecing and more plain non-patterned areas are favoured.

If you go through this link you’ll find a very fresh looking website, and scrolling down you find a description of the guild’s objectives and the characterisics of their aproach.  It’s  centred on using modern communications – you’ll find them on facebook and twitter etc – and there are lots of online tutorials.  Next year the first modern quilt guild festival/conference will be held, and it sounds remarkably like the giant Houston quilt festival; and in fact, the whole movement is starting to sound like a parallel world of The Quilting Industry as many of us now know it.  Books, tutorials and classes, dedicated magazines, particular styles of fabrics that are favoured in their popular designs… the list goes on.  Like many who have been quiltmaking for eons I applaud this fresh approach, and know that new exponents of the craft will (a) lower the average age of quiltmakers generally and (b) bring fresh ideas to the craft.  At the same time I’m a bit bemused at the breathless ‘we’re different!”  tone here,  even as I count myself as one of them.

 

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