VIET

 If you stand in the doorway of the Gallery of Modern Art with your back to the gallery and look right, you see this. Naturally I thought it was to do with the gallery and looked it up on their website but couldn't find anything. I did a Google search for Viet and Scrabble Tile Art but still nothing came up. I called the gallery and they say it has nothing to do with them at all and they think it's a piece of street art. I have seen the graffiti tag "Viet" around West End in spray paint but this is something new.

Ceci n'est pas une bunch of random objects

    One of the great things about our Gallery of Modern Art is that the main event usually has a corresponding (free) hands-on kids' exhibition. Right now there is a big Surrealism exhibition going on. This particular activity involved making a sculpture out of a big tray of supplied objects and arranging them in a lit space. You could then take a photo of the sculpture using a fixed camera and email it off to people announcing your arrival as a surrealist artist as well as this info:

  In 1913 Marcel Duchamp was the first artist to make a sculpture using found objects. He took a stool and a bicycle wheel, attached the wheel to the seat of the stool and turned it into a work of art.

Like Marcel Duchamp, many surrealist artists were fascinated with making sculptures with existing objects. Baguettes (bread sticks), telephones and shoes were some of the objects that Salvador Dalί used to make his sculptures.

Make a sculpture' is just one many Surrealism for Kids activities created by the Queensland Art Gallery's Children Art Centre especially for the landmark exhibition 'Surrealism: The Poetry of Dreams' on until 2 October 2011 at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia.

 

Chip Off The Old Block

This is 'Apu Kaz' by Dennis Nona (2005) - two beautiful bronze carved sculptures of a mother and baby dugong, sitting upstairs at the Gallery of Modern Art.  You can read about it here.

All Set

 

Coffee time at the Foyer Bistro, GoMA.

Surrealism at GoMA

   It's only been open since December 2006 but in that time, Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art has really struck a chord with Queenslanders. I heard on the radio the other day that it's now Australia's most visited gallery. Past exhibitions like 'Picasso', 'Ron Mueck' and 'Art in the 21st Century' have had people queueing out the door. (Click the GoMA label below for some shots.) With each major event, there is a cinematic season. The Children's Art Centre hosts a corresponding hands-on exhibition which captures the essence of the art but makes it imaginative and engaging for kids (and adults). 

  

    Right now, the Surrealism exhibition is in full swing and will continue until the beginning of October. Most of the work is on loan from the Pompidou Centre in Paris so you can see works by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte to name but a few. You need to set aside a good chunk of a day to take in all the information, interactive activity, historical documents, sculpture and painting that awaits you. There's even a cafe halfway through where you can sit and take in all that you've learned over a flat white and a fancy biscuit...before jumping back in. Phew!

    They didn't allow photos in the main gallery this time but you can see some great shots of the kids' exhibit and discover the connection between Dalí and Chupa Chups lollipops HERE.

June Theme Day: Under Construction

It's the first of the month which means it's the City Daily Photo theme day. This month's theme, as you can see, is "Under Construction".  To warm me up, I've decided to go back to balmy February and re-visit the Lego installation that was in the Gallery of Modern Art's "Art in the 21st Century" exhibition.

The huge hands-on display of thousands of classic white Lego bricks encourages you to get in there and start constructing. Not surprisingly, when the little kids had long since found other things to take their attention, it was the adults who remained, sometimes for hours, lost in the joy of a toy that usually reaches only a fraction of its potential.

The installation is the brainchild of Olafur Eliasson and purchased by the GoMA in 2005.

It's called "The cubic structural evolution project (2004)"

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Rooftop Soirée at Chill Backpackers

You get a nice view from the Palace Cinema foyer...

Gallery Closing

In the Gallery of Modern Art there is a big neon display at the top of the escalators. Tall animated figures walk through it all day long, striding on and off the screen with a sense of purpose. When the gallery closes at the end of the day, real people join them on their march, shoulder to hip, filing past, heading towards the way out.

I Wish Your Wish

"Inspired by a Brazilian tradition, Rivane Neuenschwander’s installation I wish your wish 2003 invites visitors to tie colourful silk ribbons to their wrists that feature printed wishes on the fabric. Hundreds of the ribbons are inserted into the gallery wall to create a sea of colour and silk. According to tradition, the wish is granted when the ribbon wears away and falls off."


I took a ribbon which said "I wish the right thing was always the fun thing". When you remove a ribbon, you write your wish on a square of paper, roll it up and stick it in the empty hole.
Which one would you take?

Lego Men

The white lego exhibit has been coming and going for a few years at the Gallery of Modern Art. If you are a lego purist, this is the place for you. It's addictive. Give yourself a few hours.

The Swimming Pool at GoMA

There's a swimming pool in the Gallery of Modern Art that is the strangest thing...

When you look into it, people look back at you but they never come up for air...

To get into it, you can't jump in; you have to walk down some stairs and through a corridor. When you get there, it's even more bizarre....

After being inundated in the lower floors during the floods, GoMA has re-opened and this free exhibition is called "21st Century: Art in the First Decade". It struck me that most of the exhibits turn sensible serious adults into giggling, curious kids. While I was there, a middle aged couple spent a good five minutes swiming around like goldfish while their friend took pictures from above.

Leandro Erlich’s  The swimming pool.

Eclipse Shmiclipse

Last night's lunar eclispe was a bit of a let down. The moon was supposed to be a blood-red colour as it rose but was covered in a bank of cloud. As it turned out, I was standing in completely the wrong place with buildings of the city blocking my view so I wouldn't have seen it anyway. Luckily, my little outing to Kurilpa Bridge wasn't completely in vain. I turned around and got a great sunset instead. This is the view looking towards the State Library (left) and the Gallery of Modern Art (right) with the Skyneedle in the distance.

July Theme Day: Reflections

It's the first of the month which means it must be Monthly Theme Day for all those City Daily Photo bloggers out there. This month's theme is Reflections.

I've chosen Ron Mueck's Mask Self Portrait which is on display at the moment in Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art. Being a self portrait, it is by definition a reflection of the artist. I guess it would involve some self-reflection too. From an onlooker's point of view, I think all of his amazingly life-like sculptures reflect and provoke reflection in us all.

My other Ron Mueck posts are here, here and here. 

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Room With A View

A good place to sit and watch the world go by is upstairs at the Gallery of Modern Art. Here we have the Kurilpa footbridge over the Brisbane River. The bigger boat is a CityCat - part of the public transport system here and definitely the way to get about town if you like the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.

Youth Reaction

Here's the back of another of Ron Mueck's sculptures called Youth. He is lifting his blood-stained t-shirt to reveal a stab wound.

Ron Mueck at the GoMA

Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art has a Ron Mueck exhibition on right now and through till August. It's a series of figures SO life-like it will blow you away. You can walk around them and see the astonishing detail with the hair and freckles and veins and skin imperfections.

This is Wild Man. His uncomfortable expression and body language were especially believable as he was surrounded by amazed onlookers scrutinising him, pointing and taking photos.

When your normal bass just isn't cutting the mustard...

This piece is called Nada yang hilang which translates as The lost note by Indonesian artist Rudi Mantofani. It's part of the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Art which runs at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art until early April. It's a great show if you like that kind of thing. I love it.

Trolley With A View

Absolutely nowhere near a supermarket... or a house.... it must have come for the view.

Giant Skulls Painting

I didn't manage to find the name of the artist or the work but this imposing painting was a striking backdrop for people wandering into and out of the Gallery of Modern Art.

For me? Oh, you shouldn't have!

Zhu Weibing, Ji Wenyu | People holding flowers

Many mini men at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art...aren't they lovely? You can just make out the real-sized people in the background.