Sculpture By the Sea, Cottesloe Beach March 12 09
The Sculpture by the Sea exhibition (http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/) is running at Cottesloe beach at the moment and some friends and I decided to get along and see it... you know, cos it's there! We took a (unexpectedly expensive) picnic and met on the grass for a bite to eat (it was great!). Alphabet T, S, P, J, D, B and R were all in attendance! After dinner it was time to enjoy the sculpture so S, R and I wandered off to see what all the fuss was about.
Immediately in front of us was a giant sculpture of a kid's trike made of some kind of recycled metal which I quite enjoyed. Also close-by were the many witches hats of different sizes (all bright orange) which B refused to acknowledge as art, however when I got closer it became obvious that the road cones had pictures of native animals on them (and from my brief perusal, they seemed to be endangered ones). I am guessing it meant something to do with caution or slow down because our native fauna are suffering. There were quite a few sculptures on the sand near the groyne, including some a flower one and a fish one that I quite liked but S thought looked like they belong in a hardware store as outdoor decorations (I agreed and maybe that is why I liked them!). In that section I really liked the giant pencil, complete with "line" in the sand - needless to say we crossed the line. The shelters had suspended doors on the sea-ward side and up close it was obvious that the doors were from council pick-up (or perhaps recycled building products place) and they had quite amazing patterns made from coloured rope that was strung through small drilled holes, in the manner of cross-stitch or long-stitch. Weird but interesting. Just near our picnic blankets on the southern side of the building, there was a white vaguely person shaped thing lying headless and on the ground. I have an amusing photo of S giving it CPR but I am not sure whether it was supposed to be headless or on the ground because the security dudes were paying it attention, however they didn't answer when we were trying to talk to them about what had happened.
On the groyne (ha ha ha) there was a kind of disturbing one of a man driving a truck (his hairstyle looked remniscent of egyptian pharaohs), with lady inprisioned in the back. Next up was a whole series of little metal cubes welded together to form a mass covering several rocks - it wasn't obvious and I'm guessing many people would have missed that one. It looked like the cubes "belonged" there in the sense that they were moulded to rocks in the same way that seaweed and other biological things can adhere to rocks. Then there were some industrial sort of sculptures that didn't really resemble anything (and something about Barcelona), but S and I took some cool sunset photos through the gaps in the metal sculpture. Closer in to the Indianna Teahouse building there was a very cool giant watch that looked like it had been discarded in the sand (and when you looked closely there was a small crab which climbing out of the sand and onto the watch), a giant bath plug (I thought that was pretty cool) and a tree which was kind of up in the air so you could see the roots.
Directly in front of Indiannas/Surf Club were the famous life savers, and they proved very popular (with pictures of people pretending to take bites etc). North of the building we found some black and white stripey shapes (not obvious exactly what they were supposed to be), a cool wooden sculpture of a man (yes it was a man) with hands above his head and holding a long rectangular object. It was clearly carved out of a tree trunk and looked pretty interesting, I took many photos of it for S who really loved it. There were some shipping containers half buried in the sand but they didn't grab us too much (kinds seemed to like them though), and then a flock of emus made of old tires (interesting). My favourite sculpture was on the first terrace of the grassed area - the letters IMAG_NE set out as if on the tile-holder awaiting play in a scrabble game (yes the letter values were correct). I got a photo of myself in the gap where the second I should have been, despite the sign which said "don't sit or stand in this gap", and I am continuing to wonder what it all means. Some thing about the "I in imagine", I don't know.
It was getting dark by the time we looked at some of the sculptures in the grassed and paved areas close to Indianas/Surf Club, and the only notable ones in that area were the letters which spelled different things depending on the angle at which you looked at them (SEA and ART being the most obvious but there were probably more), and a giant egg-timer with cool reflective glass (water on the inside though, not sand, which probably means something given that its at a beach).
After we finished with looking at the exhibition, B and I experimented with taking photos of a couple of the sculptures and I had to get some of B "holding up" the tree because that is apparently representative of what she does in her job.... Hmm well I am just trying to become a better photographer so it was fine with me!
Overall it was a very enjoyable evening with good friends, good food and thought-provoking art. I don't "get" a lot of art, in that I look at things and know there is some kind of meaning for the artist but buggered if I can work it out. However, the beauty of this kind of exhibition is that it was very casual (there were security dudes and staff walking around but they didn't seem to be bothering people), and it is good to appreciate beautiful and interesting objects without necessarily understanding what they mean. It was certainly popular as well with many people enjoying a night out as we were.