Arty Farty
I had a lovely day off yesterday whose goodvibes have unfortunately, worn thin once again with the doldrums of employment. Beautiful Sunday mornings is like watching an erotic film in slow motion - sunlight filtering through the blinds, morning breeze curling through the hidden place, skin rubbing and caressing under white sheets and wild hormones from morning glory. Sex was great and the pancakes, wonderful. The stolen Sunday paper was entertaining and the coffee, perfect.
We ventured off to Darlinghurst's TAP Gallery to see 'Brave New World', a Mardi Gras 2008 initiative, where Angelo Giannoutsos's lush oil paintings brought back nostalgic images of sensual body lines kissed by sunrays and sexy lovers 'drying off' in a secret European villa. It was my first visit to the TAP Gallery and I'm to find out that it is soon to be demolished, it's decadent combination of gallery, performance space and a bar/cafe on the top floor was intriguing. We then walked over to the Australian Centre for Photography to check out William Yang's exhibition, "Claiming China" with the concurrent exhitition "Generation C: New Chinese Photomedia in an Age of Change". William's anecdotes on his photographs were laced with charisma and warmth, bringing to life striking scenes in a China that is so remote to those that are usually communicated to Western audiences. I must definitely see his monologues next time they are in town, as per the wonderful clairvoyant's suggestion.
The photomedia exhibition was striking, revealing a tension between traditional and contemporary ideologies. Li Guangxin's images of young Chinese boys and girls trickling tears and blood was restraining and yet, provocative as was Qiu Zhen's images in his series, "My Bride and I" -- the despondent landscape that lay before them within a new Beijing was a bleak future, stifled by endless smog, construction cranes and the destruction of centuries of history. My uber bleak interpretation could be of course, a rebound effect of just reading Jan Wong's commentary of the new China in her book "Beijing Confidential", in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Gay-mes. Nothing was more hilarious than seeing an army of naked bouncing bodies on top Mao Zedong's old age portrait.
We shopped it up afterwards at Bondi and went nuts at the Angus & Robertson on Lonely Planet guides because.. *drumroll* we're jetsetting to Europe in 3 sleeps time!
We ventured off to Darlinghurst's TAP Gallery to see 'Brave New World', a Mardi Gras 2008 initiative, where Angelo Giannoutsos's lush oil paintings brought back nostalgic images of sensual body lines kissed by sunrays and sexy lovers 'drying off' in a secret European villa. It was my first visit to the TAP Gallery and I'm to find out that it is soon to be demolished, it's decadent combination of gallery, performance space and a bar/cafe on the top floor was intriguing. We then walked over to the Australian Centre for Photography to check out William Yang's exhibition, "Claiming China" with the concurrent exhitition "Generation C: New Chinese Photomedia in an Age of Change". William's anecdotes on his photographs were laced with charisma and warmth, bringing to life striking scenes in a China that is so remote to those that are usually communicated to Western audiences. I must definitely see his monologues next time they are in town, as per the wonderful clairvoyant's suggestion.
The photomedia exhibition was striking, revealing a tension between traditional and contemporary ideologies. Li Guangxin's images of young Chinese boys and girls trickling tears and blood was restraining and yet, provocative as was Qiu Zhen's images in his series, "My Bride and I" -- the despondent landscape that lay before them within a new Beijing was a bleak future, stifled by endless smog, construction cranes and the destruction of centuries of history. My uber bleak interpretation could be of course, a rebound effect of just reading Jan Wong's commentary of the new China in her book "Beijing Confidential", in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Gay-mes. Nothing was more hilarious than seeing an army of naked bouncing bodies on top Mao Zedong's old age portrait.
We shopped it up afterwards at Bondi and went nuts at the Angus & Robertson on Lonely Planet guides because.. *drumroll* we're jetsetting to Europe in 3 sleeps time!