Picasso safe on wall

There’s recently been a series on ABC about the Picasso at the NGV stolen then recovered in 1986. Apparently the case was never solved and it’s the most expensive unsolved art theft ever. (or maybe not, think of the Elgin Marbles and a string of museum pieces throughout Europe). I was in Melbourne and I always go the NGV anyway to fill time so I got to see it. Strange, as are many Picassos. My taste is earlier. Perhaps due to age or more likely my time in Italy. I’ve written of the NGV visits before so nothing here other than a few pics for the memory.

Always the gallery

Any visit to Melbourne for me includes the National Gallery of Victoria. It’s a fave. This time, for the Triennial but also just to revisit old friends, the three Rembrandts and the early Italian and German religious works and some favourite Pre-Raphaellites. We mainly checked out the Triennial and that was impressive: some modern indigenous art in cerulians and aquamarines and the like using oils and acrylics; a video of a possible future post-climate city of 10 billion people; some incredibly high-resolution oozing video that played with our sense of framing and depth; some huge woolly cubby-house toys that a mum just made have made for her kids (and that you just longed to jump into); that busy C18th/19th European room (would love to know its name) featured with intense and sharp lighting and sound; photos of religious sites with the homeless. More, too, of course. It was school holidays and busy like Bourke street in the Gallery. These people are seriously cultured! And walk the streets and experience high rise that works, gargantuan sizes with historical bluestone features. Melbourne seems to have worked itself out. No wander this place is so prized. It was a rushed visit and so busy, but I got to see a few faves and some intriguing art to chase up later. Maybe.

The National Gallery of Victoria was busy with its Triennial and more.

Visiting an old friend

Coming to know an art gallery is a love of my life so while I was in Melbourne I had to get to the NGV.  Not so much the modern wing or even the Triennial, which was on at the time, but the old masters and the like.  We can't expect collections as in Europe, but Victoria probably has the best collection in Australia.  Three Rembrandt oils, no less, and a string of Dutch/Flemish works.  A touch of various eras otherwise, and some decorative arts.  It's naff, but I like the figurines.  I didn't find The Music Lesson this time which I've seen here before, but I did find McKennal's Circe in life size (don't we have a little one at the NGA?  I know AGSA does).  This visit I discovered some big renaissance names, Gaddi and Correggio, and decided the Memling was my fave for this visit.  Or possibly the "Carved retable of the Passion of Christ" from Antwerp with its 3d polychrome timber panels and surrounding painted panels in oil.  And Burne-Jones from his Garden of Pan, of course.  There's some lovely stuff there and it's free to see.  Always a highlight of my Melbourne sojourns.

The National Gallery of Victoria is in Melbourne (!)

Fashion sense

Still at the NGV and Viktor&Rolf intrigued and amused me mightily. I have only recently come to appreciate fashion for its artistic qualities (despite growing up the son of a tailor). This was madly extreme and playful and I had plenty of laughs. This was catwalk fashion, seldom feasible for daily wear, but witty and superbly tailored. We were greeted with a series of 7 costumes that layered on a living model, one over the other, to finally weigh 70kg and reveal just a dwindled head atop a decorated cone. Then a grey jacket confirming NO and with the most precise tailoring. A joyous Van Gogh girl with petticoated skirt and hay for hair. A tongue-in-cheek model carrying her own musical accompaniment and lighting on a frame above her head. Many displays were life-sized, presumably worn once by a model, but ideas were also presented on articulated dolls with fitting faces. The audience was overwhelmingly women and I guess that's to be expected. I only attended because Megan was interested, but I'm glad I did. This was fun and frolicsome and wildly adventurous. What else? A lovely richly-red jacket or gown (not sure which) with a huge bow that could just possibly could have been worn away from a catwalk. Works on various other themes, like Vagabonds or Wearable art (fun, but not very wearable if the later videos were anything to go by). Towards the end were videos of these very garments being presented. How lovely to see them move, although I was disappointed with the bland model faces, apparently requisite despite playful costumery. A final animatronic doll that walks her own catwalk each quarter hour. And a play area, as if for kids, but mostly populated by twenty-something designers experimenting; good on them. And that final theme, Little Swan, the V&R's pet dachshund. Fashion like this is new to me so this was a great pleasure of discovery. Fabulous in its true sense. Loved it.

Viktor&Rolf: Fashion artists was an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Viktor&Rolf are Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren.

Brushes

David Hockney is a star of contemporary / pop art with his colours and Californian light and water splashes and English background and gay sensibility but he's never been a particular favourite of mine and I remain largely unmoved after seeing a display of his works from the last decade at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne. He's taken to using iPads and iPhones (using the app Brushes) to produce quick and colourful and sometimes revealing works. There were lots of these. Most interestingly there were many examples of his works being created in front of your eyes, on an iPad or TV screen. Presumably the app records the creation process and can rerun it. There's undeniable eye and composition and skills here and it was quite a learning experience to view an image go from blank screen to finished work. The electronics allows for quick and prolific creation, something like an update of the printing process and perhaps even more prolific. I was surprised to see the works on display were advertised as "over 1,200". There certainly were lots, although I'm not sure how they got to this number. There were household and local scenes, a series on Yosemite with obvious references to Ansell Adams, a long series of sitters (seemingly on one common chair) in a similar blank space. These were portraits in acrylic, all rough and lacking detail although clearly showing character and a good eye. Then a few large works formed collage-like from photos (for me the most welcoming pictures of all) and a final room of four screens in nine parts of four seasons in one English forest (Woldgate Woods in Yorkshire) captured with 9 cameras mounted on a moving van. Pretty but ho-hum to me. Hockey clearly has a great eye but his ill-defined images often disappointed me and a claim to significant art from a moving van carrying 9 cameras just left me cold. An interesting recent retrospective but no great revelation to my eyes.

David Hockney works from the recent decade were displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Melb qt-ly

The clubs are taking a well-deserved break but it’s frustrating and thin pickings for CJ. I’m in Melbourne for the first week of the new year and walking distance from Bennett’s Lane and Paris cat and both are closed, but this is a fascinating city and there’s interest enough outside jazz. The streets were vibrant; the Gallery is enrapturing; the buskers are out. This was just a stroll, but an intellectual treat. I caught Sheao playing the Chinese Erdu. The Erdu is a two-stringed violin-like bowed instrument with a sound I readily associate with East Asia. The scales seemed different but also strangely familiar, with blues-like bends and repetition but also intervals that were evidently non-Western. As far as I could make out, the Erdu is fretless but the strings are played without touching the fingerboard (not sure of this). Surprisingly for me, the hairs of the bow sit between the two strings which I guess would promote particular interval playing. I’m flummoxed by the written music, of course. The other strings I heard on the day were much more homely to me: Desmond Potts playing Bach on cello in a richly graffitied nook in a characteristic Melbourne laneway. Cello is such a satisfying tone. Desmond was variously noted and dismissed by passers-by, but that’s the way with any busker, of course.

I was strolling to the National Gallery of Victoria. A few years ago I marvelled at some antiquities and was delighted by early mediaeval European works. This time it was C17-C18 European paintings and a little photography and decorative art, and some sadly disappointing contemporary art. Also interesting was a new room, only opened 10 days ago, with massed art in the style I’ve seen in the Pitti Gallery (Florence) and some other spots in Europe. I loved that: enthralling and overwhelming and obviously popular. This is a great gallery: the wealth of the Victorian gold rushes continues to provide for a wonderful collection. It reminds me of a stunning fact: at the time of the gold rushes, for two years Ballarat was the richest metropolitan area in the world. Ballarat a beautiful town with an oddly satisfying gallery, but who could conceive of that now? And thanks to the NGV's sensible approach to photography: it's OK but no flash.