We took the bus the other day to Brisbane organised by U3A Noosa for participants in its art appreciation course. Forty-three retired people were taken and dropped at South Bank where GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) and the Queensland Art Gallery and State Library are to be found and left to their own devices.
On the way down I found a section in IQ84 by Murakami which is on the subject I have been pondering deeply of late. I did what I never do and ear marked the book so that I could return to it easily in this book 1,381 pages.
“What with history being rewritten so often, nobody knows what is true anymore. They lose track of who is an enemy and who an ally. It’s that kind of story.”
“They rewrite history?”
“Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’s a crime.” ……….
……..”Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. If our collective memory is taken from us – is rewritten – we lose the ability to sustain our true selves”
I found this interesting as at the moment I am looking at memoir being essential part of forming identity and personality. But there is no time to dwell on that as first we go to GOMA. Modern art often leaves me a bit cold. You have to look at it in a different way, somehow tap into the emotions it creates rather than a scene you like. The theme was harvest on the lower form with an aboriginal exhibition on the upper floors.
From there to the Australian watercolour exhibition in the Queensland Gallery. It showed Australia from the 1850s to the 1980s and it was a superb exhibition. The change in painting as you went through the ages was apparent. At first the scenes had English colours as this is what the artists were used to painting. As time went on the colours became vibrant and intense.
After looking at a Picasso and a few of the old masters we could not take any more in so we went for a wander down South Bank. A wonderful space in the middle of the city bordered by the Brisbane River. We have our very own eye and a beach in the city.
A wonderful outing. We met the others to board the bus and headed back on our two hour trip getting home just on dark. The longest we have ever left the dogs alone. The only disaster that confronted us on our return was a small cocker who had attempted to eat the fish food, scattering it from one end of the house to the other as he carried it around.
You have to laugh.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
The art, is quite something especially the sphere in the middle of the room 🙂
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Those spheres were fantastic. In the end one they were growing plants which were self watering as a result of the transpiration, condensation, dew type of effect.
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It’s perfect 🙂
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🙂
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Glad you can – for the cocker’s sake …
Sounds like a terrific MA museum. Tasmania’s is something I’d give me back teeth to see, as well.
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I hear the one in Wellington is superb and if I get to go in November I certainly have it on my list to visit.
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I hate you, Irene Waters.
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No you don’t M-R. Just think of the new photos I might have to show you. Ah a slide night coming up. LOL I probably won’t get to go so probably just wishful thinking on my part.
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Oh, I hope you do !!! I shall cross my fingers every now and then on your behalf. 🙂
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Keeping mine crossed also.:)
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Terrific quotes on the importance of memory, even collective. Great photos! Sounds like a wonderful visit and the welcome home is why I don’t often do such visits! Once came home to two dogs that got into pancake mix. They ran around, sloshing it out of the bag. They tried to sit innocently (on the couch) as if they knew nothing of the dusty carpets and walls…except their heads looked dipped in flour like a crazed baker!
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LOL. The fish food was nothing in comparison.
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Sounds like you had a great time. I enjoyed looking at the pics you took. Yes, keeping dogs, cats, etc, can be explosive at times. I liked how you took it so nonchalantly. Good on you! Hugs from Canada!
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Thanks Drew. It was a lovely day where we didn’t have to stress about anything and apart from being on the bus on time we didn’t have to do anything in a scheduled way. Canada to Australia – a long way Glad you can see part of my world as I enjoy being part of yours. 🙂
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Yes, but we still are part of the Commonwealth. So we are close in many ways other than distance. 🙂
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True. 🙂
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I’m always keen to get into places like that, but once inside, I am usually keen to get out. When I was a teenager in Hamilton (Victoria) I haunted the Art Gallery there. I could never get my fill of the beautiful silver, porcelain, glass, tapestries, jade carvings, paintings, Oriental ceramics and other things. I love old things best. “)
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🙂 (the dog distracted me)
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LOL 🙂
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All those items you mention I agree old is best. I do like some of the bright colours of modern art works – the old ones are so dark and sombre. 🙂
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Thank you for taking me along on the tour. I would have been in seventh heaven if really there, but this suffices. I am not a fan of truly modern art – have learned to love Picasso and Mondrian and Jackson Pollack, but these artists are truly modern anymore. What I now see are things my daughter might have made when she was 4 or 5. Hard to see the skill, vision and imagination in any of it. Revisionist history is dastardly in my book. We need to hold onto our individual memories to counter the idiots who rewrite it. Sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves – like saying the Holocaust never happened.
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As far as galleries they are both fairly small but the range is fantastic. Doing the art appreciation course I have a far greater understanding of the various periods of art and the artists but when it boils down to it really is what moves you as you stand in front of it. What I am finding interesting is that as I get older I am finding that what I like is changing quite significantly. Installation art is something that I often struggle with.
Keep your pet peeve as its a good one. I guess history is always written from a personal slant and it probably isn’t until a generation or two have passed that history can be looked at from an unbiased viewpoint. The holocaust definitely did happen…..
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Perhaps I might strike a contrarian note here (no surprise). I think we should be a little more tolerant of modern art in the sense that art from previous generations as been moderated by time and collective choice weeding out the good from the indifferent. Like pop culture of any sort (music, literature etc) anything that is now is almost by definition experimental. Will Damien Hirst’s pickled cow or Tracy Emin’s unmade bed or Grayson Perry’s pots survive? Who knows? But equally tell me what were on the list of new artists in say 1940 or 1840 and you’d struggle to say beyond the four or five who have survived. Similarly think of the shite that is now in the charts and wonder who we will remember in ten years. Who was top of the pops in 1990? And who do we remember? So please, don’t stick in the mud of the past but keep an open mind and try the new stuff; when you do find a gem, like hearing a song on a popular music channel that you are surprised you like, it makes it worth it. PS is there anyone worse to fill a gallery than Peter Paul Ruben and his god-awful fat babies? Jut a personal view!
Sorry your post was really about memory and its importance and I agreed it every word!
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Ah Geoff, you have taken me in the wrong way. As I said a lot of modern art leaves me cold. Not because I’m closed to it but because it does not rouse anything in me. Whilst some modern art I just love – some of Geoffrey Smart’s for example. A lot of the ancient masters leave me cold as well.I also find that there is quite a bit of modern art that I find very disturbing. I worry about the artist and I worry about the viewer who finds it appealing. I am a bit of a heathen when it comes to art – if I like it I like it if I don’t I don’t. Some of your street art from your post I loved. However as with history and memoir we need the past to make us who we are and so too do the modern artists. Jackson Pollack for example looked to Picasso for figures (Picasso looked to the classical artists), Matisse for line and was also greatly influenced by the German Expressionists and Primitve art. To last I believe their has to be something that is timeless about the piece of work. Something that will appeal equally to those of the day it was done (or soon after) and those looking at it today. The same applies to music and literature and probably even clothes (every girl has to have a little black dress) and architecture. I have to admit that I rarely listen to popular music channels although I did by an album which was released in 1992 which I think is brilliant even though he is an old artist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp8JrwbJsY8
And yes Ruben’s fat babies are not my cup of tea.
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Ah me; the trouble with the superficial read, Irene. Soz. I guess I’m surrounded by people who ‘don’t get modern art’ and therefore close their minds to some of it that is excellent; I happen to enjoy Grayson Perry for instance – not all of it but a lot, especially his quilts that explore issues of class today in Modern Britain. I apologise that.
Mind you I would love a debate with you about timelessness. I take your point but wonder what that really means.Take architecture, since you mention it. Post war Britain is notorious for being scarred by the fast rebuilding post the bomb damage of war, especially parts of our bigger cities. Brutalist concrete, Corbusier concepts of form, all contribute to a new landscape that was much ridiculed. Yet now, 50 years on we are trying to preserve some examples not just for their cultural place in our history but because of their merits as buildings (the general rule in the UK is that a building must be 50+ years old before it can be listed, or preserved). We lost some gorgeous art deco industrial buildings because of that same sneering contempt. Every age has I think some merit but you might be hard pressed to see its timelessness until it has survived and formed part of the timeless horizon that longevity gives it. I think then there’s an element of ‘retrofitting’ to make what has survived and become iconic fit into a continuum when in fact it’s just the best example of its age. But thank you for the correction and next time I promise to test the meaning before jumping in! Keep posting stimulating posts!
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Don’t you just hate it when you have almost written a lengthy reply and all of a sudden it disappears. Second time round lacks the same passion but here goes. There is absolutely no need for apologies – rather it shows that my conveyance of ideas was not fully expressed. It just illustrates how important communication is. I agree there is a lot of modern art that I do enjoy and Grayson’s Perry’s quilts and tapestries are quite superb although some I find a trifle disturbing but given his leanings I can understand this. Once again though his pots are quite classical. I do think that the majority of artists are “pop” (not pop art) artists and as in music after their minor foray in stardom fall into obscurity. There is a special something that makes some survive and I guess that for some it might be that they are the best example of a period of art. How I love a debate but sadly facts are not as readily pulled from the old brain as they once were. Timeless in architecture deserves a full post but will leave you with a quote from Christopher Alexander ” And as the whole emerges, we shall see it take that ageless character which gives the timeless way its name. This character is a specific, morphological character, sharp and precise, which must come into being any time a building or a town becomes alive: it is the physical embodiment, in buildings, of the quality without a name.”
Keep me thinking Geoff. It’s good for me
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Good point re Grayson and his pots. And he does have a challenge sometimes disturbing side. Thank you for the Alexander quote which has me thinking (rethinking) what I wrote. I still feel timelessness is overplayed or maybe I mean it is self fulfilling. The Eiffel Tower wasn’t meant to last more than the Paris exhibition but is that now a timeless icon of the Paris skyline? I m not sure I know what I mean any more! Maybe architecture is a poor case for me to focus on because art and music and literature can be experienced both in context and isolation whereas buildings need and are always viewed in context. Thank you for allowing such a good debate. Please do post. You’re taking me well outside my comfort zone.
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What a lovely day out Irene. How amazing having a beach in the middle of a city, and you have your own eye too! I’m with you on modern art, I do understand that you have to ‘feel’ it but I would rather feel other kinds of art. Of course, I was also very interested to read the first part of this post about rewriting history. What you say about memoir being an essential part of forming our identity and personality I find fascinating and I look forward to reading more 🙂
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I’m finding it fascinating Sherri and will in time when I really formulate my ideas write more about it. Brisbane city is really user friendly and the beach area is superb. Imagine being able to go for a dip and sunbake on the beach during your lunch hour if you worked in say Westminster. Just fantastic. Glad you could walk with me.:)
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