Ai Wei Wei

Tags

activist, Ai Wei Wei, artist, Melbourne, NGV, portrait, Victoria

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart.

Melbourne 2017

Tags

anti-vax, Australian Tennis, Djokovic, Grand Slam, Melbourne, tennis, Victoria

Different times. Flinders Station, Melbourne

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Hanging Out with David Hockney

Tags

butler, contemporary artist, David Hockney, Melbourne, NGV, studio

Photo by Candia’s butler

Wishful Thinking in Melbourne?

Tags

Australian art, Chloe, Federation Square, Melbourne, nude portrait, Victoria, Young&Jackson

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Merry Christmas! Melbourne & Sydney

Tags

Flinders Station, Martin Square, Melbourne, Sydney, Westin Hotel

…. 2 years ago.

Merry Christmas to all my readers and followers, wherever they are!

Ai Weiwei at the NGV, Victoria

Tags

Ai Weiwei, art galleries of Australia, Melbourne, NGV, Victoria

 

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart and charcoal and chalk drawing of

the artist by C D-Stuart ( after the exhibition poster)

The Moving Garden

Tags

Advent, capitulum, conceptual art, cultigen, erhu, Five Points Calvinism, gerbera, installation, Lee Mingwei, Let Hundred Flowers Bloom, Magi, Mao, Mark Twain, Melbourne, NGV, Oscar Wilde, predestination

Lee Mingwei at the NGV, Melbourne, Dec 2016. Photo from the NGV advertisement of the exhibition.

It’s Advent and tens of thousands of gifts

are being given all over Melbourne,

anticipating the Magis and God.

There is always a risk in taking part.

Well, think of Mao’s Hundred Flowers campaign!

I am invited to choose a flower

and, before I reach my destination,

I am simply to go out of my way;

electing one beneficiary,

with a kind of Calvinistic tulip;

endowing them with puzzling graciousness.

(The recipient must be a stranger.)

Apparently, in some cultures, people

have been known to grab more than their fair share;

others tend to shun participation,

shy from disturbing the installation.

Confident ones may pluck and then re-place,

avoiding the responsibility

of bestowal; fearing to create burdens.

Out of the crowd, slightly self-conscious,

I step forward; pick a red gerbera.

I want to keep it and, like Oscar Wilde,

use it as a button-hole, or corsage;

make myself an ambulant work of art.

Mark Twain said a man can reduce his age

by several years, if he sports a bloom.

Maybe I should tuck it behind my ear?

But it’s not about gaining attention and

it would be like burying a talent.

Perhaps we will blossom in our giving?

The capitulum looks like one flower,

but botanically is hundreds of them.

One act of bounty could well mutiny.

Cultigens, cultivated by humans,

can be altered by our activities.

Hybridisation is the way to go!

For one hundred days, the artist carried

a lily with him, until it withered.

He’d planted it when his grandmother died.

Was love a burden till he released it?

So, now that I have this omnipotence,

am I involved in predestination?

Is a person’s worthiness the focus?

Should I positively discriminate?

Ought race, gender, or disability

come into it?  I think gratuity

might be fun.  All eyes seem to be on me.

A Sikh couple have no need of colour;

an erhu busker needs no distraction

and is well- acquainted with interplay.

In the hospital foyer a small girl

is disinhibited and receives it,

understanding the language of flowers,

instinctively, knowing that gerbera

stand for innocence, purity and joy.

 

• ‘ Tulip’ was the Calvinistic acronym for the’ 5 points’:
• Total depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Immutability of God
• Perseverance of the saints

Lee Mingwei was born in Taiwan.  He produces

participatory installations and encourages strangers

to explore their self-awareness, trust and tolerance of

intimacy.  He raises awareness of the preciousness of

human connections in the brief encounters of our lives.

,

Up Yonder/ Down Under

Tags

Abbots of Unreason, altruism, boy bishops, conceptual socialism, Dame Edna, damnatio memoriae, Dolce & Gabbana, Down Under, empathy, Francis Rossi, Gunnamatta Beach, Heliogabalus, Kylie, Lagerfield, Lee Mingwei, Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Mao, Melbourne, Mis-Rule, Moonee Ponds, NGV, Point Leo, Prince des Sots, Rick Parfitt, Saturnalia, The Moving Garden

Photo: Fir 0002/ Flagstaffotos

G’day, possums!

Still haven’t achieved my ambition to bump into Edna Everage,

in, or around, Moonee Ponds.

That great Lord (or Dame) of Mis-Rule should re-appear, as

we all have need of an indigenous stalwart of comedy, a she-oak

of satire, in these topsy-turvy times, when the rule-book has been

torn up.

Yes, I am no longer Up Yonder, but am Down Under, escaping the

status quos in Europe and the USA, which seem to be presided*

over by Abbots of Unreason, Princes des Sots and other anti-

experts, who seem to be having a field day.  We might as well be

governed by the likes of Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, as our theme

tune seems to be ‘Whatever You Want.’

(* note the spelling, Donald.)

Bring back Boy Bishops!

Yet, this is no restricted time of daft usurpation, lasting till the 28th of

the month, when metaphorical steam would be released cathartically

and order restored – granted by some Saturnalian blood-letting of the

temporary ‘ruler.’

Yes, slaves becoming masters is no new concept. If you think nepotism

is novel, refer to Heliogabalus, who raised the women in his family to

senatorial titles.  He used cosmetics to enhance his appearance and

saw himself as the sun god, before he was eclipsed from public memory-

damnatio memoriae.  So perish all with such a degree of hubris!

But what to do while the black farce plays itself out?

Walk on Gunnamatta Beach, or Point Leo?

(You could still be sprayed by effluent from the discharge of over 40%

of Melbourne’s sewage from a nearby pipe.  The surfers don’t seem to

mind.)

You could eat wallaby on South Bank- surprisingly delicious with a confit

of beetroot and pickled red cabbage.

You could gawp at what I call Vulgari jewels at the NGV.  Or enjoy a

confection of Kylie’s stage costumes by Dolce & Gabbana and Lagerfield…

There are plenty of distractions, I assure you. One can emulate Nero and

fiddle while everything is incinerated in a global bushfire to end all

international  infernos.

On the other hand, you might enjoy participating in Lee Mingwei’s The

Moving Garden, a curiously apt installation and piece of conceptual

socialism which takes you out of yourself and reminds you of the intrinsic

hope of human altruism and expressions of empathy.

The cynic in Candia has to overcome alarm bells at the memory of

Mao’s Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom.  Self-expression can be dodgy.

However, I felt constrained to write you a poem about this

meaningful experience, so be sure to read the next post!

Maybe there is hope for the future, possums.

No Worries!

Tags

Alan Bennet, Barramundi, Barry Manilow, Billy Connolly, Blairgowrie, Blue-Eye, Brave, Carsten Holler, Castilian Spanish, Chai Latte, cone bra, Creole, David Shrigley, Eleftherios, Federation Square, Flinders lane, Frozen, Great Ocean Road, gum tree, heist, Ice, John Paul Gaultier, kanga bangas, koala, kookaburra, lingusitic convergence, McClelland Sculpture Park, Melbourne, Melchisedek, Mornington Peninsula, Mountain Goat Steam Ale, NGV International, no worries!, Panagia Kamariani, Pele Tower, Philip Larkin, Pidgin, possums, Poundland, Rab C Nesbitt, Red Claw, Red Hill Greek Orthodox monastery, rhinopithecus strykerl, sans soucis, shotgun wedding, snub nosed monkey, Sorrento, Talking Heads, The Island Bird by Neto, www.chrispattas.com, Yabby Lake, You'll Never Walk Alone

r

Dear Posse, or should that be ‘possums’?

You have probably all wondered why Candia has gone off radar,

but I haven’t got time to correspond with you individually. So,

maybe you can make do with reading the communal postcard I

sent to my dear girlfriends in Suttonford, who are probably even

now sharing its contents in Costamuchamoulah‘s must-seen

cafe, as they sip their Chai Lattes– an inferior blend to the original

which I have just imbibed in Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

You see, the price of an air mail stamp to Pomland- not to be

confused with Poundland- is almost as much as an additional glass

of Yabby Lake fizz for moi and, on this once- in-a-lifetime walkabout,

I am not about to downgrade to the Red Claw ‘drinkable’ variety.

So, G’day, mates! I’ve already been down The Great Ocean Road;

seen my first koala in the wild- thankfully unaccompanied by Putin,

One Direction, or Obama- gawped at a joey peeping out of a row of

vines and consumed my first Blue-Eye and Barramundi.  The latter

sounds like Barry Manilow, but is infinitely more subtle.  As far as I

know, it doesn’t attempt to sing.  I do seem to remember Big

Mouth Billy, the singing sea bass, so maybe one could form a

connection.

It’s so good to relax and the upgrade to Business Class from

Singapore was a down-payment of future bliss.  It took a few

moments before I realised that I was watching ‘Brave‘ in Castilian

Spanish on the back of the seat in front, but my personally

appointed steward soon tuned me in to the appropriate lingo.

Better than a remote in the control of The Husband and a tad

more obliging.  It’s good to be treated better than Dame Edna

Average.

I see Billy Connolly is coming to Melbourne shortly. The Scots’

community should comprehend his repartee, but no doubt his

Antipodean spouse has taught him a little linguistic convergence,

so the audience should probably work out that he is not speaking

some kind of Pidgin, or Creole.  Anyway, hybridisation and cross-

fertilisation seem to be the name of the game over here.  One minute

you are in Sorrento and the next you are driving through Blairgowrie.

Talk about fusion!

The Husband grew some roots in Federation Square as he

downed a Mountain Goat Steam Ale, while riveting his gaze

on the big screen’s events at the MCG and demolishing some

Kanga Bangas.

While Gus, Virginia, Diana, Murgatroyd, Dru and Nigel are

snowed in at the pele tower in The Borders, The Husband

and I are experiencing four seasons in one day down in The

Mornington Peninsula.  The chattering classes of Suttonford

have been silenced by the maniacal laughter of a kookaburra,

who stereotypically does sit in an old gum tree, as well as

crapping all over the garden fence every morning.  But, sans

soucis!  Even the mynahs’ cackles are shriller than some South

of England socialites.

I know I said that I only sent one postcard, but that isn’t

strictly true.

I did send Juniper a card of Jean Paul Gaultier’s teddy bear,

which he has cherished since the age of three and which sports

his prototype cone bra.

She would have loved the holographic talking heads on his models

in The NGV.  So would Alan Bennet!  Maybe I should have sent him a

postcard too, but he’s probably a friend of the designer and gets a

personalised one.

Even church-going is a lot more exciting here.  I don’t think Philip

Larkin would have been as lugubrious if he had removed his cycle

clips and gone into the Red Hill Greek Orthodox Monastery of Panagia

Kamariani.

The priest told me that his Christian name- ‘Eleftherios‘ means ‘Liberty’

and he certainly takes a few.  I mean, back in Suttonford, the staid

congregation are startled out of their professed sobriety by the

ringing of a ship’s bell; the crashing of the organ and a cacophany of

bells in the Easter Saturday service in Wintoncester Cathedral.  But

Father Tatsis is much more melodramatic.  Look up http://www.chrispattas.

com and you can see a Youtube clip of the sacerdotal gesture of

celebration to the pronouncement: He is Risen!  Brings a whole new

angle to the phrase ‘shotgun wedding‘!It is a pity that the latter day

Melchisedek didn’t wield his weapon at the teenage thugs who raided

the icon’s golden votive jewellery collection and who made off with a

heist worth $100,000.  Failing that, he could have maybe stowed the

stuff in a safe.  Unfortunately there is Ice in Paradise and I don’t mean

anything as innocent as the latest Frozen movie.

The liberating thing about Oz seems to be that you can act like a big

kid and you are actually encouraged to do so.  Case in point:  The

Husband climbing into the art installation The Island Bird by Ernesto

Neto at The NGV International.

He got tangled up in what appeared to be an unravelled string shopping

bag, or a coloured version of Rab C Nesbitt’s vest.  I was more attracted

by Carsten Holler’s golden, mirrored carousel and managed to restrain myself

from breaking into You’ll Never Walk Alone, though, if I had, it would have been

regarded as a valid interactional response. Like Oz itself, even the artwork

invites us to stand on our heads and re-imagine the world, reconsidering our

place within it.

So, whether it is wallpapering a gallery with anarchic David Shrigley

observations, or sculpting a Sneezing Snub Nosed Monkey -Rhinopithecus

strykerl (McClelland Sculpture Park), the infectious Aussie irreverent take

on life affects even its Un-Orthodox priests and makes one feel that,

indeed, there are No Worries!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaachoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!