Ai Wei Wei

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

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart.

Hanging Out with David Hockney

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

Photo by Candia’s butler

Ai Wei Wei: ‘bye ‘bye

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Ai Wei Wei, Chinese artist, global figure, NGV, political protest, Victoria

• 

• 

Taken by Candia Dixon-Stuart as he left the NGV, Melbourne, Victoria.

Actually, he then took a photo of me taking one of him and he posted

it on his blog that evening (2015/2016)

I find the blacked out presence in the middle photo foreboding. He is so brave.

New book out.

Water Wall, NGV Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

In this photo I think I captured the tripod hood that the professional

photographer had been using for a photo shoot. It reminded me that

Ai Wei Wei had been seized and a black hood placed over his head.

Golden Hour

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Australia, Golden Hour, irises, Japanese screens, NGV, Spring borders, Victoria

Golden Hour by Candia Dixon-Stuart

I was reminded of a Japanese screen which I saw at The NGV, Victoria.

Ai Weiwei at the NGV, Victoria

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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

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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

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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.

Hi, Ai Weiwei!

Tags

Ai Weiwei, Chinese culture, NGV, Warhol and Ai Weiwei

Couldn’t resist having a go at re-creating the NGV posters in Melbourne, advertising the Warhol and Ai Weiwei combined show….

Love,

Candia.

Cat Scan

Tags

Ai Wei Wei, Bastet, cat scan, cats, CCTV, hieroglyphics, Isis, kumquat, mummified cat, NGV, surveillance, votive

(Image: Louvre, 2004- Guillame Blanchard)

 

I have news for all you cat lovers:

apparently your pets want to kill you.

And this one keeps me under surveillance

as I water my host’s garden tonight.

Two gimlet eyes spy on me from the wall

which divides this property from next door’s.

I could turn the hose on my stalker, but

today I have been at the NGV*

to view how Ai Wei Wei celebrates cats.

He has over forty in his compound,

but, curiously, only one of them

makes an attempt to open doors.  This puss

looks like she could deal in execution.

Like Bastet, she has the soul of Isis.

Maybe she is trying to work out why

I am cultivating the flowers here,

in this inner city terrace’s  yard.

Where is the missing person I’ve replaced?

As Wei Wei replenished his bike’s basket

with a new floral tribute every day,

to give the cameras something to record,

I confess that I like to perplex her.

Under the kumquat tree she remains still-

a furry camouflaged CCTV,

unmoving as a mummified votive.

Will she spring to life and sink her needles

into my neck, for not being the one

who conforms to feline expectation?

Are there easier targets to pounce on,

with unsheathed claws, scattering the petals?

Maybe she is an opener of doors

and has succeeded in her freedom bid

and, though human, I am the one who is trapped,

because I accept that we are all watched

and that someone is trying to decode

the hieroglyphic details of our lives,

so that we feel that we are never alone

and inscrutable eye slits follow us.

 

• NGV National Gallery, Victoria