Nov 242014
 

mona 5

i had heard so much about mona, (museum of new and old art, http://www.mona.net.au  ) and it was definitley on the to-do list for tassie, now whether i had my grumpy old man slippers on or what i dont know, but i came away severely underwhelmed.

there is no getting over the logistical and architectural grandeur of the site and its buildings, and decending the spiral staircase down into the bowels of the subterranean building hewn from the limestone rock is impressive, but from there the experience went down with the decsent for me!

the main exhibition currently was something called ‘river of fundament’ by matthew barney, i found it to be an expansive, sprawling, self indulgent, disjointed, psychotic episode. it was also so poorly lit as to be virtually unviewable, clearly this was a choice by the artist, he may have been on the right track – i think just turn the light off and have the bored looking, officious attendants lead the visitors thru to the other side!

there is also a film, described as a 3 act opera in 7 parts – i imagine that viewing it would be in contavention of several UN regulations on human rights, and would be a form of torture beyond comprehension. i noticed a book as well – about 5kg and 5cm thick, i suspect it would do well as a door stop or propping a wobbly table up.

there were several other smaller exhibitions which all failed to impress me at all, probably 3 pieces of work in the whole massive, sprawling venue worked for me, best of all a huge human head sitting on the ground, with windows in it like portholes, through which you could look in and see the inner workings of the brain, an amazing contraption inside the head, by mechanical means with all sorts of objects in motion, hands opening and closing, books flicking thru pages, fruit, birds flying and so on. it was very clever and beautiful.

the other two pieces were a pinball machine that had been re-worked as an interpretive piece about the game of life, and a life sized girl-doll lying in a caged cupboard, i had great trouble getting kai to stand next to it – he was terrified!

we went across to mona on the ferry with paula and ed, old friends of mahni and geoff’s, they are great fun and we managed to have a fun filled day despite my mr grumpy attitude to mona itself. we had planned to all have lunch at mona before heading back to hobart, but the 3 options were all over priced, with pretentious and uninspiring menus so in the end we starved ourselves until we got back to hobart and then woofed down an excellent feed of fish and chips washed down with a couple of bottles of pinot gris.

 

 

Nov 242014
 

4tas 1

in another lifetime my mum ran a commercial art gallery in south yarra, melbourne and one of her favourite artists was judy antill – and her walls hung with judy’s works are a testament to the high regard mum holds for judy’s talent.

judy now runs her own gallery in hobart at battery point opposite the famous bakery, jackman and mcross, her quaint little cottage houses a collection of her own beautiful works as well as a small selection of other interesting artists. the gardens around the cottage are filled with fun and funky sculpture and we spent a lovely couple of hours with judy as well as having a bite of lunch across the road at the famous bakery!

Nov 242014
 

3tas 1so this party was an amazing feat of organisation and planning, i am not sure that geoff and mahni would have taken it on if they realised just what an enormous amount of work it was going to entail!

the outcome was just amazing though, geoff managed to secure a recently closed restaurant in downtown hobart to host the party so all the facilities required were avsailable, the invitations went out and about 70 of mahni’s close friends and family gathered from all over the country to celebrate her life and birthday.

geoff arranged friends from his work at the migrant resource center, so we had the most amazing sri lankan cuisine which was the perfect choice for such a night.

there was also a 3 piece jazz band and geoff and jessie did a couple of songs as well.

it was just a perfect night and i am sure its a party none of will forget in a long time!

 

Nov 232014
 

spring is a riot of colour in tassie, every garden it seems has a display of beautiful flowers, bees are a buzzing eyerywhere and the air is heavy with the perfume of jasmine, roses and honey suckle. i figured the floral fashion fiesta was worthy of a post all of its own!

Nov 222014
 

1tas 6no, thats not tassie! thats sunny cairns, on monday morning this week we headed off on our gap year with a flight down to tassie, cairns being the first stop. we had about 4 hours there and just lazed around in the qantas club eating and drinking! we then flew down to sydney and spent the night in sydney before heading off to hobart on tuesday morning.

Sal’s mum, mahni was celebrating her 70th this week so that was reason enough to start our trip off in tassie, geoff & mahni’s house is sitting up on the hill overlooking the bay in west hobart and i am certainly burning a few calories climbing up and down the steep hills around town! we have been pretty furiously drinking and eating since arriving so the exercise is definitely required. we kicked off with a comfort food meal of lamb shanks and mashed spuds the first night and then on thursday night went out with a few friends to a spanish tapas bar.

friday night was a party for mahni at home with about 14 of us, some of them friends that couldnt come to the big party planned for saturday night so this was the pre party! mahni cooked a yummy scallop pasta dish, geoff followed up with a second course of smoked duck thai salad and I finished with eye fillets on a bed of mashed, spiced kumera and topped with grilled field mushrooms and a side of asparagus. for some reason i forgot to take any photos of the spread so you will just have to use your imagination!