Of Mice and Megans - Part 1

I had plans for yesterday, modest plans, but plans nevertheless. And I realised most of them, so that's not too bad. But no thanks to State Rail, or whatever it is called at this particular moment.

Yesterday was the last day of European Prints and Drawings: 1500-1900 at the AGNSW. All from the Gallery's own collection. Having missed several exhibitions lately I was desparate to get to this one. The initial plan was for Saturday, but Saturday was a bad day for me. Since having my health wrecked twice I think bad days are just part of my life now. Ride them out, get on with it.

So everything got shifted to Sunday. And got off to a bad start.

Drive to station, find excellent car park (not many cars, that's weird). Get out, realise glasses still at home. Sad fact of me aging is I need my glasses to see detail. Get back in car, drive home.

I had missed my train so I killed time doing a couple of things before driving back to the station. Still a strange dearth of cars in the car park. Get to the top of the stairs. Platform blocked. TRACK WORK. All weekend. All the way to Strathfield. So I drove to Epping and got a train to Town Hall. I couldn't have done this on Saturday. I wasn't even able to drive to the next suburb on Saturday.

Whenever I travel by train I go well-equipped - book to read, drawing things (always), usually a spindle and some fibre, iPod and headphones. The trains were in utter disarray so it took ages for one to turn up. Instead of having a couple of hours of activity and entertainment I ended up with about 40 minutes. So I suppose all was not lost.

Actually things looked up after that. I had a lovely walk to the Gallery from Town Hall Station. The weather was much nicer than Saturday had been. The oppressive heat and fierce winds were gone, people were out and about doing what people do. Equally amused and irritated by the signs in Hyde Park saying "Beware of tree failure". I'm sorry, trees dropping branches is not a failure on the part of the tree, it's just something they do sometimes.

There was a LARGE yellow packing crate in front of the AGNSW when I got there. I mean LARGE. It blocked most of the stairs at the entrance and all access to the pedestrian crossing. Some advertising moron's idea of clever, post-modern referencing for the Pop to Popism exhibition that is currently on. I watched a woman struggle to get a pram round it so she could cross at the crossing and thought anyone with a mobility device would be completely stuffed. The fact that the box was obscure and ugly and not really effective in what it was trying to do is neither here nor there. The fact that it was placed so badly was the real problem. 

So I started my gallery trip with a formal, written complaint. I mean, what else could I do? Say "I knew that would happen" when news comes out of an accident in front of the Gallery? Yes, I am a Grumply Old Woman. But I was a Grumpy Young Woman, and a Grumpy Child, so why change now?

As a member of the AGNSW I get certain perks - free access to all exhibitions (because I am a country member), reduced entrance fees to exhibitions at other galleries around Australia (including the National Gallery in Canberra), and access to the Members' Lounge. I love the Members' Lounge. It is quiet and comfortable. The food is good and nowhere near as expensive as the cafes and restaurants upstairs. And you can get a nice glass of wine if you want, as well as the usual hot beverages. They change with staid regularity what is hung on the walls, always something from the Gallery collections, usually interesting. Great place for lunch, and to calm down.

When next you are in the AGNSW, it is worth popping into the Asian Gallery on the second floor. Down one escalator and turn right. There were the usual (and beautiful) pieces from past centuries, but there were also some great modern pieces. Several inkjet prints by Akira Yamaguchi, designed to look like Japanese woodblock prints, but showing modern scenes, like "The Department Store" or "Roppongi Hills".

Tokei (Tokyo) Roppongi Hills, Akira Yamaguchi, 2005, Inkjet Print, AGNSW

The piece I fell in love with was "Infinite Landscape" by Yang Yongliang. This is a seven minute video projected on a dark wall. It was in amongst some traditional paintings and scrolls of Chinese landscapes. You know the sort of thing - those impossible, steep mountains with spikey trees on top, rivers and flat valleys in between. Just what comes to mind when you hear "Chinese landscape painting".

Infinite Landscape, Yang Yongliang, HD BluRay, 7.23 minutes.

All those mountains are actually buildings, and the spikey trees are cranes. Airships swim in and out of view, cars travel the new rivers of ribbon highways. You can view the whole thing here, but really, in order to see it properly, you have to go see it projected in high res. The image at the Gallery was about six feet tall, and back projected so no one could get in the way (hooray). It is endlessly fascinating (at least I think so). Yang has done quite a few of these. It is well worth Googling him and having an explore.

The actual exhibition I went down for was wonderful, but this post is long enough, so I'll write that part up later. In the meantime, go have fun with Yang Yongliang