Hometown Stuff

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Disturbing dummies and serendipitous uniramia

I have not been too proud to publish occasional art reviews in this blog, for example, my review of the artistic value of sculpture representing the contents of my kitchen tidy (blogged March 7 this year), or the very recent "stuffed housewife" (my last post).

I was informed by one of my network of art aficionadoes (hi Len) that a mere stone's throw from the dead fish and moldy citrus statues, in Hindmarsh Square, one can find a grotesque series of a half-dozen bronze crash-test dummies whose poses suggest they may not be feeling very well. I followed the tip and sure enough, there they were, looking for all the world like the kind of art only Vlad Tepes would appreciate. And ironically (or in their case bronze-onically), they were opposite the former Royal Automobile Association site.

Suspended
So here they are for your edification. And moving on to edifices, some distance south, in a side alley off a side alley and where no tourist or art connoisseur goes, is this edifice - the St. Mary Magdalene church hall. Look closely. Do you see anything interesting about it?

Mary Magdalene Hall
Did you click on the image for a bigger version?

Okay, if you haven't noticed them by now, you should find a good strong insect repellant as soon as possible.

Bugs. Or if you like, uniramia.


They look like they escaped from not so much a monster movie as a pulp science-fiction anthology, oh, let's say the one edited by Donald A Wollheim, "More Terror in the Modern Vein" (Digit, 1955) in which he published a short story of his own, "Mimic", later totally exaggerated into a feature movie of the same name.

It was about bugs evolving, as bugs do, to become either unnoticed, or to appear threatening or inedible, and hiding in modern urban settings disguised as anything from chimney pots to eccentric old recluses who probably write blogs (except when it was written there were no blogs). By the way, I have still got the above anthology, bought when I was in high school, and kept because I really liked that particular story in its original pre-Hollywood form.

Bugs again
Well this lot succeeded. I bet not one passer-by in a hundred notices them spread along the side of the church hall. My favourite is the one on the right, above.

I suspect that in their larval form they are equally unnoticed, but I may never pass a fire hydrant or parking meter again without having a can of insecticide handy.

Still, a good fantasy is better than accepting the stark reality that local art has come down to representing fish bones and suspended crash-test-dummies. Mind you, creating something as original as those bugs out of "found objects" then placing them in an obscure location to be found serendipitously is my idea of artistic!

Thursday, July 03, 2008

The touristy thing

I've promised myself for the last ten or fifteen years that I'd just waste one day of my holidays doing the tourist thing, visiting the Botanic Gardens, Museum and Art Gallery. I finally bit the bullet, put Other Things I Planned This Break on hold, and went. Weather forecast was for a nice day, and it was close enough, a little overcast, but at least cool enough to walk around.

First stop was the Gardens. The Gardens are an old local favourite, I'd go there with school friends on the weekends when the city was mostly closed, and because it was free. I have a photo of my grandpa with my mum, aged about twelve, and her siblings at the same old main gates we see today. Now city workers lucky enough to work nearby take lunch breaks there. It's very relaxing, sort of like a fundamentalist concept of heaven, but blessedly free of fundamentalists.

Gardens
After wandering narrow, shaded green pathways I headed up the main avenue, now named Murdoch Avenue, I hope not after the media mogul.

Murdoch Avenue
The old kiosk is still there, but has relabelled its dining room as a restaurant, serves interesting alcohol, and has replaced the pies and sausage rolls with croissants and bagels.

The original kiosk
There's a competing facility nearby which probably considers itself a cafe, rather than a kiosk. Kiosk sounds sooo last year. No prize for guessing where I had lunch.

New cafe
Yep, the old original kiosk, where the bird life couldn't help but notice I had food they had not yet eaten, and stopped clearing the empty tables to sashay on to mine. Beady eyes looked carefully at me, enquiring "U tok pitsin?", then they drew up chairs and offered to unwrap my carrot cake for me, their looks now declaring I gat kaikai tumas.

Got any bread?
No kidding, there were wood pidgeons, ducks and seagulls around my feet and on the table, right up to my elbow, and when they had grabbed the crumbs one tried to snatch my dessert. I politely corrected his manners.

I took in the nearest hothouse, which seems to have been rebuilt from the old Victorian style glasshouse to a modern style, around the centrepiece, a pond with big Victorian lily-pads. One of them bloomed a few months ago and made the newspapers, apparently they bloom for a few hours every sixty years or some such. The place had a school party going through, and fish-spotting rather than the private lives of floating plants took their interest.

Piscatorial lily pads
With the sky greying and everything else shades of green, a clump of "red-hot poker" plants caught my eye. There were movements in the flowers, and a little David Attenborough voice in my head whispered that if we were very, very quiet, we might see a little natural symbiosis at work. The voice was right, mynah birds were indulging their sweet teeth (or beaks?). This is probably a good time to remind you, you can click the pics to see larger versions.

Mynah going nom nom nom
I wandered next to the art gallery. They had a display of indigenous art plus the regulars. Despite the poor lighting, I managed to get a shot of what passes for contemporary art, in the form of this stuffed housewife, barefoot and pregnant. Don't know what medium she is made in, or maybe she just took a short cut and froze in disbelief at what was on the walls.

Stuffed housewife
If the bird life in the gardens was brimming with confidence, the museum doors seemed prone to panic at the first sign of a crisis. I looked, but saw nothing for it to be alarmed about. Perhaps it's like those restaurant tables which declare themselves to be reserved, when all you want is a sociable evening chatting with a piece of furniture (thank you for that line, Flacco!).

Warning, this door panics
Around the front, the present young generation was skateboarding on the brick court which replaced the fountain in the past year or so. They seemed uninterested in the cultural smorgasbord which is North Terrace. The Museum also had an indigenous display - practically from end to end. A lot of other galleries were closed for various refits. Some favourites were unfindable. The pair of American Indians that gave me the shivers as a kid because their eyes fixed on me as I came around a corner on the stairs weren't there - I hope they weren't stalking the corridors. But good old Museum-quality thrills are still to be had. The lift was out - and turning a corner on the stairs I found out why.

Just when you thought it was safe to take the lift...
Meet Cthulhu the Squid, who now lives in the Museum lift well. I knew there had to be a good reason for me to take the stairs. And I am sure there's no point in trying to reclaim your coat or bag here if you lose your receipt.

Warning, undead T-rex on duty
Back to work on Monday, which means I can stop looking around me for interesting little vignettes.