GOMA…. Sunday afternoon’s best.

Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art… unfortunately i don’t get alot of time for sleep, BLAM events and BLAM Blog seem to take up most of my time.  But on the weekend i dragged myself out of bed at 11am (remember we had thriller at Rosies on Saturday night so no bed for Shane’o till 5:30am) rather seedy i got the chance to check out the latest installation at GOMA. The 6th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, was a good exhibition. there isnt many places you can go and see a Suzuki van turned into a chinese mobile home or live mushroom’s with hundreds of japanese characters all over them. not to mention the room that had crazy spinning speaker’s… if you get a sunday afternoon free makes sure you give it a go. Best of all its free…

Welcome to the sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art – known as APT6 – the major attraction at the Gallery of Modern Art and the Queensland Art Gallery until April 2010.

The exhibition is, as Premier Anna Bligh described, “a stunner”.

313 artworks from more than 160 artists in 25 Asia-Pacific countries are on show in the exhibition, which is expected to attract more than 700,000 people by next Easter.

There are also some striking short films, with more than 260 on show from 120 filmmakers including Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Brisbane-born Tracey Moffatt.

Moffatt’s juxtaposition of famous film scenes, mixing cross-cultural images of the faces and hands of both men and women as a level of excitement arises in the backing soundtrack is fun, brash and cheeky.

Some of the stories behind the artworks are as rich as the artworks themselves.

APT6 curator Suhanya Raffel stands beside a five-metre high mushroom cloud-shaped sculpture made from pots and pans, created by Indian artist Subodh Gupta in the first room of the exhibition. Titled Line of Control, it describes the emotions of living in the disputed border area between Pakistan and India. He does video work as well as this sculpture, but this work uses everyday materials These (pots and pans) are all used ones, they have a layer of life inside them already, the work is in the shape of a mushroom cloud and (the mushroom cloud) is associated now with a nuclear explosion.”That image is the quintessential 20th Century image. The work is titled Line of Control which is fighting the nuclear tensions between Pakistan and India, but also the inter-regional Kashmir line of control.”

Not 50 metres away is a stark white room, inside which Japanese sculpture Kohei Nawa has covered the complete body of a real Canadian Elk with clear glass and acrylic beads of various sizes.

 

It is a striking work, which he has titled PixCell Elk#2. “I bought the elk on the internet. It is already stuffed. I put glass beads on it and covered all surfaces,” he says in broken English. “It took almost four months. I want to have people think about ‘distance’. I think (with) the internet, now people treat things like the elk as ‘information’. “But I need them to think whether they are just ‘information’ or ‘real things”. So I want them to think about this distance as a reality.” This peice is amazing. seriously the efffect in the white room and the refection of everyone around in every glass bead is just brilliant.

Nearby is a large six-panel mosaic of 4000 glass shards and tiles made by Iranian artist, Monir Shadroudy Farmanfarmaian.

It has been bought by the Gallery of Modern Art and will remain as part of the GOMA’s permanent exhibition.

Phillipines-born, but Brisbane-shaped couple Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan are among those creating art thoughts for the young at heart, encouraging them to make toy planes, but to “think about migration”.

“Communication and slowing down people, making aeroplanes, making something together.”

There is also a major children’s event, with 17 artworks, many where young people can participate.

The exhibition will run until April 5, 2010. make sure you get down and see it, GOMA is completely free and is always full of interesting and creative artwork. A +1 from everyone here @BLAM.

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