Day 80: I am thisclose to finding myself

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Day 80 of finding myself (one of the best explanations for long periods of travel)
41 degrees Celsius
I want a snowman to be friends with
Someone please make me one?

The heat is overwhelming - it’s hot and gusty and stifling. I can see that if these conditions are similar to The Mistral in Arles, France then it’s no wonder Van Gogh went mad. However, apart from that I must admit that I have had an amazing two days. I went to the Art Gallery of NSW yesterday and had a brilliant time - and it was free!!! As soon as I walked in, I was confronted by more of Eugene von Guerard’s work. I had come across some of his stuff in the Melbourne National Gallery and it still takes my breath away. He was European living from 1811-1901 and he painted these huge sweeping Aussie landscapes with waterfalls and cliffs and moss… and at most about 5 tiny figures that you could very well miss if you didn’t really want to notice them.

He is one of my two favorite Aussie artists. The other, is James Gleeson who is still alive, and he reminds me of Dali, but takes it one step further. I see a lot of artists who want to replicate the surrealism of it all and hesitate to develop their own style - seriously, do a google search for The Arrival of Implacable Gifts by Gleeson, and you will be amazed at his imagination.

There is usually something in every gallery or museum that really makes me smile or laugh and the one in the AGofNSW was called Important People by George Lambert, painted in 1921. It has everything that should be considered important represented: nice clothes, flowers, cigarette holders, a top hat, carriage, gloves etc and the four characters seem to be so disconnected. There’s a woman holding a basket with a baby who she views as a burden, a man in a full tux with wingtails who is indifferent to it all and a boxer, of all characters, whose involvement is so unclear. The ridiculousness of the setting was probably what made it all about ‘Important People’.

The last one that totally caught my attention was by Charles Moore, called Australian Beach Pattern, painted in the 1940s. It totally depicts the era as well as the Aussie lifestyle. Other highlights of yesterday:
- I signed up for pilates classes starting in January and going for 14 weeks!
- I had the best chicken and asparagus quiche from David Jones
- My last French lesson with Raphaelle. Sad! It was kind of funny afterwards though because I guess I’ve been watching so much French tv and reading French books that when I left the building I couldn’t even tell if the people around me were speaking English or not. Either I’ve gone crazy, or they were speaking both. Or perhaps German.

Moving onto today, I started off at 9:30am and walked to the Museum of Sydney to do an Architecture Walk! So cool! Here are the coolest facts of what I’ve learned:
- The Museum of Sydney was built on the site of the first governor’s house in Sydney. They’ve done excavations and the courtyard is actually tiled to show where the old house used to stand. Each grid area is two meters square, and can be lifted up as a block to see the foundation that lies underneath. They’ve actually put one on display (see the thing jutting out in the middle - they’ve propped it up). Sydney was created by accident - they landed 11 ships (yes, they were transporting convicts) at Botany Bay in the wrong season and would have died if they hadn’t set out to enter the Sydney Heads. It’s apparently the ideal place for a city as the hills to the west block the desert wind in the summer, the hills to the south block the Antarctic wind in the winter, and there is a constant northeasterly wind that enters from the Harbour.
- In Sydney the building restrictions are based on square footage versus height of the building. Each building has an allotment of area, and to make your building taller, you would have to purchase the square footage from another deed to add it to your building!
- Height IS restricted in that on the height of the spring equinox, the shadow cannot obstruct any sun from hitting public areas - eg. The Botanic Gardens, Hyde Park etc.
- In Hitler’s time and it exists now, all buildings in Berlin could only be comprised of 20% glass. In Sydney, you can only make 40% of your building glass, however, Renzo Piano’s building is 110% glass (110% you say? Impossible! (avec une accente francaise) But there are essentially two and sometimes three layers of glass).
So, moving on to Renzo Piano’s Aurora Place building, which was completed in 2000. Apparently, Piano is quite the charmer! However, it must be in the blood, him being Italian.
- So at the time, he wanted a piazza to connect the two buildings instead of having to build a podium which almost all skyscrapers in Sydney have, so he told the governer at the time, Sarto (another Italian) that he would finish the building by the time the Olympics rolled around, and he would throw in a piazza for the people as an addition. And so, simply by altering his words, he got his way with the building code.
- The developer wasn’t too happy about this because that’s a lot of lost office space, so Piano said that he would incrementally add square footage to each level - creating a much larger top floor than bottom floor. Since rent is higher as you go up in levels, this was ideal.
- When Renzo Piano received the commission, he said that he would build something full of light to be the head in the clouds to “have a discourse with that grand old lady down the street” (Opera House). He saw the Opera House in all of its concrete as being very heavy but that they would somehow work with each other in harmony.

If anyone is in Sydney, these are held every Wed and Sat mornings - go, it’s totally worth it. Then I went to grab a bite, and then back to the Museum to actually look around. Then went up to the Museum of Contemporary Art again since they always have cool things on (and it was so bloody hot!!!) and walked in and started laughing. It was an exhibit by Erwin Wurm and the first sign I saw was “Please do not touch the fat convertible”. Yes. I have included more than just one photo of the fat Porche because it made me laugh in its absolute brilliance. Mummy - if you’re going to buy a Porche, buy this one!! The idea of the exhibit was to question what art was, and interpretation of the ridiculousness of it all. There was a fantastic ongoing film showing a talking house and the house looked like a big marshmallow… some of the things it said were:
A house cannot be fat. I was told!
That’s a fact!
A clear thing
No house can be fat
But
I am a house.
…
I am a fat house.
…
I am told I am a piece of art.
…
Maybe it is art of to be fat!
There are also many structures fat in the world
Like companies
Accounts
Properties
…
Are all overweight people art pieces?

He also had these platforms laid out.. see the picture with the tennis ball in this blog. Another board said: “Glue your brain to the board and think about Adorno and remember he was wrong with his ideas about art.”

I LOVED IT! It totally made me smile and laugh and do all sorts of things that art really should - eg. It had a huge effect on me. Then walked around the Rocks, and got an ice-cream… then went to the cheap CD shop and finally got the Missy Higgins CD. She won about 5 ARIAs this year. Then I passed this place called Cupcakes on Pitt which I made a mental note to try in the next two days or so with Kenji, my partner in crime and all things ridiculous. That’s about it I think. Going to see Harry Potter tomorrow! Yayyy!!!
Ciao guys.

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