Getting arty farty at the NGV

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Day 398 (28.04.08) to Day 404 (04.05.08)

Today was the first day in our new offices in a suburb called East Bentleigh. The office is a lot further from where we live so we have to now get a train and a bus to reach it. We arrived to find that the offices were still largely unfinished and for the next few days we sat working in the freezing cold of an overactive air conditioner in our coats without water machines and coffee machines in place - no-one was particularly impressed!

After a week of work and the usual weekly actitivites we felt that we really deserved an after work drink on Friday but found that we were all revved up with no place to go! Alas, with nothing as convenient as the Curve bar just across the way people began to disperse and there was just a small intrepid bunch seeking a local pub or bar. We found a pretty rubbish place, had a drink there and then a few of us moved on to another place. The bonus of this place was that it had a free table football table (albeit slightly child sized) so we settled in with Veng and Andre for some dinner snacks and some nailbiting and backbreaking games of table football.

Not overly struck on the local pubs we headed back to Andre's for some beers and a movie and ended up staying over there for the night.

We headed homewards in the morning and got some chores out of the way and then went out to Andre's friends house Jo and Jemma for yet another BBQ (i don't think we'll will ever get sick of the barbies), it was great to catch up with the crew again and yet another roudy evening ensued.

With Sunday free to fill as we pleased as we had no particular plans - we jumped on a tram headed for town. We saw a local arts market outside the arts centre where a host of artists, crafts and tradesmen and women had come to show off and sell their unique wares. We took time to have a browse eventually finding a local artist with a fantastic style that we both immediately fell in love with. We had to pretty much drag ourselves away before we spent any money!

Continuing on our wanderings we arrived at our planned entertainment for the day- the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Both with a fascination with art and having not been to many art galleries we thought it was about time we gave it a go.

We had a fantastic afternoon wandering the various exhibitions, first of all choosing one about body parts (which was a little bizarre), a fantastic Japanese exhibition (which brought us right back to the start of our journey) and the contemporary art section. This turned out to be our favourite, one display in particular. This may be a little difficult to explain but i'll give it a go ... As we entered, there were six big screens all pointing to a section of concrete in the sun. the artist had then filmed himself painting a silouhette portrait with just water which was projected on one screen, as soon as it had finished, another potrait would begin with water on another screen, leaving the first to gradually dry and dissapear. This continued with him retuning to the first screen once it had completely evaporated. It was pretty amazing to watch.

Having exhausted our time in the gallery, we jumped back on the tram and had a quiet evening in front of the telly.

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