Wednesday, April 6, 2016

MELBOURNE 2016 # 3 PART 1 NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA

7/3/2016
MONDAY



Today seemed to be a cool day for our city.  May drove us down to city and parked at the Royal Child hospital where she work.  

 Autumn coming....
Every time, I go visit my sisters in Melbourne, there is something new and exciting to explore and to see. The city is full of charming heritage buildings as well as interesting new things to see.   
New building - cancer hospital 

one of the faculties of the Melbourne University. 

sure this building needs no introduction....... 



the CBD Melbourne station.... remember this building that I have blogged before...
the shot tower
RMIT University gallery. 

 
Oh no what happen... the library has fallen???!!!

 
"Architectural Fragment" by Petrus Spronk
Next time you are in Melbourne, check whether the State Library is still there.. hahaha


The National Gallery of Victoria

Somewhere over the rainbow.......  

......is the beautiful chandelier (a symbol of extravagance) - a 5 metre tall art installation of crystals and light by AiWeiWei who grew up in exile without lights or candles during China's Cultural Revolution.


Before going over to Melbourne, I was excited when I read about the Art Exhibition of Andy Warhol and AiWeiWei at the National Gallery of Victory (NGV).  You can goggle about the artist's biography and I just cannot help admiring them for their works (though I am no expert at all).  So we made our way down to the city after our breakfast.  There are so many exhibits but these were just a few of them and hope you like them as much as I do.

They have never meet each other, but their art shared many similarities including their love for cats!

Aiweiwei's installation of Forever Bicycles 2015 - towering with more than 1500 bicycles  used and it makes an awesome entry and anticipation of  more as we entered  into the exhibition halls. "Forever"  is a popular brand of mass-produced bicycles manufactured in China since 1940s.
  

one of Andy Warhol's self-portraits
He did a series of self-portraits before his death due to complications from a gall bladder surgery.

Aiweiwei's Table and a Pillar- a Qing dynasty table was dismantled and then re-assembled to create a new arrangement!





You can go in and play with the inflatable balloons.

The bird and the Caonima "that looks like a Llama" (in Chinese character "Grass Mud Horse" used as an expression of discontent) 

Andy Warhol's Butterfly Layer Cake.. what an inspiration for all cake-artists! 

Aiweiwei's Blossom 2015... thousands of beautiful intricate white porcelain flowers that serves as a memorial to people who live in restricted conditions because of their fight for freedom of speech or human rights in his Flowers for Freedom project.  These are crafted by the skilled craftsman from Jingdezhen whose predecessors once produced the highest quality of porcelain for emperors of past. 



Anyone interested to buy a limited edition of the peony? only  A$9,000.00 current price
Aiweiwei' "Grapes"
Here he reassembled the Qing dynasty  3-legged stools  into a cluster without nails/screws. 

Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell Soup.
Taking commonly use ordinary objects and elevating them into icons- Pop Art.

Aiweiwei breaking the Han dynasty pots
breaking our sense of  what is ancient and important and

and dipping these pots with industrial paint
 and turning them into new and commonplace.

40 Eyes- Andy Warhol 


Andy Warhol- Brillo soap boxes

Both Andy Warhol and Aiweiwei  images  of Chairman Mao 

Mao's wallpaper

the Feet 
"these stone feet are the remains of looted Buddhist statues dating from the Northern Wei and Qi dynasties.  These fragments are gathered by Aiweiwei and turned into art.  "He demonstrate that remembering history is important and that our past is what makes us who we are today".


A paid of handcuffs sculpture from jade (the most precious stones in Chinese culture) which replicate those worn by him in his imprisonment in 2011.

These sculptured figures depicits scenes from the detention cell where Aiweiwei  was kept for his dissident activity without trial for 81 days in 2011.


Both of them love cats......

Aiweiwei has great love  for cats in his studio and one of them can open the studio door using the handle believe it or not! 


The Studio Cats -



There is one exhibits which I completely overlooked.... Aiweiwei's Circle of Animals (in gold) together with Andy's silkscreen of Skulls  which he did months before his death. If you have seen the film by Jackie Chan about the 12 zodiac animal heads you will get an idea of what these animals are like.  And according to history, these animals heads were actually part of  a water-clock fountain  in Yuanmingyuan Palace (Summer Palace) in the Qing dynasty. They were looted from the palace by the foreign troops in the 1860.     


You can read more about them in this article: http://theconversation.com/andy-warhol-ai-weiwei-the-american-and-chinese-centuries-meet-in-melbourne-52288






7 comments:

  1. You have just shared more and more interesting photos of Melbourne to convince me that it is lovely with all those architectural buildings that would attract me! I have strong interests in Arts and Museums too.
    Thank you for sharing them.

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    1. Not much time to really visit these buildings this round.. Happy weekend.

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  2. Melbourne has many interesting buildings to show and I like the fallen Library best. The exhibition is worth visiting and the exhibits are very unique too.

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  5. Melbourne has many interesting buildings to show and I like the fallen Library best. The exhibition is worth visiting and the exhibits are very unique too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Melbourne has many interesting buildings to show and I like the fallen Library best. The exhibition is worth visiting and the exhibits are very unique too.

    ReplyDelete