Sunday 2 May 2021
It was a fairly busy trip in April but I am back Wednesday 26 May to Saturday 29 May 2021.
The smoke haze in Sydney was a bit of a drama this last visit. It was even smokey out on the harbour – middle of the day, Rushcutters Bay.
I’m hoping those of you who suffer when it’s smokey are able to arrange things to avoid the worst.
xx MG
Thursday 4 February 2021
Dear friends, I’m booked to visit Sydney on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 February 2021. It’s a short visit this month.
xx MG
Letters from America
Saturday 2 November 2019
I went to the Banksy exhibition at the Entertainment Quarter. If you go, it’s better not to buy tickets online – they are a much better price at the door. Also, to avoid walking around looking for the exhibition hall, go straight to the end of the main entrance road off Lang Road (I walked all around the place before I figured it out :-)).
Even though the Banksy images are such well known street art there was nothing “old” about the look of the show – mostly original stencils and various prints. Here are some of the street images from Google:
The organiser of the exhibition was manager/accomplice to Banksy for many years, Steve Lazarides. Banksy himself is still unidentified.
One of the best things about the exhibition was the use of videos – streaming on loop around the hall between the exhibits. They told the story of the extraordinary rise of the guerilla grafitti artist with his witty, anti-consumerist themes. It was a very well done story and made the exhibition a really coherent experience.
There was film called “Exit Through the Gift Shop” mentioned in some of the commentary of the exhibition, a film I’d never heard of. In the evening when I was home I looked it up and found a copy on youtube to watch.
The film was an extended commentary on the consumerist art market hype that Banksy parodies (and was itself a clever hoax). It started out purporting to be a documentary on Banksy, being made by a dotty French American amateur photographer/film maker. This character had, according to the film, doggedly followed Banksy for years on his secret missions trespassing at night to plaster his distinctive stencil posters and do his grafitti on buildings and signs all round the UK and both sides of the US. When it becomes apparent about half way through the film, that the quality of the documentary is hopeless, Banksy enters stage left (appearing simply as a dark hooded figure – no face – being interviewed) and persuades the film maker to become the subject of the narrative. So he does, and somehow sets about to transform himself into a grafitti and print artist (like Banksy) with a huge output (none of it displaying any talent or skill whatsoever). The reconfigured “documentary” then follows the film maker’s hugely successful first exhibition in Los Angeles (playing to the cynical undiscriminating art market hungry for the next “thing”). It’s done with a light enough touch though, to make it excellent fun to watch.
Here is a link to the film if you’d like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJBdDSTbLw
It reminded me of a documentary (but not a parody “documentary” at all), about Andy Warhol’s protegee, David Basquiat, who perished very young, apparently a victim of his own success. From the wrong side of the tracks, with no training, he suffered trying to cope with the hype of his spectacular conquest of the contemporary art market at a very young age. His tragic fate perhaps an outcome, at least in part, of the social realities that are the focus of Banksy’s work. Here are some images of Basquiat’s pictures – in a heavily worked totemic grafitti style.
And here is a link to the documentary film about Basquiat, which turned up in my internet searches when I was getting these images of his paintings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ibOFlSM6o I think the film features (the real) Andy Warhol and (the real) David Bowie.
xx MG
Letters from America
Sunday 3 March 2019
At the end of Victoria Street, where the road ends and becomes a paved pathway a little lane way joins up with the path. It’s a dead end that meets the last apartment blocks on St Neot’s Avenue (which you can get to only by sandstone stairway). It’s a charming part of the Potts Point neighbourhood. A local wit has added some cats to the traffic sign in the lane way.
And this is a view of the lane way with the sign in place (well it’s a bit obscured in the hedge), looking across to the City. It’s not the best photo of all time but it’s still a lovely evening outlook.
MG xx
Letters from America
Sunday 26 August 2018
Following a recommendation I braved windy William Street Darlinghurst and went down to the Australian Design Centre where I saw a remarkable collection of miniature streetscapes made by Joshua Smith. They were fine works of craftsmanship recreating the patina of urban decay in the shopfronts of poorer neighbourhoods. Here is a photo of one of them:
It reminded me of the dioramas that used to be in the War Memorial in Canberra, which were battlefields recreated in miniature – tiny toylike scenes made for adults.
MG xx
Letters from America
Saturday 9 June 2018
Sometimes I get the luxury of a little fireworks fatigue. I see a lot of fireworks from the balcony. There would not be a week that goes by without some fireworks near the City. So would it be possible to have anticpatory Vivid fatigue? I don’t even get to see much Vivid detail – the projections onto the Opera House are on to the West facing sails. But I do see some of the sky lit up by the Vivid festival lights, and then there is the Bridge which gets heavy neon treatment, such as this aqua tone for example:
And this year, trying to avoid being a bit grouchy about the ever present bread and circuses feel of the Vivid festival, I took myself off to see some of the sights including a visit to Luna Park at Milson’s Point, where the ferris wheel was looking exceptionally pretty.
And visiting Luna Park reminded me of the short time I worked there – a while ago now – an impoverished student bravely manning the fairy floss cart in my little french navy uniform in all weather. I didn’t do that job for long, but long enough to remember being reprimanded by management for wearing glasses (it was pre laser surgery so I was stilling wearing bookish specs), and for being too generous with the serves!
MG xx
Letters from America
Saturday 10 March 2018
Recently I made a new friend who is an Australian living and working in the US. We talked about America and he asked me where I had visited. One of the places was Detroit where I visited for work quite a few years ago now. My new friend immediately asked whether I knew Shinola watches (which I didn’t). Shinola is all about the best in Detroit’s legacy of quality industrial design and processing.
I later spent time enjoying the Shinola website. I really appreciated learning about this venture. Here is a fine example of what they are about:
And here is a version for women that I like:
When I visited about 10 years ago Detroit it felt a city with a great past and great past wealth. The most striking thing first up was the miles of abandoned houses in what must have once been affluent suburbs. It was the closest thing to a culture shock I have experienced, just for a few moments, in the Anglo world.
When I first visited Detroit I had just finished reading a novel called Middlesex by Michael Eugenides which was set in part in Detroit, including Detroit during the civil unrest and race riots in 1967.
So when I arrived my conception of what had happened in Detroit was a work of my imagination based on this novel. And as I was driven from the airport into the centre of the city through these abandoned suburbs I could not believe what I saw. Street after street of empty boarded up overgrown and burnt out houses – a living testament to a disruptive modern historical event, a bombed out war zone that the survivors had never rebuilt, but had just been abandoned there for 40 years. And the houses were clearly houses that had formerly been grand. There was an established well heeled life that went with these streets, and it was visibly wiped out. It was just inconceivable to me that this could be part of a modern peace time consumer city culture.
I searched the internet and found photos of the once splendid houses in those abandoned suburbs. The photos I have included here show the houses all overgrown with green. This is what it looked like to me because I visited in summer.
I recently saw a 2017 film by director Kathryn Bigelow simply called Detroit. It deals with a key incident that occurred during the race riots of 1967 and is quite a harrowing watch. I had heard about this film long before I saw it, in a radio documentary about the process of depicting living history. The documentary had remarkable interview material from people who had lived through the violence 50 years before.
Detroit already had problems by the time of the unrest in 1967 – the chief being declining manufacturing sector and car industry.
Sadly the GFC brought more disruption to the political geography of Detroit when the collapse of mortgage securities enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw more houses abandoned in outer suburbs, with owners forced to walk away (literally) from their untenably financed houses.
But there is often talk of rebuilding Detroit – with high tech, the film industry and similar ventures. First stop Shinola watches. Thanks to my new friend for telling me about them.
MG xx
Letters from America
Saturday 4 November 2017
We haven’t had any updates on flowering trees for quite a while, so here is an installment which presented itself in a really compelling way today after the rain. I was on a local adventure to the City and passed through Woolloomooloo where the jacarandas were enchanting.
First picture is in the area of neighbourhood closed to traffic, and it’s picture book pretty.
And we also have Cathedral Street (at the less salubrious end and with wheelie bins 🙂 ).
from the City garden
MG xx
Letters from America
Wednesday 18 October 2017
In the last week I have been to Canberra and Melbourne and locally, to Parsley Bay, and also to the country and it’s been a pleasant time though busy and a little mixed too, with recurring flu.
Melbourne is a favourite place. I had planned to visit the National Gallery of Victoria*
to see the exhibition there of prints by the Japanese print maker Hokusai and had bought my ticket on line in advance. I also ended up going to see an exhibition of 70 years of creation by the House of Dior.
(*does anyone else think it’s odd to have a National Gallery _of_ Victoria? I mean it’s a National Gallery of Australia…).
Here is a very splendid gown from the Dior exhibition, designed by John Galliano whose work is the only dress designer’s work I ever instantly recognise – because of the striking audacity of the billowing sculptural forms he created. I have just never get tired of them:
The other exhibition I went to, was of the Hokusai prints. It was beautifully curated, whereas so many exhibitions are dumbed down. This presentation by contrast, was a challenge because the subject matter was rich and the Japanese cultural context always so different. Some of the images have been heavily commercialised over the years, but even so, seeing them “in the flesh”, they didn’t seem old. These well known images include a series of Mt Fuji images, and here is the print of Mt Fuji with lightning:
xx MG
Letters from America
Monday 8 May 2017
This is a 1944 painting by Sali Herman of the McElhone Stairs.
These Stairs are at the end of Victoria Street and lead up from Woolloomooloo to Potts Point. I have often walked these stairs down to the City or to Lady Macquarie’s Chair and the Botanic Gardens and sometimes just to do a circuit alongside HMAS Kuttabul which is at the bottom of Potts Point. I think the Stairs date from the 1870s.
Sali Herman distorted his painted view to make the Stairs much wider and steeper looking than they are. And he made the figures smaller to add to the effect. The male figures in the bottom right are uniformed, perfectly suited to 1944 (though there are always uniformed service people about with the local naval base and the dock). The house on the right is a fine house also from the 1870s, with very fine detail in the balconies and ironwork. I think there have been continuing battles with successive owners over the tackiness of renovations that get done from time time to the heritage listed building (the down pipes got painted a shiny gold not so long ago :-)). On the left at the top of the Stairs is an enormous ventilation pipe – which is a structure of 1930s engineering, quite impressive!
Sali Herman’s painting of the McElhone StairsHere is a really interesting image of the Stairs taken in 1927 in a silent film that was miraculously discovered in the 1950s and reprinted. I think it also captures that sense of the Stairs having a great size, which is exactly what Sali Herman’s painting was after.
The photo shows a very spare environment. Woolloomooloo, at the bottom of the Stairs, was a dockside slum district. It is still home to relatively deprived people with a lot of house commission homes built in the 1970s and 80s, following the amazing green ban campaign and federal government intervention to save the area from the worst forms of rapacious Sydney property development.
I love these Stairs for their own sake. But I also have loved them because of a small animal spirit who has occupied the Stairs for a very long time.
Over the years I have taken quite a few photos of this cat, even though it was not mine, it didn’t seem to belong to any person so much as to the place. I had a real affection for her. Here are some pictures, the ones I found on the phone anyway.
She frequently dozed in the sun on a broad sandstone rocky outcrop next to the Stairs and that is where her minder left her food and water.
And I was very sad to see today this little sign at her usual sunning place. The woman in my photo above with the lilac shirt, was her minder, Hill, who had herself lived on the streets a few times in her life.
It’s a clever photo, it even lines up the wires running along the wall behind her sunny spot on the sandstone. And the cards and flowers were touching. I did not know she had been living there as long as 15 years, no home, just her minder diligently feeding her on the street.
Farewell philosophical cat.
MG xx
