Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Five

Skip to Part One of this topic by clicking here.
Otherwise you'll be reading this all back to front and that would be silly, now, wouldn't it?

We had spent so long waiting to get inside the exhibition that a minor problem came up - none of us had eaten a solid meal for nearly five hours. We had brought snacks and nibbles, but we had expected to go somewhere for lunch afterwards; we hadn't anticipated the long waiting time to get into the Gallery.

One of my friends has trouble with her metabolism; she needed to eat something immediately, or else she would likely faint. I did not want to leave her on her own, so I gave her a muesli bar that I had in my pocket, told her to eat it and wait outside for me, and I would try to find my other two friends in the exhibition to tell them we were going to wait outside for them.

Sounds like a good plan, right? Er... didn't quite work out that way.

First, I had to find either one of my friends. Simple enough in theory, but I had to:
a) find at least one of them in a huge crowd of people, most of whom were walking in the opposite direction
b) do it quickly, since I had someone waiting outside for me
c) try to have a good last look at the art, while I still could, and
d) try not to look suspiciously like an art thief. Silly, I know, but remember, there were several small and valuable pieces of jewellery in this exhibition as well, and I happened to be wearing a jumper with a big pocket in the front!

I have no idea how I managed to get around without getting arrested. I managed to walk back and forth across the entire exhibition space, several times, all the while looking agitated and distracted. I caught the eye of several of the security staff, and tried to look apologetic - I'm sure many of them paid close attention to me... or was it my imagination?
Anyway, I finally found one of my friends, who had no idea where the other person was - big surprise. I passed on the message, told them not to worry and take their time looking at the art, and promptly said my goodbyes to Dalí. Until next time...

Out in the foyer, my friend had wolfed down the nut-bar, but still needed something substantial to eat. She didn't really want to buy something from the Gallery cafe, as it was kinda pricey, but I'd promised my friends inside the show that we would wait for them inside (since I still had their train tickets).
In the meantime, I went to the Gallery shop to try and hunt down some posters and stuff, and bought the Liquid Desire program. At least that way, I could appreciate the art in my own time, and preferably without a bunch of people standing in front of it. ;)

After waiting about fifteen minutes, we decided, bugger it, let's eat something here. We sat and ate, with a view of the exhibition's exit so that we could catch our friends on the way out.
After another few minutes went by, with no sign of our art-bound friends, I tried calling their mobile phones to check their progress - no reply. Instead, I received a message from my sister, who had spent the afternoon with her partner enjoying the view from Southbank. They were at Federation Square; what were we doing now?
I replied: "We just came out of the show, and are waiting for X and Y to come out. Did you want to come over to the Gallery and wait with us?"
Their response: "Yep! See you soon!"

Ha ha ha. Nice and simple, right? Not quite. You see, the Gallery had thoughtfully extended their opening hours to allow all the extra people who showed up a chance to actually see the art. Unfortunately, they had sold the last tickets at about 3.30pm, and after 5pm, they locked the entrance doors to the public. We could get out, but no-one could get in.
I had not realised this. And soon, I saw my sister through the water-wall, but there was very little I could do to actually get to her.
She: "Are you coming out? It's freezing out here!"

Oops.

So now, we had to:
a) wait for our friends to come out of the show (who were expecting us to be waiting for them inside the foyer, and were not answering their phones), and
b) get out to our friends waiting outside. Oh, and let's not forget
c) get to Flinders Street Station in time for our train home!

Hahaha!!! Remember, back in Part One, how I said I could start to relax? Well, I stopped relaxing right about now. {=(

I checked the timetable, and realised that our train would not leave until well after the Gallery had closed, so all we had to do was wait out the front, and eventually the last two stragglers would get the hint. At this point, I regretted telling them to "take their time".
And it was getting cold outside.

Naturally, it all worked out in the end.
The last two members of our party were among the last people to leave the exhibition - trust them to get their money's worth! It turned out, both of them had brought their mobile phones with them, but they were in their bags, which were in the baggage claim room... X|
But they finally came out and joined the rest of the world, and we all made it to the station on time.
I managed to take a few quick photos of the city on the way to the station:

The rest are in my Nature Photos Album (which I'll admit is stretching the definition of Nature a bit, but I'll fix it up later, okay?).

On the way back home, we stopped by our friend's place for a bowl of Post-Dalí Soup and Banana Bran Muffins (with Compulsory Tea. My friend is British, you know).

And, that's it!

I would like to thank the following for their help in making this trip of a lifetime possible. Is so a trip of a lifetime! Well, it bloody well felt like it.

• Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, for producing the art, and giving us a reason to go and see it.
• The National Gallery of Victoria, for hosting the Liquid Desire exhibition. Also, for staying open the extra time to allow all the other late patrons a chance to see this beautiful art.
  
• The staff of NGV, for being incredibly patient and putting up with hundreds - no, thousands of people over the last few days of the show. I heard from many sources who went to see the art that it wasn't merely the last day that was so busy. There had been a huge crowd of people as far back as the Tuesday before! Eeep. No wonder they all looked a little frayed at the edges! Credit plus to all of you.
• V/Line, for getting us to Melbourne and back on time. Beats driving there and back, that's for sure.
  
• My co-workers at the shop; thank you very much for covering my absence, though you probably didn't realise why I'd taken the day off. I didn't want to have to drop a Sunday shift, because I know how hard it is working a weekend with the limited staff we have at the moment, but it seems that everyone else I know has the notion of the weekend being free time! Who comes up with these crazy ideas?!
  
• My friends Katie, Trish and Andrew, for experiencing the art with me. I know not all of you thought it was worth the trip, but trust me - you would have regretted not coming to see it. Next time, we'll not leave it to the last minute, okay? ;)
  
• Krissy and Drew - sorry you didn't stick around! You missed some awesome stuff. But I knew you couldn't stand around in a queue all afternoon (not entirely sure how we managed it ourselves), so I'm glad you guys made the most of your day. Also, sympathy for those who wanted to come, but had to pull out at the last minute.
  
• Ma and Ray, for minding my nephew for us, so Krissy and Drew could come up and see Dalí with us. Well, you know how that turned out. ;D Next time, I'll honour my promise to steal a Renoir for you. And by steal, I mean "buy a print of".
  
• Everyone else in the queue, who would probably have to be the most well-behaved and patient crowd of people I've ever seen, and indeed been part of. It proves to me that Art really does civilise people!

So much for art, hey? But, I still have to see this painting, so...

Someday...

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Four

...or, What I Thought Of The Dalí Exhibition.

I remember that the first thing we saw was video screens depicting the countryside where Dalí grew up. The strange, weather-eroded stone grouping that clustered around the fishing village were the inspiration for many of Dalí's landscapes. It was nice, but I wanted to see some art, not some rocks! Get a move on, people!!!

And then we realised: we had spent the entire afternoon queueing up for the show, so we'd got stuck into the "single file" mentality. Naturally, once we were in the show, we could wander around at our leisure. So, we did!

The gallery was full of people, so I had to peek over everyone's shoulders and admire the artwork from a distance. Most of the art in the first room was from Dalí's early period, which I recognised, but wasn't really interested in - until I saw Self-Portrait with Raphaelesque Neck.

And then it hit me - I was finally looking at an actual Dalí. Wow.

I went onward, and saw paintings and works that I'd only ever seen in glossy picture books, but now, they were real. They were beautiful. They were... absolutely tiny!

Seriously, though. This one!: Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops in Equilibrium on Her Shoulder. In a book, it looks like it would be at least the size of an A3 piece of paper, right? It's been painted on a block of wood smaller than a postcard.
But jeezus, the detail. You had to peer very closely to make out all the texture he's bothered to put into it. You would have to wonder why? but then realise that that was how he worked - he would not be satisfied with anything less.

I got to see so many other artworks that I knew. It was like running into old friends.
Hey, there's Memory of the Child-Woman - long time no see! Glad to hear you've been allowed back after all that trouble that came up the last time you were here.
Oh, did you get to see The First Days of Spring? And look, there's Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms The Skins of an Orchestra! And - hey! - welcome, Slave Market with Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire! We're so glad you could come...
Yes, I know - the titles of the paintings are, well, surreal. That's kind of the point, though, isn't it?

Even though it wasn't the complete collection of Dalí works (and how that would be possible to assemble I could never imagine), there was so much to see within the exhibition. The layout curved and twirled around, as it progressed through Dalí's styles and trends. One section had his earlier works, the next would have sketches and sculptures, and the next would have screens showing film projects for which Dalí had scripted scenes. Dalí's vision extended over many different media - he wasn't just a painter or sculptor, he was an artist.

Here's some more of the stuff that I liked:

• Lobster Telephone - hello? :D
  
• Destino, a movie collaboration between Dalí and Walt Disney! It was originally conceived way back in 1945, but was only completed in 2003 due to technical and financial reasons. (It was almost part of a Fantasia movie, but was instead released as a cinematic short.)
  Click here to watch it. I won't embed it directly, because I don't know whether the link will still be there later on - copyright reasons, and all that.
• There were also a selection of Dalí's jewellery designs on show. They had a display of his animated jewel piece The Royal Heart, which was a ruby-encrusted mechanism that would beat much like an actual heart. They only showed that as a video, because the original is so fantastically fragile that it would probably break if they'd brought it over.
• They also had some footage of 3-Dimensional holograms of Dalí and Gala that he had created. The other one they had was of Alice Cooper with a snake(!). Oh, and they had also set up a display of one of his stereoscopic paintings, which turned into a 3-D image when looked at in the correct way (much like the Magic Eye pictures from about ten years ago). I didn't get time to see that one, because there was a queue for the viewing apparatus, and I'd had enough of that lining-up rubbish for the day!
  
• The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory was there. In fact, it would probably be the most recognisable of Dalí's artworks, next to the original work it was based on. I know one of my friends really wanted to see the "soft watches" for some reason. Actually, so did I - but I really wanted to see the first one, too. Well, I guess I'll have to take a trip to New York to check that one out!
• Near the exit was The Ecumenical Council, which was HUGE. It was as large as you would expect a painting with that much detail to be - it was practically a mural. But a highly-detailed, labour-of-love, probably-took-years-off-his-life mural.
  
• And right near the exit was Dalí's final painting, The Swallow's Tail. An understated work, but beautiful nonetheless. He survived until 1989, but after his beloved Gala died in '83, he lost his passion for life. This painting was made in the year after her death.
  

I spent less time inside the exhibition than I spent waiting to get in, but I would have done it all over again in a heartbeat. Actually, no, I would have organised my time a little better and gone and seen it all a lot earlier... but, you have to learn about these things. ;)

Anyway, one more post to go!

________
By the way, most of these links are courtesy of Olga's Gallery and Virtual Dalí. The rest are random links and Wikipedia entries, but feel free to explore those if you wish.

Click for Part Five

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Three

While we were waiting, we overheard that the Gallery was going to keep the exhibition open until 7.00pm, instead of closing it at 5.00. I thought that was very generous; it would have been very difficult to keep the people who had bought their tickets from rioting when they suddenly closed up!

So, we were now in the entry line. It moved a lot quicker, and curved politely around the ticket line - which we could see slowly disappearing as the last customers were let in. I would have liked to have been the very last person in that queue; how lucky they would have felt!

Eventually, we turned round a corner, and saw this:

"Not long to go now!" we all cooed. (Waiting in a line made us a little coocoo by this stage.)

We turned another corner, and there was the entrance to the exhibit. And looking at it now, it resembles more a nightclub or restaurant than a gallery - "Hey! Let's meet up at Dalí's, I heard they do a great fried egg and bacon!"

After three exhausting hours... we were finally inside the exhibition!

Aaand... I have no photos to show you of the inside.
Well, of course not. The Gallery had strict rules against that sort of thing, what with copyright issues, licensing agreements, flash photography damaging the artwork, and so on. My friend got busted trying to take a snap of something with her camera phone, though - naughty girl!

I can, however, seek out links to the paintings and exhibits that I loved, and I shall do that in the next post.
Suffice to say, for now, that it was amazing. And well worth the wait and expense.

Click for Part Four

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Two

So, where were we? Oh, yes. Still in this fugging queue.

I should point out that this second queue wasn't even the entry line; it's only the line for paying admission. If we'd expected this, we would have sorted something out a lot earlier, but... what could we do?

Wait. That's what we could do. Apparently, that's what 15,000 other art patrons did over the same weekend, and I suspect half of those were in the queue with us...

Luckily, we'd brought our cameras into the gallery. I snapped a few shots of the gallery interior, just because it was a nice place to be (and we would be there for a few hours anyway):

This stained-glass cathedral roof inside the gallery was designed by Leonard French, and is apparently one of the largest stained-glass ceilings in the world. It's really stunning to stand beneath it, and I suspect it helped calm the mood of everyone in the line - we hardly heard any complaint from the people around us. (except for one guy who had medical problems and was very unhappy about being forced to stand for such a long time)

This was one of the central courtyards that was redesigned when the entire NGV had a facelift a few years ago. Doesn't look like much, but you can see a lot more catwalks and passageways across the third level. Perhaps not in this photo, but from other angles you could see them, and you never used to be able to reach the third floor. Anyway, it looks nicer now.

After the first hour or so, we started to question this whole "looking at priceless art" idea. We knew that the gallery had advertised the close of ticket sales at 3pm, and it was slowly dawning on us that we were unlikely to get to the ticket counter by that time.

My sister and her partner were with us - oh, did you forget? My sister wanted to come along with us, because she couldn't get to see it on her own terms (due to my mysterious illness) - and they were pretty sick of queueing by this stage. Given the choice of sticking around and waiting, or leaving the queue and enjoying what else Melbourne had to offer, they made the choice to bail.

I felt bad about that, because I knew they were very keen on seeing the Dalí artworks. But I understood their decision to leave and enjoy themselves, as they normally don't get the free time to do what they want - what with looking after my nephew, work, theatre stuff, and so on, it would have been foolish to spend a rare day off waiting in a line...

Meanwhile, the rest of us made the choice to stay. I had set my mind to it - I was GOING IN, even if I had to go all Clark Griswold on the Gallery and DEMAND they unpack the fricking works of art from their carry cases and HOLD IT UP until I'd had my fill... I. WAS. GOING. IN.

After TWO HOURS, we finally managed to grab our tickets (and guarantee access to the show)! And we were so relieved.

Until we remembered, of course, that there was a whole 'nother queue to wait in... sigh
I realise that this is a thoroughly boring post, but I promise you, we do eventually get to the good stuff. Stick around...

________
(btw, just for giggles, here's what happened to someone else who decided to go and check out some Dalí in the company of the harshest critics. I mean, WTF? Who brings babies and infants to an art gallery?! Needless to say, our visit had nothing like this happen.)

Click for Part Three

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part One

Heh heh! I could start this post with an apology about not blogging often enough, but it seems just about everyone who has a blog says that at the start of each post, so... Nyah.

I really should have told you both about my trip to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire exhibition, since it happened at least a week ago. ;/
I've gone as far as to load up the photos I took, but actually writing about it? Not so much.

Well, time to address that. Since it was so important, and all...

After I'd established the day we were all going to head up to Melbourne, our trip had attracted other interested people. What was originally going to be a smallish party of three threatened to turn into a bulky crowd of eight - and this was before I'd even sorted out the costs of travel and admission. O_O;
I spent a few good hours on the two or three days leading up to the trip frantically texting and calling everyone else to establish who wanted tickets, who had concession cards, which train to catch, where we should go for lunch, etc. etc. stress stress stress

The day arrived. I managed to get up early enough to collect my friends and meet up at the train station. Everyone had their ticket, we were on the train, ready, on time and on schedule! FINALLY, I could start to relax. We'd DONE it!

And then, we got to Flinders Street Station, walked across the St Kilda Bridge, and thought, "Hey, there seems to be an awful lot of people down this end of the city - "

Oh my god.
There was a queue of people waiting outside the gallery. Frig. I'd never even thought about this. None of us had. For some silly reason, we'd expected to be able to just walk in, buy tickets and enjoy some Surrealist art. Too bad we were NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The line into the gallery was very quick - compared to the line INSIDE the gallery:

Hahahahahahahahaaaaa...!

Click for Part Two

Weird...

All systems appear to be go for the trip up to Melb. this weekend, but things got a little... weird.

I was meant to stay at home and attend to my nephew while my sister and her partner went up to see the Salvador Dali thing, but instead I wound up stuck in bed for two days (my ONLY TWO DAYS OFF FOR THE WEEK) because of a strange episode that happened to me on the Monday.

I had just seen off my friends, who had come around for a surprise visit at about 4 in the afternoon, when I suddenly noticed that something was affecting my vision.
It was a strange effect: it was similar to the kind of after-images you get when you look at a bunch of bright lights, like a cluster of street lights, except that I hadn't seen any sources of light to trigger the effect. I'll put up a mockup of what it was like when I get the chance.
It was a startling effect, and when I realised that they were kind of sticking around a lot longer than a regular glare effect, I thought, "uh oh, migraine".
So I took a paracetamol and went to bed. The visual effect faded after about 15 minutes, and I laid there waiting for the headache to start...

If this was in fact a migraine, it was a very peculiar one. The initial symptoms presented themselves very differently. Normally when I get a migraine, it starts with a sparkly blind spot thing that spreads out from the centre of vision, but this thing was just a bunch of inanimate spots, which looked almost exactly like the glare afterimage (they even did that colour-inversion effect when I closed my eyes). Also, they didn't last as long as the regular visual disturbance.

But the other weird part is that, even though I still felt all the other general crappy effects of a migraine, I didn't get a headache. At all. Well, I had a crampy feeling in my neck the next day, but I attribute that to needing a new pillow - well, I did just spend several hours in bed.
I'm not 100% sure that the painkiller I took helped with this, because it's unlikely that a single over-the -counter paracetamol tablet would work that well.

This is kinda disturbing. The research I've done suggests that this could be a migraine, as there's several different types of effect and symptom you can experience. But the general consensus is that it's unusual for migraines to suddenly change like that, so... I think I need to pay another visit to my doctor. X|

Anyways, I feel well enough now, so it looks promising for the weekend. And now my sister and her man are coming to the city with me! Onward Bound!

I feel better now

I managed to go and visit my friends last Tuesday! It's a bit hit and miss nowadays, since we all have such different schedules to keep. I'd hate to have missed them though, especially after all the bitching about it I did in my last post! ;P

The gathering was in aid of the trip to Melbourne I've been trying to organise for the better part of four months. I want to go and see the Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, but I don't want to go all on my own; a lot of my friends are also interested in art, and especially in one of the greatest artists from the past century. The collection of Dali's work will not be on show (or indeed in the same place) for much longer, and to miss out on this would be a terrible shame.
I would be prepared to go to see it on my own if I had to... but I don't want to do that. This is the sort of thing you need to enjoy in the company of friends, so it was important that we managed to sort something out that was suitable for everybody. How am I supposed to speculate on the meaning of burning giraffes and lobster telephones without someone to laugh with?

Besides, the last time I went out to my friend's art studio was well over a year ago, and I fell asleep on her couch like the gracious guest that I am. Hey, I was coming down with a cold, I had no idea that was going to happen!

As I said, I've been trying to organise this for a while, but things (as always) have come in the way. Such as work, other people's plans, no free time, scheduling problems... etc. etc.

We have sorted out the day of departure: this Sunday, the 4th.
Travelling there and back should be no problem, as there is a train station literally out the front door of my friend's place, so all we need to do is get there; but I would have preferred a better margin for error than the very last day of the exhibition!!! O_O;; Nervous, much?
Never mind - all is sorted, and will work out on the day!

________
In other stuff, Geelong beat St Kilda in the AFL Grand Final. I guess the Cats managed to recoup their loss after last year's defeat to Hawthorn, but I feel really bad for the Saints; they haven't won a Premiership in 43 - sorry, 44 years, now. Never mind guys, try again next year!

Also, I have added a new item to the Friendly Blog list: Nerdgirl's Adventures, which is my sister trying to come to terms with the world of technology and all it entails. She's also been updating her Have Some Cake! blog recently. I think she's finally free of the evil thrall of facebook, but can we pull her back fully into the Real World? :|

Stay happy folks; this freezing cold weather can't last forever!

Neb's Sole Post For June

I have no real idea why I haven't posted anything for this month. It's not as if I didn't do anything exciting! Just being lazy I suppose.

The family went to our cousin's engagement party last week. The theme for the event was "Op Shop" clothing, the idea being that you had to come in the least appropriate outfit conceivable.

You can only imagine what some of the other guests wore.

As for me, I went dressed in a fetching white jacket and pants, which looked like they had been in storage since 1976 - lovely white mottled Crimplene or some synthetic material - good lord, that means they're probably going to look like that forever.
It was teamed up with a summer-type shirt and a lurid tie. We actually found uglier ties in a department store, and those were brand new. They also cost $10, which was a bit much for a tie I'd likely never wear again.

I also went to Lakes Entrance with my Ma, which is a two-hour drive from our place. Ma was driving, but was reluctant to make the trip on her own ever since she buggered up her arms - that was why I was going with her, to drive the car in case she got too tired.
Fortunately, we stopped the car a few times on the way up and back, so she was able to make it on her own after all. Well done, Ma!

We had to go to Lakes to collect Nanna for the previously mentioned engagement. The weather up there was surprisingly good, after driving through fog and clouds on the way up. It made me wish we were staying for a lot longer than two or three hours, especially since I hadn't been up to her place for at least five years. Meh, we didn't even get time to hit the Esplanade, but oh well, I'll get to go up there some other time.

Work is still work. I am still getting on average five days a week, so at least I get two days free to do other stuff. Illness is running through the staff - again! - and some of the staff who were assigned to relieve other people had to go home sick as well...

There's been lots of talk about the dreaded Swine Influenza, and a lot of people are worried about getting it and spreading it around. Our state has been marked as one of the worst hit areas outside of the Americas - in fact they think it might have been well-established here before they even raised the alarm in Mexico!

The only thing is, so far it's turned out to be no worse than the regular 'flu that runs around the country every year. There have only been two deaths attributed to the virus so far in Victoria; most other people who have contracted the virus have only suffered from mild symptoms and recovered. In other words, it hasn't been the End Of The World scenario that the doomsayers would have expected.

Also... Liquid Desire has opened up at the National Gallery of Victoria, and I will do what I can to go and see some Surrealist art before it finishes up in October sometime. I want to go up with my friends, whom I haven't been with for a long time I haven't seen them at all this year! My bad and a trip to the city would be an excellent way of catching up.

That's all. See you in July!

The Persistence of Memory, 2009

Good news (for me at least)!
In about 11 month's time, the National Gallery of Victoria will be hosting a Salvador Dalí exhibition!
Hooray! Bring on the melty clocks and burning giraffes!

If you don't know who Salvador Dalí is, you'll probably recognise at least one of his paintings. His work has a distinctive style all of its own. Not only were his subjects so eerie and cerebral, his technique was quite frankly amazing. At times he painted with a brush equipped with a single fibre.
The guy was a genius.
And yet, he was virtually disowned by many of his peers for his shameless self-promotion, and his catalogue has been tarnished by the inordinate number of fakes (apparently he signed a number of blank canvases and papers for cash, so that others could create "original" Dalí-s to order).
Oh, and apparently he also designed the logo for Chupa Chups.

There was a recent, smaller exposition of Dalí's sculptures and framed works at a Southbank gallery several years ago. I almost went to see it, but for a slight misunderstanding at the time... (not blaming anyone)
I will definitely be going to see this show, even if the one painting I really want to see might not be there...
Roll on 2009!