MCA through new eyes

MCA 4th Floor Cafe

The Museum of Contemporary Art on Circular Quay in Sydney has hit a sweet spot. Since they abolished entry fees they have gone from strength to strength, adding a whole new wing in recent years.

I drop in often but until last week I had never ventured into their 4th floor cafe.

I was astonished at the view - it has to be one of the best public viewing platforms in Sydney, looking out over the opera house and harbour.



A statue of a child with ancient fish head sits overlooking the harbour. It is a definite 'must visit' on a trip to Sydney.

Chuck Close

Tapestry portrait of Chuck Close

Art, like music, is best consumed live. That was my thought yesterday at the Chuck Close exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

The close-up portraits produced by Close and his collaborators are in all the books about 20th Century art, but only when you see them live do you realise why.  Close has worked with 'old-fashioned' techniques or pushed new techniques beyond their boundaries, producing large and usually labour intensive work that is strikingly different from your average portrait.

Detail: tapestry portrait

His work is dominated by grids and seems obsessive: work based on hand drawn computer-type graphics designating exactly which colour should be dotted in exactly which tiny square over exactly which other colour; large works printed using multiple wood-blocks prepared by a Japanese collaborator who is expert in wood block carving; tapestries woven from computer generated images which are startlingly super-realistic.

I left the exhibition with a new understanding of this work and this lifetime of grid exercises

ADDENDUM: I just discovered an interview with Chuck Close that is really worth reading. I had no idea he was incapacitated for much of his life.

Coffee and fragile glass barrels

La Renaissance courtyard

The French Cafe Patisserie La Renaissance has good coffee, French pastries and a charming back courtyard. It is also near the Museum of Contemporary Art which I visited on Friday to see the Sydney Biennale.  I had an hour to kill before the 10am opening time and I spent the time at La Renaissance, drinking coffee in their wet and  almost deserted courtyard. It was meditative and peaceful.

Ten Liquid Incidents, by Roni Horn

The item which stood out for me in the part of the Sydney Biennale housed at the MCA was Ten Liquid Incidents, by Roni Horn.

They were glass barrels that looked for all the world like glass tubs full of water but are solid glass and very fragile. Much as is our life on this planet right now.

Tall poppies

Push down the barriers and you are bound to get bad press. A review of the Yoko Ono Exhibition by a Sydney art critic listed her accomplishments but sounded bored. Yoko Ono and her work are wonderfully passionate and very human, quite the opposite of boring (just as Nietzsche and Wagner were fun although you'd never know it reading the critics).  I was at the Yoko Ono exhibition again today (it is on at the Museum of Contemporary Art until February) and once again it was full of thoughtful or smiling faces. Or laughing faces, those worn by people trying to play chess at the tables laid out in the the first room. All of the pieces were white, so there were no losers.

From the Exhibition:
We're all Water  by Yoko Ono.

A very long line of identical bottles part filled with plain water and with names on the bottles.

You read along the line. Next to Socrates is Marlene Dietrich, ...


Frieda Kahlo .... Mary Shelley ... Osama bin Laden ...

Challenging your perceptions

If you want to see a captivating show that leaves you feeling the need for a cup of tea, a bex and a good lie down, then go to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. The work of Olafur Eliasson (on until 11 April) is incomparable ... take your kids ... and take gran/grandpa as well. Its that sort of show.