It's Cold Outside

So cold, there was nothing left to do but snuggle into bed with scissors and glue... voilá collage!

I did drag my weary bones outside today, spending the whole morning wandering through the MCA. I enjoyed myself, despite my soggy socks (boots, you'll soon be in the bin!). The Sydney Biennale is on, and if you go I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. At least, most of the work is right up my alley. Very contemporary, without being obscure or overly simple/ugly. I found nearly all of the work engaging, developing ideas of diversity and cultural criticism without pandering to the PC police. A good mix of installation, painting/drawing/print, photo and video work.

The stand-out pieces? Definitely Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnets: A Continuing Offense. These had an amazing presence, taking over one room. The bonnets are completely filled with pearl-headed hat pins, pointing inwards, from crown to the trailing lengths of the ribbons. The thought of them was painful, but they were crying out for me to touch them (don't worry, I withstood the urge). The folds of material took on another life, strangely sumptuous.

Another work that is surprisingly sumptuous is Salla Tykkä's Victoria, a sensual video portrait of a giant water lily. The slow motions of the bloom, as it matures, are otherworldly in this dense, jungle-like scene. At first, I wasn't particularly interested, but somehow it drew me in and my fascination grew. The effect is heightened by the classical music, accompanying the movements through sound.

Another video work, Susan Hiller's The Last Silent Movie, kept me coming back. Every time I caught a drift of voice, I was drawn into that dark room to sit and listen. A very simple but effective piece, the work made use of archival recordings of extinct and endangered languages, with a translation projected onto the wall. These ranged from familiar, French-sounding languages to those more akin to birdsong. One recording couldn't even be translated. In an adjacent room hang a series of prints; minimal, quiet and beautiful. They show an excerpt from each recording, and a corresponding soundwave pattern.

Fiona Pardington's series, Ahua: A Beautiful Hesitation, has a similar mournful beauty. Each image shows a life-cast, either a life or death mask, sourced from museums and photographed against a contrasting background. The ink on rag paper presentation allows you to fall into the image, unaware of the surface of the print. Each face is lifelike, yet heavy. The light passivity of the closed eyes sits uneasily with the solid bronze or plaster forms.

Wow, that's tired me out. I might speak more about the other works that blew me away, later.