To the Hermitage
Musée_de_l'Hermitage (photo by Pierre Andre Leclercq)
July, 2015 If you can’t get to St Petersburg, or decline to chance flying over Russian air-space, this exhibition extract at Melbourne’s NGV is some small consolation. You’d need a few weeks to skim the Hermitage collection; this one can be seen in a couple of hours. It is a very small slice of a gigantic art hoard, one of the greatest collections in the world (celebrating its 250th year). Of the cameos for example, none are from classical antiquity (those remain at home). Here, in Melbourne, is no El Greco; no Gauguin; no Cranach; no Holbein; no Leonardo; no Raphael; no Caravaggio; no Caspar David…
Continue Reading →Samson & Delilah – The Unforgiving Present
(Samson & Delilah, directed by Warwick Thornton) (2009) “The Future is Unforgiving” (Photographic Exhibition by Warwick Thornton, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne) (July into August, 2015) At the Anna Schwartz Gallery, 185 Flinders Lane, The Varnished Culture saw the exhibition by Warwick Thornton, whom we knew only from his film Samson and Delilah (see thumbnail review below). Born and bred in the Alice, Thornton has possibly observed a thing or two about dysfunctional folks and the impact of the excesses of received culture on indigenous perspectives. Here, in a cavernous, concrete-floored space, there are a small series of interrelated images of aboriginal children. There are three large…
Continue Reading →Peppers Springs Retreat
Winter, 2015 For The Varnished Culture, it was a week of cancellations, most of which, surprisingly, suited us mightily. 1. We were groaning in the early cold and imagined damp, having packed late the previous evening, when the airline rang and said our morning flight to Melbourne was cancelled due to fog. So we got to fly at a more genteel time. 2. Above the clouds, we were warned that turbulence was expected, so hot drinks were not available. This meant free booze in economy – such a shame the flight was a shorty! 3. Our hire car’s handbrake had been…
Continue Reading →Clunes is a Closed Book
Post Office (closed) (photo Mattinbgn)
Winter of 2015 We had come to Clunes, with its massively wide main street (where scenes from Mad Max were filmed) in 2010, during the town’s famous Book Fair. There P listened to an entertaining talk by Malcolm Fraser, launching his political Memoirs, and had a copy signed by the former PM along with co-author Margaret Symons. (Had there been a follow up to this launch, The Varnished Culture might have asked whether vast tracts of the work might better be classified as fiction, but no matter.) On a wintry Monday, The Varnished Culture returned to this charming hamlet, overlooking the fact…
Continue Reading →Stop Mucking About
A terrific and informed wrap-up of the Sydney Symphony orchestra’s Tristan und Isolde concert is to be found in the Richard Wagner Society of SA Inc’s August newsletter. The Varnished Culture did not attend the evening in Sydney, but we commented on some of the issues in our wrap-up, Great Hall. The general consensus is that the placement of the singers at the back of the hall, behind the orchestra, was an acoustic mistake, and the video projections a profound artistic error. The adverse effect of this mucking about is obvious; the motive is unclear. Lee Brauer’s perceptive account of the recent RWS…
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