Today we went to the Auckland Art gallery. I hadn't been to an art gallery since grade 8, when I went on a school trip.
The art gallery was rather large, well laid out, and reasonably interesting, even for someone who is not overly interested in fine art. It is also free and out of the rain!
My favourite exhibit was one of miniature paintings from India telling the story of Rama. The introduction to each section told the story and then the paintings acted as an illustration to the story.
There was also one exhibit that I found kinda creepy. Perhaps it was just that I'm a writer so can more easily imagine how to turn an everyday scene into a story, but it was creepy!
Let me try to describe it: Walking through the doorway into the long hall of this exhibit, the first thing I noticed was the intermittent sound of seagulls. In an art gallery, it was somewhat random and out of place. The long hall stretches two stories, hemmed in by a second floor mezzanine, giving it a somewhat cavernous feeling. Hanging from the ceiling are three long, white, lace gowns, fluttering slightly in an unfelt breeze. Then, as I started looking at the paintings on the wall, one of them moved. I didn't imagine it. A life-sized, full body portrait of a young women in a grey dress is moving ever so slightly. I look closer and see that it is a video screen, but amongst the other canvases it is quite startling. There is water dripping from her fingers, her dress, and down the screen.
There was also one exhibit that I found kinda creepy. Perhaps it was just that I'm a writer so can more easily imagine how to turn an everyday scene into a story, but it was creepy!Let me try to describe it: Walking through the doorway into the long hall of this exhibit, the first thing I noticed was the intermittent sound of seagulls. In an art gallery, it was somewhat random and out of place. The long hall stretches two stories, hemmed in by a second floor mezzanine, giving it a somewhat cavernous feeling. Hanging from the ceiling are three long, white, lace gowns, fluttering slightly in an unfelt breeze. Then, as I started looking at the paintings on the wall, one of them moved. I didn't imagine it. A life-sized, full body portrait of a young women in a grey dress is moving ever so slightly. I look closer and see that it is a video screen, but amongst the other canvases it is quite startling. There is water dripping from her fingers, her dress, and down the screen.
The contemporary video art gallery was also somewhat interesting. There was one that was a story told on 7 screens using 7 different cameras to capture the scene. Definitely an interesting medium.
There were definitely parts of the gallery that I enjoyed, but I found a fair bit of it rather pointless. Reading the descriptions beside the paintings I found that it seemed like they were written by English students who were told to find a meaning in the painting and make it sound poetic. Perhaps as an engineer I am just a little too practical to enjoy art for the sake of abstract art. I couldn't help looking at some of the pieces and thinking that my youngest nephew could paint something about as good.
There were definitely parts of the gallery that I enjoyed, but I found a fair bit of it rather pointless. Reading the descriptions beside the paintings I found that it seemed like they were written by English students who were told to find a meaning in the painting and make it sound poetic. Perhaps as an engineer I am just a little too practical to enjoy art for the sake of abstract art. I couldn't help looking at some of the pieces and thinking that my youngest nephew could paint something about as good.
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