The City So Nice, They Named It Twice
Today a book arrived in the mail which I have been on the hunt for since my local library lost the only copy about two decades ago. It’s ABC – The Museum of Modern Art New York by Florence Cassen Mayers.
It was my favourite book as a child learning my ABCs, but I never knew the name or the author. The other day it occurred to me that the pictures I remembered from it were artworks in MoMA, so I emailed them for help. Their helpful products person Judy Gober helped me track down a copy on Amazon and now I have it!
My favourite pieces (which at the time my mother attributed to my love of food – although was probably an early sign of my love for pop art and branding) are K for Kitchen and S for Soup.
Flicking through the book again I am so excited about my trip to New York next year! After SXSW (which I am also really excited about) I’m planning to spend some time in San Fran, Boston and NYC.
I’ve wanted to visit NYC since I first played the computer game Hell Cab where the elevator in the Empire State Building takes you on an epic journey to Ancient Rome (I played a lot of classic history games as a kid). There seems to be SO MANY things to do and see, I feel like I need to start planning so I don’t forget anything.
Any advice for the Big Apple or useful travel planning sites would be mucho appreciated.
My favourite pieces from @Auckartgal
Today started in the best possible way a Sunday could, waking up to the sound of church bells ringing. I made waffles for breakfast and then I went to the Auckland Art Gallery for the first time in way too long. The new building is fantastic, although easy to get lost in. I really like what they’ve done with the lighting, it makes the golds and whites really shine.
There are some great new additions to the collection, and I hope they decide to keep the Flower Chandelier permanently. However after being closed for this long I really just wanted to see the adored pieces I have missed over the years.
Anyone who knows me well (or reads this blog regularly) knows my favourite painting, Lamia, is in the Auckland collection. I walked into the room it is in and a bunch of tourists were crowed around it, I got a bit impatient waiting for them to move on.
Anyway here are some of the other artworks which have always appealed to me. The reproductions do them no justice, so go see them for yourself in all their true glory.
Frederick Goodall – The Finding of Moses Because of this painting I was amazed to see Ibises in Sydney, however after living there for awhile I realised what annoying birds they actually are. Daniel Maclise – The Spirit of Justice The angel in pink on the left is beautiful, I swear all the Disney princesses are modeled off her.
Frank Bramley – For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven This painting is so creepy, especially the grey faced girl staring directly at you. I was probably about her age when I first noticed this painting, and perhaps that’s why I like it.
Frederick Leighton – The Spirit of the Summit and Guido Reni – Saint Sebastian The internet has completely drained these images of their dark blue colours and star filled skies.
Eduardo Paolozzi Thank goodness some of the pop art collection has come out of hiding! If anyone from the art gallery is reading this, please bring out the two Liechtensteins and the Yoko Ono film. Much thanks!
William Hodges – A View in Dusky Bay, New Zealand
Christopher Perkins – Taranaki and Robin White – Fish and chips, Maketu
A guide to what my tattoos “mean”
I have two tattoos, and in the words of my friend Kimmy “sometimes I wish they could hold a conversation themselves”. There is a misconception that people get tattoos because they want you to ask about them. In most cases this simply isn’t true.
My first and smallest tattoo was done by an acquaintance who was just starting out. I actually really like the uneven lines and smudges. They give it character, make it funny. It does have a lot of “deeper meaning” but frankly that’s not the business of passers by.
Some of my friends who do know the meaning think it’s pathetic. So they gave me a tattoo voucher for my birthday in the hope I’d cover it up. Instead I booked an appointment with Rose Hardy on valentines day 08 and got the thing on my ankle.
Knowing I would get plenty of questions I decided to get the meaning tattooed in a banner “annunciation” so people wouldn’t have to ask. I didn’t think it through very well, apparently not everyone has studied art history so I end up with even more questions. The picture depicts Mary and Gabriel, but is actually based of one of my favourite paintings, “Lamia” by John W. Waterhouse which is owned by the Auckland Art Gallery.
My boyfriend hopes that one day I’ll get them removed, and maybe I will when I’m old and rich. I don’t understand why you’d get a tattoo on your back or somewhere else you’ll never see it. I can admire mine and yet with a pair of stocking and a wristwatch I can cover them up. Fortunately in my line of work ink is usually alright, they add to the “creative” image.
Ps. Someone who used to do marketing for Bendon told me the DimitySO girls all had blogs, so I looked up Drea Morsby, and turns out she wrote a similar post >
Valentines art
I <3 Valentine’s Day. I have many fond memories of having “romantic” dinners with my friends, making anonymous cards, eating heart shaped cookies when I was little and in more recent years all the pretty coloured flowers.
With only a couple of weeks to go the internet is filling up with geeky V Day art. My favourites are this custom print by Rifle Paper and this pink print by Susan Kare who designed the smiling mac icon.
But what would really make my day would be getting an ecard from someone on my Top Five. Can you see any patterns in my list?
1. Topher Brink from the Dollhouse >
2. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory >
3. Codex from The Guild >
4. Sherlock Holmes from the BBC series >
5. Will Travers from Rubicon >
So this is the new year. And i don’t feel any different.
The above illustration says what we’re all thinking. 2011 had better be an improvement on the year we’ve just had.
If the JWT trend forecast is anything to go by you’d better not get your hopes up. The forecast includes Chernobyl tourism (I told you so) and the rise of Detroit. Detroit is already trending with lots of people currently talking about the abandoned houses which I’ve been contemplating buying for the past year. Probably a good thing I didn’t as the city will soon be over run with hipsters. If you can’t be bothered reading the whole report here’s the animated “highlights”:
And on a brighter not this spaghetti ad really boils my intrest.
A present for you
If you’ve heard of the Five Love Languages you may be interested to know mine is gift giving. I don’t whine about how “I don’t feel loved unless I get a present every day”, I just genuinely enjoy receiving well thought out gifts. Which is probably why Poppy is one of my best friends. I think I’m pretty good at picking out presents too.
And what have I got for you, a pretentious blog reader?
A calendar filled with the kinds of pictures you’ll find here. While I have no authority to reproduce these images, almost all of them I have paid for in some form through posrcards, tshirts, gallery admissions and prints so feel good about putting them on your wall.
And for those of of you feeling the pressure to get me something good, don’t bother using the Twitter Gift Guide. I will tell you what I want baby Jesus to bring: a car, a rose gold twitter necklace, some nice 8.5″x10″ and 14″x11″ frames, JPG’s Classique Summer and enough Lindt chocolate for me to rank in the agency’s “Biggest Winner” competition. Thanks!
My favourites from the 17th Biennale of Sydney
After weeks and weeks of mismatched schedules, my friend Andrea and I finally made it to Cockatoo Island to see the the Bienalle just before it ended. I’m annoyed I didn’t go to the other exhibitions to see more painting, but there were a few pieces which made the trip well worth it.
Top Sculpture: ‘Summit’ by Chinese artist Shen Shaomin.
This piece captured everything that fascinated me in Europe; display of glass coffins, Madame Tussauds and of course dead politicians. The first glass coffin I walked up to was Kim Il Sung and then I saw Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Lenin. Without reading a blurb I instantly recoginised each leader from the fantastic wax modelling and could assume it was a meeting of the great Communist minds. I saw Andrea standing next to Fidel Castro and thought what is he doing here, wont he live forever? When I walked over I realised the model of Castro was not in a glass coffin, but on a makeshift hospital bed with air being pumped out his mouth as though he was breathing.
Amazing.
Top Photography: ‘Goat Sluice’ by Kiwi artist Yvonne Todd
This exhibition had the perfect setting, an old lodge house which had 1960s wallpaper falling onto the floor. The slightly creepy portraits of teenage girls reminded me of Twin Peaks, especially the figure in “Goat Sluice” (left). Laura Palmer much?
Top Video: ‘The Feast of Trimalchio’ by Russian artists AES+F
We spend a long time sitting in a circular room with 9 screens playing this video. It was mesmorising and some how very relaxing. You can watch it on YouTube, but it has nowhere near the same effect:
I’ve always thought this looked like a fun job
Or rather, I used to wonder how I could work in the Google offices without knowing software engineering… and doodling was the answer. Although creative labs would probably be a better fit.
The most used painting in advertising?
I’ve arrived in Paris and out of all the paintings in this city, by far the best I have seen up close and personal is The Picnic by Manet. It is one of those paintings which can not be done justice by modern photography.
It seems quite popular with a bunch of ad creatives, because it keeps popping up in advertising. I’ve seen it in a youghurt ad, a carpet ad and most famously David Olgviy’s first ad:
The best of italy on the interwebs
While being in Italy is something special, a lot of people only do it for the tourist attractions. I can’t understand why as you can experience most of those online (unlike having dinner at George Clooney’s favourite restaurant). Here are some Italy online hightlights:
Sistine Chapel – Why wait in line like I am probably doing right now to spend a couple of minutes in the Sistine Chapel when you can see it in high definition 3D on the Vatican website here >
Pompeii – I love volcano simulators at museums, but have never cared to much about the ruins of Pompeii. However if it’s something you’ve always wanted to see why not explore it on Google Streetview >
The Last Supper – This is not Leonardo’s best work and certainly doesn’t deserve the attention it’s given. But if you do want to see it, check it out online with the world’s highest definition ever photo. It’s a lot closer than you will ever get to the real thing, see here >
Gorgeous maps by @bexrad
Around the time my bf and I started dating he went to Melbourne for a poker tournament. I gave him a map of the city which I coloured in with places for him to see. He loved it so much he’s kept it in his wallet ever since.
Last time we were in Melbourne he showed this map to my friend Bex Rad who was also visiting the city. She completely outdid us with her own hand drawn map, far more detailed and awesome than I could ever imagine putting time into:
I’m pleased to see Bex is putting her amazing maps online for your viewing pleasure >
Check them out as they are filled with great places to visit in Melbourne, Christchurch and Wellington (so far).
Related: Nicholas Jones’ map of Flinders Lane >
Fine art catalog mashup
by Jonathan Hull via design*sponge >
I love this, I used to do similar things with all the colour print outs we got in Art History. Have been thinking a lot lately about doing some collages.
Invader street art
My friend Colette lives in Paris down the road from a space invader. While I was visiting her, Colette’s dad told me about the street artist Invader who has been tiling walls in the shape nerd oddities since the 90s. Not just space invaders but pacmen, claris works icons and other images associated with the mac I had as a kid.
After hearing about them I started seeing them everywhere in the city. My favourite was by far this gem, Oscar the Grouch as the trashcan icon.
My dad (and Colette’s as well I am guessing) installed this on our computer in the 90s. From memory Oscar would come out of the bin and mumble something about trash whenever you emptied the documents in it. Those were the good old days before Apple sold out. Or before Sesame St did either.
Cakes
Wayne Thiebaud Cakes 1963
This painting reminds me of my favourite books as a child. I can’t remember what any of them were called but they all had pretty illustrations of cakes. Also one of the reasons I like going to David Jones, looking at the cakes. We got a little Dobos Torte from there last night, and it is unpleasantly dry.
Titania and bottom
Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Titania and Bottom (1848-1851)
by Edwin LANDSEER
Held in the NGV (Melbourne)
This was the header of this blog before I decided to rip the whole layout out.
Old art in new ghettos
What would that classic painting look like if it was painted in today’s gangster landscape?
Thanks Banksy for teaching us to disrespect the masters.
Naked people furniture already was huge
Bill Green (from Make the Logo Bigger), who is currently filling in at Adrants just claimed some Valley Lodge music video has an original “wtfness” about it. I’d just like to remind everyone that Allen Jones did it first… in 1969:
Dick Frizzell
Dick Frizzell is one of my all time favourite artists.
Sleeping Woman (2008) was top of my Birthday present wishlist this year, I didn’t get it however there is potential of an even better present next year…
We’re going to Tuscany for my birthday and just after this Mr Frizzell himself is doing a 2 week painting workshop there! It would be a dream come true to go, however my flights back are shortly after it starts and with the booking being Florence – London – Kuala Lumpar – Melbourne – where ever I am living, it would be a mission to change. Fingers crossed they let me attend the workshop for just the first couple of days!
Actually come to think of it his son Otis Frizzell taught me how to tag, back in my West Auckland days.
The painting on the right (Grocer with Moko, 1992) was the inspiration for my 6th form painting boards. We had to start with Jim Dyne and thank goodness my teacher recommended this as a segway into a painting style I actually like. I’ve had a love affair with his work since then (minus the Colin McCahon inspired recipes series).
When we heard from a friend he was releasing a range of wines we fly back to Auckland and got 6 bottles from the airport, we drank one (the bottle is now used as a vase), but the rest have been reserved for a special occasion amoungst other far more expensive and better tasting, but not nearly as stylish wines (and a bottle or two of CC):
Will hopefully find out soon if I can attend the workshop, and then just have to save up a million dollars to fund it – or maybe I can sell the paintings I do on trademe to cover costs? Haha
Penis and pencil sculptures
I was meaning to go to the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition at Bondi beach this weekend, however it clashed with my life goal of being the only kiwi to live in Sydney without ever going to Bondi.
I did find some other great outdoor sculptures while I was indoors this weekend.
Giant pencils by Joanna Pohjalainen, in Pedvāle Lativa (a country I have always wanted to visit)…
…and giant penises at South Korea’s “Penis Park“. An engaged woman drowned before her wedding and brought a curse on the local fishermen, so they erected phallus sculptures to keep her horny spirit happy and the fish returned to the sea.
Romance
As a house warming gift James got me a book called The Classic Era of American Comics which I used to have on permanent loan from the public library when I was in 7th form. There is a really cool comic in it which was the muse for my painting class. The book was an awesome present, but what he gave me for our anniversary was even better:
(The comic from the book painted by the guy who also did this > and the photo doesn’t really do it justice it’s huge!).
My gift for him was a whale watching cruise in Port Stephens, there were Humpbacks, dolphins and we got to feed giant pelicans as well as going to this place where you stand in a pool with sharks and sting rays and feed them shrimps. It was a good weekend and it’s been a good year.