EM em Oh Pee!

I want to visit here. You know, while we are thinking about spending money we don't have, and bigging up the things we love. (since 04!)

They are open tomorrow, and if it isn't raining weird horizontal rain and blowing a gale I might just get to Footscray to visit. I was sad to miss the fundraiser. A sadness I kept quiet about because I was living it up on holiday in Qld. This poster by The Narrows reminded me. Yes. Primitive Calculators. I'm sad. Boo.
And looking at the website, my favourite of the artist's prints to SAVE the Melbourne Museum of Printing is by Susan Jacobs. Perhaps worth spending that money you don't have on?

They have an online shop, and blog, in case the weather is too shitty to ride. I am interested in printing another Artist's book and think this might be the place, so I better get there sometime to have a look.

Type-setting my old friend, long time, no see. Why O Why am I drawn to all these tedious processes? Yes ANIMATION, I am talking to you. Also Knitting, and you too Embroidery, and well while we are here, lets talk about printmaking, and yes I could go on and on. And on.

Therefore, I am tedious.

Amsterdam

Stedelijk museum was our piece of Art pie. We didn't have enough time really, which was a shame as I was enjoying it. Particularly the video works in docking station and the deep screen exhibition 'All that is Solid Melts into Air' by Mark Boulos, I think it is being shown as part of the Sydney Biennale too, If you're there. A striking two screen documentary face-off highlighting the colonization of petroleum resources, through footage of Nigerian guerillas and American futures traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

I was transfixed by Meija Lin's 'Lost Paradise', a bored naked couple in a computer generated garden, rocking on, smoking cigarettes and passing time. It was beautifully desolate and presented on three screens, with random elements relating to musical cues.
And Gabriel Lester's video landscapes in 'choreography' with disarmingly erratic but consistently robotic camera moves. There were also large drawings by Jasmijn Visser which I found really pleasing, vast diagrams of objects gradually morphing from containers, to hot air balloons, to kites, cranes, cassette tapes and ferris wheels.

We also visited the Frozen Fountain, looking at some beautiful expensive things. Like giant knitted pouffes and rugs by Christien Meindertsma who I spoke about here, and Hella Jongerius' beautiful bottles and amazing animal platters... I've just trawled through her website for all sorts of inspired projects, knitted bottles being a personal favourite. Lovely textiles all over the shop, beautiful woven fabric cushions, tea towels and knockout dining tables. All things I can appreciate but will never be able to afford. A look is good though.

It's educational

I've never been very good at looking at specimens in jars, least of all mutated baby animals, but still we went to the Museum für Naturkunde around the corner. It was full of half-pints gauping at dinosaurs and taxidermied exotic and extinct creatures standing around, looking sad and beautiful and wrong. The large diorama's are pretty great, from around the 1920's they have perfect paint by numbers backgrounds and are a delight to see.





One of my favourite things was the mineral collection, with a huge display of otherworldly rocks and crystals. Whoahwhoahwhoah it's magic, you know...