Last stop London!

 Last stop London! Judy Chicago has been an influential feminist artist in our lives since 1979 when Maggie, Kes and I travelled to the USA via San Francisco and experienced the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. 

It was a momentous 5 year undertaking and its result was so powerful and proved so antagonistic to powerful men and the art establishment that Chicago that the work spent time in the art wilderness. It was criticised for being pornographic and also received criticism from high ranking Congress legislators. 

However exhibitions of the Dinner Party were held in cities around the world including in Melbourne at the Royal Exhibition Building in 1988. It was rejected by the National Gallery of Victoria!

I was the Community Arts Network EO and was involved in bringing the Dinner Party to Melbourne and the CAN organised Dinner Parties across the State inviting women  to create their own dinner plates of important and influential women in their lives. 

Our next encounter with the Dinner Party was in Brooklyn NYC in where  it has after so many years in storage been given a permanent home and a rightful place in the lexicon of art. 

The Serpentine Gallery has a retrospective exhibition of Chicago’s work dating back to the ‘70’s to today. It is an inspiring, influential and brings to the fore an example of her collaborative work over several decades. It is a powerful reflection on the role of women that has been subjugated by men for centuries and still today. 

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/judy-chicago-revelations/

Moderna Museet, Malmo

 Moderna Museet, Malmo has an exhibition currently titled ‘Unhealed’. It is an exhibition that explores the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2010 that resulted in uprisings and revolutions across the Arab world.

Many refugees from these parts are now living in Sweden as a consequence so the artworks are personal, poignant and thought provoking. 

The exhibition ‘embodies a poetic narrative rather than strict historical accounts’. ‘It navigates through feelings of hope, confusion and despair beyond political analysis’. 

It is a timely reflection on the present and future that captures and shapes the lives of those living in Gaza.

Lomma & Lund Likes!

 

Paris au revoir

 Notre dernier jour à Paris! We have spent the past 9 days in the fifth arrondissement on Boulevard Saint Germaine in an apartment on the 6th level with views of the La tour Eiffel and the Notre Dame de Paris. We have shopped, wined and occasionally ‘dined’ in this neighbourhood. 

We have walked and bussed across this very compact city, a city of 10 million across 100 sq kilometres. It is the 7th densest city in the world. 

No wonder you feel a strong sense of the urban. 

It is a lived in city broken by the many small and large public places with their formidable statues and some meditative green spaces. It is a city that has survived planners and modernisers. Maybe some would feel it’s uniformity oppressive or limiting. But it works and provides its citizens and visitors with much on offer. 

And Hotel de Ville protects its residents from ‘innovations’ that would destroy its mobility and character. It has banned commercial e scooters and encourages cycling, walking and public transport. It has increased the cost of parking for SUV vehicles. 

The longer you linger, Paris comes nearer to its myth.

Pompidou Centre: Artspeak!

Picasso, Leger, Soulages, Khalo, Dubuffet, Molnar, Warhol, Dubuffet

 Pompidou Centre, Paris