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February 29, 2008

Andy in Brizzy

Last night I got back from a brief visit to Brisbane where I saw the incredible Andy Warhol exhibition that is on at the Gallery of Modern Art at the moment. It's not touring anywhere else so it was essential that I made the pilgrimage, Warhol being my favourite artist of all time. It certainly didn't disappoint.

I spent over five hours with the 300 works on display and was totally and utterly enthralled. Warhol's work really deserves to be seen in person rather than in a book, the scale adds another dimension to the pieces that is simply impossible to experience through reproductions.

There was only one of the Coca-Cola paintings, which are probably my favourite of his works. Andy said that he loved Coca-Cola because it didn't matter whether you were the Queen of England or a bum on the street - you couldn't get a better Coke.

It was also full of school groups, I saw at least eight, I think the day I was there must have been school day or something. It was pretty amusing watching the kids watching Blowjob, completely oblivious to what was going on.

Speaking of films, as well as Blowjob, there were six screens showing about five screen tests each, also The Kiss, Chelsea Girls, Sleep and Empire, and some Velvet Underground footage.

I don't think there was really enough of his early fine art work - the period when he started branching out from commercial illustration but before the soup cans and money paintings. There was a bit, but that stuff isn't as popular I guess so it gets passed up. There were some pencil drawings of newspapers that I hadn't seen before so that was exciting.

I watched about half of a movie about Valerie Solanis, the woman who shot Andy, but walked out because the acting was so bad.

Photography wasn't allowed, so I had to surreptitiously snap, pretending I was just resting my hand on my camera dangling from the strap over my shoulder. There was no way I was flying a thousand kilometers to see an exhibition and not taking any photos. The photos look awful, I know, but I don't mind.

Other than the exhibition, Brisbane was pretty boring. I didn't find the people very friendly, it was really really muggy and the men seemed incredibly poorly dressed. I did meet an interesting character named Bob who's on holiday in Australia, all the way from Syracuse, New York. He's going to give me a call when his cruise ship gets down to Melbourne.

Aside from the exhibition, the best thing about Brisbane was probably a photographic store I found on my quest for Polaroid film - Photo Continental out in Mt Gravatt. This place had everything, was big, plenty of staff and I recommend it very highly. That, and the architecture of the entire cultural complex that the GoMA forms part of is all stunning.

If you're in Brisbane (or even if you're not), I can't urge you enough to go.

Posted by Piers on February 29, 2008 at 08:31 PM

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Posted by: his_whoreness at March 1, 2008 09:40 AM

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