Welcome everyone to the first Sunday Outing report of 2013 where 7 members attended two exhibitions in the CBD at the National Gallery of Art and the Ian Potter Centre. Having had a few issues with email, we finally managed to get a message out to all members and Pete Davies and I met at the Atrium at Fed Square and sat and waited to see if anyone else turned up. One by one people arrived and the 7 of us, after a short chat about the Xmas festivities went into the IPC to purchase our tickets for the two exhibitions. Discovering that the first guided tour was for the Thomas Demand exhibition, we took a steady stroll to the NGV and duly queued waiting for the guide. Going around the exhibition we were amazed by the sheer effort that Demand had put into his work, recreating everything he photographed. I won't go into detail because the artist had demanded that people look at the exhibition before reading up on the work and i don't want to spoil it for anyone else who is planning a visit. I would recommend this exhibition to anyone but the free tour is worth the effort.
The guide spoke to us for an hour and at 12 noon at the end of the tour, we all headed to the Southbank for lunch and a chat. Having had lunch we took a slow walk to the IPC and waited for the tour which turned out to be the same guide. Jeff Wall is a much younger photographer and his work was presented partly using light boxes but her also used large format printing as opposed to Demand who has printed onto a clear poly surface. Wall's work was quite different to the offerings of Demand and it quickly became apparent that people were not as impressed with his images with some of the group wandering off from the tour as the guide tried to explain away his work. Some of his images were quite self explanatory, others you neede to have an artistic mind to interpret to which personally I struggled to see.
After the tour some people headed on their way whilst a couple of us took the opportunity to walk Melbourne's laneways which turned out to be a bit of an eye opener in places as there is quite a lot of building work going on. With regards to hosier Lnae, that area is now so much of a tourist attraction that it has been spoiled and not really worth a visit any more.
Thanks to all of the members that attended and hopefully we will see a few more to the next Sunday Outing.
Regards
Dave