Where was I? Oh yes, The Met.

I love the Met. In all four visits to New York I’ve still not seen all of it but the two constants have been the Impressionist Wing and the apple martinis on the balcony overlooking the grand foyer. As far as first impressions go this not so humble ticket hall certainly sets the agenda for everything else you see/do/consume/bow down before while here. I remember reading years ago that a wealthy widow bestowed a considerable chunk of her fortune to the Met on the proviso that it was spent filling the foyer with enormous arrangements of fresh flowers every week. So Upper East Side. So fabulous.

A state of mind that needs New York

David Shrigley offers some motivational words at the Hayward Gallery

I would love to say the radio silence of the last few weeks was the result of glamorous nights out, fantastically exciting work assignments and the inclination to lie in the sunshine and not on the sofa but that would all be total fucking bollocks. I’ve barely left the house, work has been frustrating and there’s been nary a ray of sunshine since late March.

Basically life has been awash in beige and not even a diehard love of pith has been enough to motivate me to write/moan and consequently possibly punish you all with my beigeness. Consider my silence community service if you will.

Spring despite itself... taken moments before I was smacked
in the face by a cyclist. Yes this has been my life lately.

So it started with that chest infection. Which lead, thanks to a weakened-to-non-existent immune system, to the rising of an, it turns out, latent tooth infection. In the same tooth that endured root canal last year. Why have root canal when you can have RE-root canal I ask you? Throw in hormones and an appalling case of homesickness and you kind of get the drift. The misery was so exquisite it could find company with no one.

Anyway, I’ve slowly been pulling myself up by the bootstraps. Work has been better, drugs have helped with the dental dramas and endorphins have somewhat softened the blows of homesickness. But the biggest band-aid of all has been researching and planning our trip to New York.

A trip to Selfridges for medicinal purposes

Two more sleeps and we’ll be on our way and I can barely keep inside my skin for the excitement. It’s been 10 years since I was last there and it’s always had a place in my heart. In fact I cried last time I was there because I didn’t want to leave and swore the next time I came back it would be to stay. For good. Obviously that’s not the case but I’m making an honourable exception because Lovely Boy has never been and it’s top of his “I’m Not Moving Back to Sydney Until I’ve (Insert Adventure Here)” list. And I suppose in the interests of full disclosure, I could do with a dose of my favourite city (sorry Berlin – total Sophie’s Choice moment).

When I was 21 I spent three months in this incredible metropolis ostensibly doing an internship in a small commercial gallery in Chelsea but really, actually, having the most life affirming, life changing, most fucking brilliant time. All those clichés about New York – the energy, the diversity, the confidence – they’re all true and if you’re an impressionable, under-confident, awkward early twenty-something who’s open to the experience, it just seeps into your soul. You can’t help but soak it up. It was a pivotal moment for my erstwhile younger self and I still have acutely real memories of it all. The jazz bars, the architecture, the energy, the nightclubs, the art, the shopping, the hangovers. It’s going to sound hackneyed and a bit smug/ridiculous/over-earnest so read quickly but the truth is, New York was the first place where I really felt liberated enough to let myself just be myself, without judgement or question or apology. And god it felt amazing. I was me without the backstory and the angst and the uncertainty. Me at face value. It was a powerful lesson and one I've arguably failed at times to remember since.

I imagine everything and nothing has changed in the city since I was last there and I can’t wait to appreciate it all, all over again. 

Francesca Woodman

Not that we’ll have much time for idle basking in the forecasted New York sun. I’m already worried we’re not going to have enough time to see and do and eat and experience everything we want to. Nasty street hotdogs and a baseball game are high on Lovely Boy’s list. Mine is considerably longer. Tomas Saraceno on the roof of the Met, Francesca Woodman at the Guggenheim, the Brooklyn Flea, all the other fleas, David Chang’s Milkbar and award-winning Mexican in Brooklyn, rooftop cinemas, the High Line, Sephora, the view from the top of the Rockefeller, dinner in the back of a pawn shop on the Lower East Side… the list goes on.  

The High Line

While my body hums with anticipation, the wait has been made bearable by dental distractions and one recent lovely cultural outing. Several months ago, while relatively inebriated, Lovely Boy, Tori, the Hungry One and I booked tickets to see Tim Minchin’s musical version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, a Royal Shakespeare Company commission that has finally made its way to London. The relatively inebriated part is important because for a while there we forgot we’d even booked the tickets and when we remembered we couldn’t then remember when we’d booked them for or who had the email with the tickets to print. A series of careful deductions solved the mystery and on Thursday we found ourselves at the Cambridge Theatre in Seven Dials.

Tim Minchin’s genius is well established and the success of Matilda was made abundantly clear recently when it won seven Olivier Awards, including one for Minchin's song book. The set was extraordinary, the precocious talent that was the young Matilda was extraordinary and Minchin’s witty lyrics brought a spiked, intelligent, knowing humour to the dark themes of Dahl’s classic. It took two whole days for the sweetly demonic “My mummy thinks I’m a miracle” refrain of the opening song’s chorus to unclaw itself from my brain. A funny, brilliant man if ever there was one.

I’m not sure if we’ll see anything on Broadway while we’re in New York but if we don’t manage it I suspect we’ll just add it to the list for next time. As long as it’s not another decade. 

Venice and the art (of gelato)

So I have returned from Venice, art aplenty, carbs aplenty, gelato aplenty.

I think after our trip to Germany I was a little apprehensive about what exactly would be involved this time around, what with four days, six bazillion art exhibitions, pavilions, off-site galleries and snooze-inducing films to see (well it was a long first day and we'd been up since 5...) never mind a long-range forecast that said rainy and humid.


I shouldn't have worried. 5am start notwithstanding, last week in Venice was glorious. Just enough brilliant art, the perfect number of bellinis, plenty of gelato, not a hint of rain, a hotel near the beach with free wifi on the terrace, sun dresses galore and a pervading air of "Isn't life grand."

Tomas Saraceno, Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider's Web, 2009. 

We arrived on the Tuesday afternoon and the vaparetto ride to the Lido set the mood really for the next three days - wind in the hair, sun in the face (of those without hats....) and the prospect of promenading in goddamn VENICE. Sigh.


After checking into our hilarious hotel - a building covered entirely in mosaics of faux 18th century cherubs with a driveway lined with naked marble men - we headed off in the direction of the luscious Giardini, for our first encounter with this epic thing called the Venice Biennale.

The Giardini

It really was pretty special. Apart from the fact that the lay-out of the gardens could be read as a history of the expansions of NATO and/or colonialism, with the British, French, German, Swiss and United States pavilions holding the most prominent of locations (Australia was in the equivalent of smartly painted demountable classrooms....), there was something really lovely and organic about being able to wander from 'country' to 'country' and experience such a diverse range of artistic practices. Poland was a highlight, with an incredibly evocative video installation work about the invisible immigrant experience by Krzystof Wodiczko:

As was the international curated exhibition with a beautiful shadow work by the German Hans-Peter Feldmann:

Hans-Peter Feldmann

Getting back to the Lido - ditching the idea of wandering to San Marco Square given the teeming tourist tidal wave - a handful of us strolled down to the beach for some quality toe-dipping, vowing some serious swimming action before we left.

Retiring to bed with my gelato and my appalling so-bad-it-was-fabulous trashy novel, Wednesday was another day of promenading and art-viewing. By a stroke of luck I ended up in a small group with one of my favourite lecturers, a woman who is so fucking smart and so fucking cool she intimidates the hell out of me - to the point where I end up sounding like a total moron whenever I'm in her presence. You know, "I carried a watermelon". That kind of thing.

Anyway - we were a small little group and we had a great day, taking in the Arsenale, a mammoth building with mind-boggling amounts of art in it, before heading into the main part of Venice (through San Marco Square.... argh! tourists! get out of my way!) to see a couple of the key off-site exhibitions. The Arsenale though was amazing and overwhelming. Just some of the work I loved.....

Lygia Pape

Spencer Finch, Moonlight (Venice, March 10, 2009), 2009

Miranda July, Eleven Heavy Things - Pedestal for Strangers, 2009

Cildo Meireles

Off-site we took in the morbid and totally disturbing Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and the Palestinian Mona Hatoum, whose work (none of it new sadly) was shown in an ingenious fashion, hidden amongst the collections of an 18th century house. Sadly stroppy Italian guards forbade any photography. We ended the day here with Mona, well actually, out in the gorgeous green courtyard sipping bellinis and generally talking all things art and nonsense. It was properly brilliant.


If only the night had continued that way... At the student and staff dinner that night I made the completely imbecilic decision to eat the pasta entree that was garnished with shellfish. Let me state at the out - yes, I was SOBER when I mused that perhaps my last encounter with shellfish (which left me totally vomitous and nearly under arrest) was the unfortunate consequence of also imbibing two bottles of red wine and that I wasn't really allergic. Nu-uh. Turns out I am. Viciously so. Thankfully it didn't hit me until I got home but the next day was a total write off.

BEFORE getting home though, hilariously, one of the waiters at the restaurants, perhaps inspired by the sight of 50 slightly intoxicated women, offered us all exclusive use of his cousin's nightclub down on the beach. Hell yes! Such a fun - and funny - night. Lecturers chain-smoking and tearing it up on the dancefloor to YMCA, the rest of us dancing furiously, drinking dodgy cocktails and generally in disbelief that after Venice the next time we will all be together again will be graduation next April. WHERE has the year gone?


But back to the vomit. So Thursday was a disaster - spent lying in the cool darkness of the hotel room and trying not to swallow lest the gag reflex kick in. Sorry - just painting a picture... I did manage to get to the Iceland and Singapore exhibitions before beating a retreat but basically, I had all of Thursday to contemplate my utter stupidity and the carpet burn on my knee from doing the splits at the club the night before. Don't ask.

John Baldessari

Friday was very genial. A swim in the morning, a trip back to the Giardini (I'm auditioning the Polish pavilion work as a potential dissertation artist...) and a visit to the Australian off-site exhibition before lunch and another boat trip back the airport and then the flight back to London.


Am still feeling a tad shaky after my little vomiting episode but largely I am well and so grateful to have had the opportunity to visit the Biennale. Next stop dissertation with a detour (read: excuse to put it off for an-other day) via my Birthday tomorrow. 29........