Adelaide Arcade, Art Gallery of South Australia

The threat of periods of rain this morning in Adelaide sent me cowering into indoor sights, namely the Adelaide Arcade and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

As it happens, I think the threat was idle. Although, it might have rained while I was in the art gallery.

Adelaide Arcade

The Adelaide Arcade is a Victorian-era indoor shopping arcade that runs between Rundle Mall and Grenfell Street, two parallel streets in Adelaide.

There is also a short offshoot perpendicular to the main hall of the arcade, forming a “T” shape, but with the normally vertical portion of the T much shorter than the horizontal bar.

Apart from the “T” versus “I” shape, the look of the Adelaide Arcade is similar to that of the Brisbane Arcade that I mentioned in the entry on my last day in Brisbane.

The shops are on two levels. On the upper level, the shops open onto two narrower parallel walkways, with an open space between them to the level below. Two or three (I forget which) bridges connect the parallel walkways so shoppers don’t have to head downstairs to cross to the other side.

The arcade has a lot of attractive wood features. The shops are all small and mostly independent stores, not big box stores or international chains.

I didn’t see any vacant stores on the lower level. There were, however, a couple of empty spaces on the upper level. And that level leaned more heavily toward services than retail. I spotted a barber, beauty salon, tailor, and podiatrist up there.

I guess most people don’t climb the stairs and only places that customers make premeditated visits to, rather than just browsing, can make a go of it up there.

Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia is not particularly large, but it has a very eclectic collection on display.

I arrived there a little before 10:30 in the morning and wandered around on my own for a while. But a sign in the entrance lobby told of a free tour of the gallery at 11:00.

I decided I’d go on the tour only if I wasn’t the only person on it. I usually am somewhat okay with ending up being the only person on a city walking tour. I don’t like crowds of people. In fact, I hate them.

Being alone means I can ask any questions I want without worrying about inadvertently stepping on someone else’s interactions with the guide. I hate committing social faux pas. I constantly gaffe. But I hate it. So I don’t like being in situations where they are more likely.

My fear of committing breaches of etiquette and embarrassing myself also explains why I don’t want to be alone on a tour of an art gallery. Art intimidates me. I fear that if I’m alone, the guide will expect me to ask intelligent, insightful questions. The best I can come up with is something along the lines of, “So, is the consensus among most art experts that this is a pretty picture?”

(That having been said, there is an art historian, she knows who she is, whom I very much enjoy going to galleries with. She knows full well what an ignorant art buffoon I am. I don’t think she appreciates that, but she tolerates it and I learn stuff from her. I don’t remember what she says any longer than I do when provided information by anyone else. But I enjoy hearing it at the time.)

With my caveat about not joining an otherwise empty tour in mind, a few minutes before the appointed start time, I headed toward the lobby, stayed around a corner, and peered inside. A couple was already with the guide waiting to take the tour. I joined them. No one else joined the tour.

Fortunately, the couple, particularly the woman, but also the man, asked the occasional relevant question and made periodic pertinent comments. I think the woman in particular had an interest in and modicum of knowledge of art. Great. The pressure was off me.

It’s not that I was silent on the tour of the Art Gallery of South Australia. I pulled my weight. I intermittently interjected pithy comments such as, “Ah,” “Ah-ha,” “I see,” and “interesting.” Do I know my way around art or what?

Before I go on, I need to remind you that yesterday I went on a wine-tasting tour that involved tasting 24 different wines (see here and here). Consequently, I was not at my best today. And my best is normally no better than many people’s middling or worst. So I might have paid a tad less attention and retained a smidgen less than I normally do, which is not a particularly high bar to jump over. About the height of an ant’s knee.

The notes below are from what I remember the guide saying and what I remember of my observations from my walk around the museum before the tour started. Set your expectations as low as the above-mentioned bar.

Pieces in the Art Gallery of South Australia

I’ll mention the most macabre piece first. It’s the hides, with hair, of two headless horses stitched together. The horses are hanging upside down from a tall pole.

According to the guide, the Belgian artist, Berlinde de Bruyckere, had a deal with a home for retired draught horses. She got the hides from the home’s abattoir after the horses died. There are no guts in the skins. She filled them out to retain the horses’ natural horse shapes with I forget what materials.

According to the guide, the headlessness of the horses and the fact they hang upside down in the exhibit is a metaphor for human inhumanity. Um. Ok.

I didn’t take a picture of it because I don’t want to burden you with human inhumanity any more than necessary. Nor did I want to remember it. Seeing it was enough.

Again according to the guide, when the gallery director bought the piece and had it installed a few years back, some of the curators and other staff had words to say about it. Apparently, not great words. The director told them, don’t worry. It won’t be there forever.

There were just a couple of problems. It’s a very large, heavy work. It requires a major piece of construction equipment to mount or dismount it. And the gallery has no place to store it. So, it remains. And the guide thinks it will always remain on display.

“It will not be there forever” brings up another point I should mention before I forget. The Art Gallery of South Australia has a much larger collection than it can display in its gallery. According to the guide, there was once a plan to build a second, additional gallery. Then there was a change of government. The new one cancelled the plan.

The point is, that the gallery rotates its works frequently from storage. So, if you go, you might not see many of the pieces I describe here. Except maybe the stitched-together horses. They may still be there.

Fish And Bologna

Let’s move on to a couple of pieces that I posted pictures of above to fill in the text-heavy sections up there. I took those pictures specifically for the benefit of one art historian reader of this journal.

The first is by John William Lewin (1770-1819). His “Fish catch and Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour” dates from circa 1813. I included it because, what art historian doesn’t like fish, even if they are, unfortunately, dead?

The second piece of art that I pictured specifically for said art historian is titled “The Coronation of the Virgin with Saints Luke, Dominic and John the Evangelist.” It’s by Bartolomeo Passerotti. He was born in Bologna in 1529, died in Bologna in 1592, and painted the piece in Bologna circa 1580. I included it because, come on, what art historian doesn’t like late Renaissance artists from Bologna?

But Wait, There’s More

One of the first pieces I saw upon entering the museum before going on the tour was a sculpture of a dead person underneath a tarp or flag. It looked to me like it was made of a lacquered cloth. I say lacquered because it is quite smooth—it’s not knobby like cloth, particularly a tarp. The cloth has a lot of folds, including a section that’s folded over itself. There are a couple of grommets on the corners of the cloth and a string is tied to one of the grommets.

I couldn’t see the label for the piece and I moved on.

The guide started with that piece on her tour. It’s not made of lacquered cloth. It’s almost all marble. The only non-marble parts are the two metal grommets and the string.

Upon being told this, I took a closer look. The detail on the flowing folds is amazing. Where the “cloth” is folded over, the indentation between two pieces of cloth goes far enough back that you can’t see its end unless you look that closely. It’s amazing.

I found the label for the piece. It’s on the side of the fairly low pedestal. The work is by Alex Seton (born 1977) and is titled “My concerns will outlive yours.” Seton created it in Sydney, Australia in 2011.

Another of the pieces at the gallery occupies a full room. It’s an intertwined nebula of red yarn hanging from the ceiling and walls and anchored at the center of the floor by a collection of casts of arms and legs. Created in 2018 inside the Art Gallery of South Australia by Chiharu Shiota, who was born in Japan in 1972, it’s titled “Absence Embodied.” According to the guide, the arms and legs are cast from her and her family’s arms and legs.

But that’s not nearly all. Throughout the museum, there’s a lot of Aboriginal art, as well as art from non-Aboriginal Australians. And there are more pieces from Europe than just the ones I mentioned above.

Plus, there are a couple of rooms dedicated to Japanese art.

Generally, I liked the Art Gallery of South Australia. There. I said it. I liked an art gallery.

Lunch at the Art Gallery of South Australia

I ate lunch in the cafe on the lower level of the gallery. I had a nice little chicken Caesar salad. And then it was time to move on. But I’ll save that for a later post.

Aside

Cloaking

I saw the sign pictured here over a door just inside the entrance to the Art Gallery of South Australia.

I’ve always wanted a cloaking device. I’d love it if the strangers who occasionally try to make inane conversation with me couldn’t see me and therefore wouldn’t bother me.

I thought cloaking devices were only instruments of science fiction. I guess not.

I would have investigated further, but I figured there was no way I could afford a cloaking device.

However, I recognize there is some possibility that I might have misinterpreted the sign.