Old Parliament House.
Take a journey back over the year in Australian politics with Behind the Lines: The Year’s Best Political Cartoons.
Cartoons have always reflected key moments in Australia history. Behind the Lines brings together the best political cartoons of 2010 in a unique exhibition which documents the highs and lows of the political year.
http://moadoph.gov.au/blog/article/behi ... -cartoons/
National Portrait Gallery
Martin Schoeller: Close Up is the artist's first Australian exhibition. The New York-based photographer is best known for this series of celebrity portraits, framed to exclude context and show only the face in extreme close up. Under the unflinching scrutiny of his lens, the faces of actors, politicians, musicians and unknowns, are transformed by the wealth of unfamiliar detail to expose the complexity of the human face.
Face becomes topography, an undulating landscape of hills, valleys, crevasses and plains marked by pores, hair and skin textures. Schoeller uses his close up technique as a way of levelling the differences between individuals. His portrait of Barack Obama, the President of the United States, is framed no differently than that of a tribal man from the Amazon region of Brazil. Without a background to provide clues about social status, the uniform presentation of each head places each one in a position of equality, a democracy of effect that encourages comparison.
http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/exhibit ... ite_cu.php
The portraitys were stunng. The juxtapositions interesting;National Gallery of Australia.
At the beginning of the 20th century, art—whether visual or literary, music or ballet—had become a blood sport. At the 29 May 1913 premiere of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes’s Le sacre du printemps, the creative fusion of Igor Stravinsky’s score, Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography and Nicholas Roerich’s design exploded into the theatre.
The orchestra had barely embarked upon Stravinsky’s now-famous primitive, syncopated passages when the audience erupted into a riot. Shouting turned into fist fighting. The police had to be called. Stravinsky retreated backstage. Nijinsky continued bellowing counts to the dancers. Later, it was revealed that it had not only been the music that had set the audience off, but the choreography and the costumes.
Afterwards, Diaghilev claimed that the scandal was just what he wanted.
http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/BalletsRusses/Default.cfm
Anglina Jolie next to Heath Ledger*, not Brad Pitt?
Donald Rumsfeld next to Marlyn Manson, (guess who looked the more evil.)
Bill Clinton between Sarah Palin** and Iggy Pop.
Christopher Walken next to the human race.
Despite my loathing of Palin, the only one that made me feel like putting my fist though it was Paris Hilton, and she was next to Dame Judy Dench, for fuck's sake.
Jack was beautiful.
* Hatch burst into tears on seeing the portrait of Heath, bless.
** I've changed my mind about Sarah Palin, I never want her to be in charge of anything bigger than a whelk stall, let alone the USA. I've never seen such evil, ignorance, and inhumanity displayed in a portrait.
