Art Show Notes - NGV Melbourne | 墨尔本看展笔记

Since I have been posting about land/environmental art these days, another example came to my mind. It's the installation of tree photos by artist Myoung Ho Lee. I first viewed his artworks in 2018 in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. So in this post, I'm going to share with you some of the artworks from that exhibition through my phone shots.

这几天写到大地/环境艺术，我叕想起一位韩国艺术家李明浩的作品，他以大白幕为背景，拍了一系列单棵树的照片，后期修图时去除一切支撑痕迹，处理成平面风景画的效果，然后放置在旷野中，最后继续拍照。因为我最初看到他的展览是在墨尔本的维多利亚国家画廊，所以今天除了李明浩的树，也来分享一些在那里看到的其他艺术家的作品，其中又有一堆石头:D。

TREE by Myoung Ho Lee


South Korean artist Myoung Ho Lee captured still-life photos of single trees against white canvas backdrops. He then removed the support structures from the canvas in the photos' post-processing. By doing that, the flattened trees looked more like landscape paintings. At last, the giant images were placed in the wild.

Myoung Ho Lee wanted the trees to be noticed as a unique beauty in the natural world. As he describes it:

"It's as if the tree unites all: the ground, the sky and man in between. In East Asian philosophy, the universe breaks down into 3 parts: Chun-Ji-In. Chun means the sky, Ji means the ground, and In means human. Since a tree connects all three, I feel very much that a tree is like a universe."

COLOURED STONES by Pascale Marthine Tayou


Remember the stones from Richard Long? Well, now we have more, and they are coloured.:) These stones are from Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou. He arranged quarried granite paving stones and coloured one face of each stone. The stones have been collected and used to combat police and anti-revolutionary forces in times of social unrest.

UNTITLED by Pae White


This installation from American artist Pae White offered great instagrammable photo ops, though it's my first time publishing these shots #HiveOnly ;). It's fun to move through the 3D graphic forms made by a network of colourful yarn, and it’s easy to get lost too.

SANTA CRUZ RIVER by Alexandra Kehayoglou


Like the last 3D artwork, this wool rug also invited visitors to join. It's created by Buenos Aires-based designer Alexandra Kehayoglou. She combines textiles, sculpture and installation, and merges rug-making techniques with site analysis, photography and drone footage. I enjoyed her landscape piece, like all the other visitors there. The carpet documented the proposed site of 2 hydroelectricity dams on the Santa Cruz River, the last free-flowing wild river in Argentina.

GOD'S EYE by Akay Koo'oila Women's Art Centre Artists


These geometric woollen forms were made by 45 women from Aurukun, an indigenous community in northern Queensland. This artwork is a symbol of peace, comfort and healing. The "God's eye" signifies the power to see and understand things unknown. When I just joined this platform(Steemit then) in 2017, I was living in Queensland where a wide range of indigenous artworks was available to view. I was often fascinated by those patterns created by indigenous people. While I don't think I could get their exact meanings, I was told that they are usually associated with some kind of spiritual power going beyond the physical. Even now, the purse and sunglasses bag with indigenous art prints are still among my favourite souvenirs. :)

Here are a few more artworks from the exhibition: