So, I got to catch up with such wonderful sweet friends yesterday. It's actually been over a year since I've seen them, but it's like no time has passed at all, due to Miss A's tendencies to email me all day every day at work to make the time go faster. (Don't you just love how I place all blame on her, and in no way admit to spending hours emailing her?)

I've been dying to go see the Asia Pacific Triennial since, oh forever. Like maybe the beginning of December when it opened. So it was with a huge sigh of relief that I finally walked through the GoMA doors yesterday afternoon. That may have been due to the extreme heat outdoors and the blissful air-conditioning within.

This is probably the piece of art that most Brisbanites associate with the APT6, as it is plastered all over the side of buses, back of mX papers, BrisStyle magazines and billboards. It's quite an interesting work by Chinese artists Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu, representing a witty take on Mao Zhedong's Hundred Flowers Campaign. It's also rather creepy, but certainly is a talking point.
 
  

Another rather special installation was the dark room, with many different plays on spinning, spiralling, and circles. It was incredibly dark and cool, with one particular large black & white projected film of flocks of birds migrating in beautiful swoops and swirls. The background sounds in this room were provided by a series of spinning speakers, which were playing the sounds of... get this... spinning. You know, the sound a plate makes when you spin it on a wooden table? Or the sound of a child's old-fashioned spinning top? Way cool. Probably my favourite part of APT6, really. I would love to go to sleep with those sounds quietly playing next to my bed. I suspect I'd wake up dizzy. (Obviously no pics of that room. It was very dark, ok?)

        

           

(Clockwise from top left)
* Hundreds, perhaps thousands of sheets of A3 paper and bulldog clips swoop across the ceiling of GoMA.
* Close-up detail of a gorgeous paper-art piece
* Replica Ming Vase, with a slightly more political bent
* Fantastic two-storey high still life of fruit and tropical foliage. Really great. I just wish it was presented somewhere that I could have stood back from it a little to really enjoy it. This was in an elevator lobby/stairwell. Boo GoMA.

After so much culture, we just wanted to sit down with a cold beer or three and discuss really important things. You know, the fact that Brisbane is so much better than Melbourne, some of those artworks were slightly wanky, and that really fast-walking museum staff member who looked just like the long-haired Aryan Henchman from Die Hard. He really did. His evilness was exacerbated by the fact that he wouldn't stand still long enough for me to set up a photo of my friends with him over their shoulder. Every pic I snapped, he was striding fast around a corner. Possibly off to blow up an LA-based Japanese corporation or the Chester A. Arthur primary school in New York.

We didn't manage to have a beer at a GoMA cafe. Just one though. At 4.01, we asked for seconds, but apparently even though the opening hours sign claimed they were open until 6pm, they were closing. My money's not good enough for them.

The Asia Pacific Triennial is a free exhibition on until early April. Go. Enjoy. Just don't expect food or beverages after 4pm.