You, Me and the Biennale

Art is weird guys. After spending the whole of Monday checking out different galleries and exhibitions as part of the 19th Biennale in Sydney, that was my final and not-very-intellectual conclusion. Art is fucking weird. 

Don't get me wrong; I have the biggest respect for artists and what they do, especially the ones that are politically motivated or have beliefs and issues to express through their works. And if you feel the urge to record yourself licking various parts of the environment and projecting it onto giant HD screens inside the MCA, then by all means, do so. Just because I'm too stupid to understand art doesn't mean I don't appreciate all the effort that's gone into it.

Just because I see inverted radish heads doesn't mean your work can't 'evoke he physical act of making exploring elements of the surreal and grotesque, resulting in objects that can concurrently seduce and repel.' 

After the Museum of Contemporary Art, we hopped on a ferry and sailed to Cockatoo Island. (Contrary to popular belief, there are barely any cockatoos on said island. What a disappointment.) The trip took about 10 minutes but I didn't notice because the view was spectacular and Sydney's weather was being agreeable for once. 

I've never been to Cockatoo Island before. According to my cousin, it used to be the place where they kept convicts until it turned into a naval shipyard. Now it's just the place where people with warped definitions of fun go to camp out overnight. 

I'm pretty sure this blown up piece of plastic is supposed to represent something but for the life of me cannot remember what.  

One installation involved modifying gym equipment with superfluous features such as drums, branches and heads dunked in barrels.

My cousin Tian reckons this looks like one of the buildings from Spirited Away. It does doesn't it? We also noted that the whole island seemed like something out of a Shaun Tan book. 

After Cockatoo Island, we headed back to Circular Quay and had lunch on the steps on the Opera House. By then, it was only 4:00pm so we decided to squish in an extra destination. The Art Gallery of NSW it was!

All in all it was a pretty fun day. I seriously cannot understand art but it's fun to look at all the same. Sometimes, I think artists purposely create abstract works just to muck around with people's heads. We spend ages staring at their works and racking our brains to figure out the deeper philosophical underpinnings of them and all the while, these artists are probably sitting there laughing at how gullible audiences are. If I was a famous artist, that's something I would do.