The White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale has been open since 2009, but I only heard about it more recently when Brona of Four Seasons went along to see the Vile Bodies exhibition. I was so intrigued by her post that on a recent trip to Sydney I made time to get along and see it, and I'm so very glad that I did.
White Rabbit Gallery is particularly extraordinary as it is a private gallery that displays billionaire Judith Neilson's massive collection of 21st Century Chinese Art. Entry is free.
The atrium is filled with Zhang Dali's impressive Chinese Offspring 2005- it's captivating from every angle.
Trussed and hung like slaughtered carcasses, Zhang Dali's naked bodies represent the millions of peasants who have quite the safety of family and village to seek work in China's booming cities. Many find themselves no better off for their gamble: poor, ill-housed and deprived of civic rights. "No one will help them," the artist says. But he doesn't know whom he pities more: these brave but desperate strays or the "herd animals" of the cities who close ranks against them.
Gong Chenyu's Display Animal Taming 2015
I loved Cheng Dapeng's Wonderful City. Hundreds (?) of 3D printed shapes in forms combining anatomy and nightmare presented on a lightbox that looked like a cloudscape.
As an architect Cheng Dapeng has a financial stake in China's breakneck urban growth. As an artist, he tries to atone for that role by drawing attention to development's dark side. The neat scale models in real-estate promotions represent "perfectly formatted" visions of the perfect life, he says. But the soulless money-driven reality of China's new cities is more like a social-Darwinist nightmare, a breeding ground for monsters.
Another fabulous room:
Cant Xin's Exotic Flowers and Rare Herbs had a Seussian sense of fun for me.
White Rabbit Gallery is amazing and I'll definitely be back. Exhibitions change twice a year so there will always be something new to see. Vile Bodies ends on Feb 5 2017.
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Bird cages decorate the teahouse, which I will have to try next time,
as we were quite full of dumplings from Tim Ho Wan |
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| Even the umbrella stands are beautiful |
After our gallery visit we walked about Chippendale for a while. I hadn't been in there for years, decades maybe, it used to be grungy and dirty, it's amazing now.
Halo, Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford
Turning and tilting with the wind, Halo hovers in finely tuned counterbalance. The 12-metre-diameter carbon-fibre ring pivots atop a 13-metre-high tilted mast. The entire weight of the off-centre ring and arm balances on a ceramic bearing the size of a marble!
Halo responds to the winds of the moment. Gentle breezes set its eccentric rotation in motion, while gusts and eddies cause it to pitch and roll.
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| We saw rotation this day, no pitching or rolling sadly. |
There are heaps of restaurants and shops and a cool Spice Alley.
One of the delights that we stumbled across was chocolatier Kakawa. Completely new to me before now, we sampled two chocolates (gone much too quickly to be photographed but I had the Raspberry Delight and the Passionfruit and Mango- both very delicious) and bought some goodies to take away- the vanilla fudge is divine....
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| Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly memenow hosted by WestMetroMommy |
