Saturday 10 December 2016

White Rabbit Gallery

I've been meaning to visit The White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale for years, but it was spotting a friends post on Instagram from the Vile Bodies exhibition that prompted me to finally go.

I'm not sure I can say exactly why the mass hanging of nude male figures was the prompt I needed except perhaps I was feeling in need of being challenged.

Zhang Dali's, Chinese Offspring is challenging to all your senses whichever way you look at it.
And there's plenty of viewing options - it fills the air space in the main entrance foyer and it can be seen from each level of the staircase.







Cheng Dapeng's Wonderful City was an amazing collection of body parts and hybrid creations artfully displayed on a 9.6m long lightbox. The mutant forms were strangely appealing.





Yang Xin's, Original 5 mixes organic and inorganic pigments to "produce multicoloured blobs that resemble living cells".


Xu  Xinping's clasped hands were a calming feature in this rather startling exhibition.

"Gigantic clasped hands, rendered in white chalk pastel on red paper in twelve separate panels, loom out of the black charcoal background, like a monumental sculpture. Is this a gesture of prayer, of supplication, or of patient resignation?"


Exotic Flowers and Rare Herbs Series by Cang Xin features a "menagerie of invented, hybrid life forms, with luxuriant plants growing from the bodies of creatures including porcupines, cockroaches and scorpions."



The Gallery also contains a Tea House - the bird cage ceiling display, whilst sipping one's green tea, was far more relaxing and rustic than the exhibition.

Vile Bodies was surprising, bizarre and confronting at times.
I'll be curious to see what turns up in the space next year.


"The White Rabbit Collection is one of the world’s largest and most significant collections of contemporary Chinese art. Founded by Kerr and Judith Neilson, it focuses on works produced after 2000."

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot.

9 comments:

  1. Oh WOW! I'd vaguely heard about the Vile Bodies exhibition, but somehow not really the White Rabbit Gallery. Now I'm trying to work out when I can get there! It looks fantastic. Just the sort of thing I'd love. I really love your end on shadow picture.

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    1. I cant believe it took me so long to get there either Louise. It's in a great spot just across the road from the new Central Park development and UTS. Vile Bodies runs until Feb next year.

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    2. That is handy, and just down the road from Basement Books! I need to get there...

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  2. Stunning! There are no words to describe the feeling when one sees this collection. Maybe "wow"? Thanks for sharing, and here's MY SATURDAY SNAPSHOT POST

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    1. I had a pretty powerful response too Laurel - just collating the photos for this post brought it all back!

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  3. That looks like a great exhibition. I love the organic forms, although the hanging bodies are quite thought provoking.

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    1. The artist blurb says that the hanging figures represent migrant workers, hence the number and words painted on their bodies. But it also gave the piece a connection to holocaust images which I found added to the disturbing feelings.

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  4. Wow, some way out art here! Looks like a very cool place. What's written on the backs of the hanging guys? Thanks for sharing!

    Sue

    Book By Book

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    1. The hanging nudes represent migrant workers. I checked about the words and numbers on the website - "life-size resin sculptures made from the naked bodies of 30 such migrant workers, numbered and branded with the artist’s signature, are hung like carcasses from the gallery ceiling."

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