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.

One Central Park, Chippendale, Sydney

Wordless Wednesday

If you'd like to know more about this amazing new structure, click here to read my recent post.

Central Park, Chippendale, Sydney

For as long as I can remember there has been a great big old brewery falling to bits tucked in behind Broadway & Abercrombie Streets in Chippendale. 

In 2007 colourful signs sprung up around the perimeter announcing 'Central Park'.

Over the past few years signs of development began to appear at the site.

The result - the first set of shops, accommodation and park land have been completed and are now open to the public. The rest of the grand plan is expected to take another 6-8 yrs.

I've included a link to their main page above if you'd like to know more about the 'world- leading team of architects', their community consultation process or what's next.

For now, this is what I saw on offer this week at the brand new Central Park.

One Central at Central Park

Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel & French botanist/artist Patrick Blanc, One Central contains shops & living spaces. 

The "public park" is a vertical garden that "climbs the side of the floor to ceiling glass tower." Blanc has used 250 native flowers and plants, the "vines and leafy foliage spring out between floors and provide the perfect frame for Sydney's skyline."

Nouvel has said, "we have created a continuity so the façades extend the park into the sky."

Perched on top is a hovering cantilever section that houses luxurious penthouses.

The Heliostat Sea Mirror is a "beguiling assembly of motorised mirrors that capture sunlight, and direct the rays down onto Central Park's gardens."

Yann Kersalé's LED art installation brings the building to life at night (every Th, Fri, Sat & Sun night until 10pm) with a "shimmering firework of movement in the sky." It contains 2880 coloured, programmable LED lights & 320 mirrored panels.

Part of the Central Park design allows for a "commercial campus" for students that will sit on the corner of Abercrombie & Broadway. UTS and Notre Dame Uni are both situated opposite and Sydney Uni is just a couple of blocks up the road.

The heritage listed Abercrombie Hotel on the corner will be maintained. 

The rest of the building will "float" above & around it.

According to their website the vision for Central Park includes "a green oasis", which will become "the green heart of Chippendale." 

It will "wrap around" the east & south facades of the Brewery & include public art and a "place to get your feet wet."

A "series of landscaped terraces" will connect the various buildings to each other and the Park.

"Halo is a wind activated kinetic sculpture by two of Australia's pre-eminent public artists, Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford....According to Michaelie, 'the inspiration for Halo came from the history and industrial forms of the old brewery combined with a dynamic response to the natural and built environment of the new precinct.'"

The day I visited was VERY windy & Halo spun beautifully, even poetically in the space!

Turpin & Crawford also designed the wonderful Tied to Tide in Pyrmont, that I featured a number of weeks ago.

The old Kent Brewery was built in 1835 & acquired by Carlton United in 1983. It covered an area of 5.8 hectares. 

To preserve the legacy "archaeologists, heritage consultants & architects specialising in urban conservation" will transform "the site's flagship brewery building and yard into a public venue of spectacular dimensions." It will combine "new and old technologies".

This is still one of the 'works in progress areas'. 

The plan is to create "a dining, entertainment and community hub" called the Brewery Yard.

Beautifying construction 

 A temporary 'artists in residence' public art project has been put in place during the construction phase.

Caroline Rothwell installed Symbiosis in 2012, a red nylon inflated tree fed by white PVC pipes to symbolise 'the artificial, technological and the human circulatory system."

It was fascinating to see how this old urban landscape is being transfigured into a modern hub.

I will return to check on progress over the next few years, and hopefully, to use some of the new entertainment & dining facilities!

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot & Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday P (is for Progress) post.