GoMA 21st century kids

otherwise know as the Gallery of Modern Art; today the big girl and I had our fortnightly 'fun' at the 21st Century Kids exhibition. This post is full of pictures ~ we had a marvellous time!

I wish your wish ~ Inspired by a Brazilian tradition, Rivane Neuenschwander's vibrant installation invited us to write our own wish on a slip of paper and then swap it with a wish from the hundreds of colourful silk ribbons in the gallery wall. According to tradition if you tie the ribbon around your wrist, the wish will be granted when the ribbon wears away and falls off. Mine is the pink one.

Olafur Eliasson's Cubic Structural evolution project puts the construction of a city into children's hands with thousands of white Lego pieces, their task is to create and re-create an ever-evolving metropolis ~ that is right the children (and many parents were having a go too) sit and build their own piece of the city! Very cool.

Stockholm-based artist Carsten Höller's installation is two spiral-shaped slides in GoMA’s foyer. Carsten describs his art as a ‘happiness producing machine’, the slides looks fabulous and sent us hurtling from the third floor to ground level in little sacks to make us super slippery.

Not everything we looked at was made especially for the enjoyment of children, tho my girl enjoyed it all. This colourful thing is by artist Pascale Marthine Tayou and is made of thousands of plastic bags.

These fluroescent tubes are the work of Spencer Finch ~ The Light at Lascaux "The angle of the tubes mirrors the angle of a mountain as seen across the valley from the cave entrance, while the colours relate to pigments in the cave's prehistoric paintings, as well as tones from the landscape and sky outside. The illusion of depth and effect of dappled light play against each  other, while the combination of coloured lights heightens viewers' awareness of the glow as the carrier of an idea of a time and place." I have to admit i just thought it was pretty.

Tender by Fional Hall consists of thousands of shredded American one dollar notes, painstakingly woven into 86 birds’ nests — each for a different species with its own particular habitat and needs. While money is sometimes called tender, tender also means caring, kind and gentle. Like a bird caring for its young, each nest is made with tender ~ cleverly combining the two meanings of the word.

Australian artist Lousie Weave hand crocheted lambswool, cotton and plastic over a taxidermied Indian Blue Peacock - was really quite beautiful but I think she spoiled it by adding the christmas tinsel.

Soul under the moon ‘infinity’ mirror room by Yayoi Kusama is designed to explore reflection, repetition and infinity ~ In the room, you stand on a little platform surrounded by water and reflections are repeated to the point of disappearance, the experience  is similar to gazing at a clear night sky full of stars. My picture is terrible, I only thought to take one just as the doors were opening.

I took a picture of myself ~ can you see me?

Martin Creed’s Half the air in a given space was the most fun! We lined up for 40 minutes to get in. Half the volume of one of GoMA’s galleries has been filled with purple balloons and we got to go in and just get lost in them - it was like a moving sea of static electricity and laughter.

I think that my favourite exhibit was From here to ear by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. One of the galleries has been strung with harpsicord wires and hundreds of wire coat hangers in which live finches have made nests. When the birds land on the wires their vibrations make music - Oh it was so beautiful, soothing, magical. We were not allowed to take pictures in the room but please have look here and you can see the exhibit and listen to the birds on a utube video here - you will LOVE it!

And finally ~ In India, the bindi is traditionally a symbolic mark of pigment applied to the forehead. Indian artist Bharti Kher specially designed bindis for her installation Nothing is ordinary. "The bindid is like an eye... see the things around you in new and different ways"