Thursday 14 February 2019

At the Sigg Collection in MAK


The Sigg Collection in Vienna's MAK is well worth a visit. 

The star of the show for many will be the fallen red chandelier titled 'Descending Light With Missing Circle' (2017) by Ai Weiwei.

The international artist currently lives and works in Berlin.  




I was entranced by these blind performers. This was the high point of the show for me.

The musical video is titled The Declaration of the Blind (2015) and is by Zhu Jiuyang. It runs for 27 minutes. I could listen to these performers all day.

I was surprised to discover that the five blind story tellers were members of the so-called propaganda team of performing arts at the time of Mao Zedong.

In the MAK video they can be seen and heard  performing in their local dialect their own  hypnotic interpretation of the Declaration of Human Rights.

I've searched high and low for a copy of this wonderful  video on the internet but so far without success.






Scenery with Monitors is the title of this 2015 oil on canvas painting by Zhao Bandi who lives and works in Peking. 

Along a path through a garden landscape cameras observe the environment. China operates a countrywide system of intelligent cameras with face recognition. 

Doubtless others do too. 

7 comments:

  1. It is only when I read crits like this Gwil that I wish I lived in such a city as yours - it allsounds so exciting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well there's plenty to see and do that's for sure. This evening I'm planning to watch football on TV. My favourite Austrian team Red Bull Salzburg are on the box. I've been doing a lot of Nordic walking and some running lately so I might fall asleep before it comes on.

      Delete
  2. As I read down, line by line, my anticipation of the music increased and increased.I hope you have unleashed a tidal wave of searching.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A tidal wave is unlikely. It would be wonderful though!

      Delete
  3. You live in an amazing country Gwil. Its also so clean and very beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here today they say they've finally decided that Good Friday should be a half day public holiday. Thus is a new concept for me. Nobody seems sure how it's going to work. It came about in this way;- One lot of politicians wanted Good Friday as a holiday and the other lot didn't. So they compromised. Although nothing can be certain until it actually happens. It's all a little kafkaesque as I keep saying.

      Delete
    2. Ireland is a beautiful country too. I often think of Conemarra which is so pretty. And also the place at the end of the Dingle peninsula where I saw the famous green flash at sunset. Reminds me a bit of the area around Aberdaron in Wales.

      Delete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.