Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Francesca Sasnaitis takes a tour of 'Melbourne Now'

by
February 2014, no. 358

Francesca Sasnaitis takes a tour of 'Melbourne Now'

by
February 2014, no. 358

‘There’s no time like NOW!’ proclaim the signs.

Inspired by the fond reminiscences of slow tram rides of several Melbourne personalities, whose brief anecdotes are interspersed between the pages of the sumptuous Melbourne Now catalogue (Melbourne Now Limited Edition, National Gallery of Victoria, $100 hb, 280 pp, 9780724103768), I am travelling into the exhibition by tram. Through the rectangle of the window I watch the ziggurat of the Shrine of Remembrance and the green slopes of the Domain slide by. Max Delany, senior curator of contemporary art, admits in his essay ‘Metro-cosmo-polis: Melbourne now’ that, despite its scope and hundreds of participants, this exhibition can be neither completely inclusive nor exhaustive. Words like ‘mammoth’, ‘significant’, ‘grandiose’, ‘grandiloquent’, ‘pretentious’, ‘ostentatious’, ‘impressive’, and ‘inspired’ rattle around my brain in time to the tram’s stop-and-grind, and anticipate my reactions to the vast undertaking of Melbourne Now. I have high expectations – I hope to see the culture of my city with a tourist’s fresh gaze.

From the New Issue

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.