GO to the GOMA

On the last Wednesday of February I went to see the Gallery of Modern Arts latest installation: 21st Century: Art in the First Decade.

Here's what you need to know about it:

"This summer 2010–11, to mark the end of the first decade of this millennium, the Gallery presents ‘21st Century: Art in the First Decade’. This ambitious and ground-breaking exhibition will occupy the entire Gallery of Modern Art and focus exclusively on works created between 2000 and 2010. It will showcase more than 200 works and feature over 140 artists and artist collaborative groups – senior, mid-career and emerging – from more than 40 countries."


Here's what I liked about it:

1. The NASDAQ numbers lining the wall that you don't notice as you enter but really notice when you leave.
2. The SLIDES! They have slides. I giggled to myself as I went to the second story, grabbed a mat and slid down that amazing and fast silver slide. I was very excited.
3. The art, of course, I had just come from a dance class and I was aching, but I let myself look long and hard at each piece.
4. My favourite pieces were the ones that were interactive. I liked the wishing ribbons, where you take a wish and where it on your wrist and write a wish of your own in it's place. When the ribbon breaks lose your wish is meant to come true... or is wish written on the ribbon meant to come true. Either way, it fell off eventually, and yes, I do feel a little braver.
5. I also noticed "Leandro Erlich’s astounding trompe l’oeil sculpture, The swimming pool, which represented Argentina at the 2001 Venice Biennale" which I think may have appeared at a gallery in New York while I was living there. Unfortunately I went at a time when nobody was looking down into the pool, so the effect was sort of lost for me. 
6. That after an invisible french lady recited french words for me while I peed, I found a whole bunch of YouTubers that I had either met or knew pretty well, on the walls of the Internet Cafe they had set up. It's a pretty impressive display of all the Memes we know and love, I was so excited to see people like Strawburry17 up there and Know Your Meme! Very cool!
7. The half-an-easter-egg of coloured plastic bags that hung from the ceiling
8. The glittering photography of Damien Hirst's For The Love of God.
9. The cardboard box archway. I had to restrain myself so as not to try to knock it over.
10. The fake Japanese convenience store full of empty containers. Quite eerie.

Go to qag.qld.gov.au to see it for yourself.