THE REST OF ADELAIDE

In between buying cars and attending a graduation and festival and fringe shows, we fitted in some other activities.

They ranged from weeding and mulching Sebastian's overgrown and somewhat unloved rose garden to catching up with friends and exploring the Biennale at the Art Gallery of SA plus visits to other loved places (the Jam Factory, T'Arts in Adelaide Arcade, the Space Theatre) and visiting new places such as MOD and Carrick Hill.


The 2026 Adelaide Beinnial of Australian Art: Yield Strength wasn't particularly to my taste. "Yield Strength" is the "the stress level at which a material begins to deform plastically, meaning it stops stretching elastically (snapping back) and starts to permanently change shape." I confess (as is often the case for me when it comes to contemporary art) I just didn't quite get it. Why for example were there a number of Prudence Flint's works there amongst metal and videos? I have always loved her work so it was great to see more of it but the context didn't make sense. Apart from her paintings, the only work that really stood out was Robert Andrew's new eyes-old Country-Nagula. It consisted of a 15 minute video on a screen that moved across the gallery wall at the same time drawing on the wall with charcol. Beautiful and powerful to watch.

Prudence Flint, The Cut, 2023

Robert Andrews

MOD is a gallery that is designed for 18-25 year olds so it wasn't really for us but we enjoyed the different exhibitions designed to raise awareness: about science, about indigenous environments, about AI risks, about the beginnings of things, about being conned in supermarkets. A place of discovery.


Although the Festival had finished the weekend we arrived, I discovered a State Theatre Compnay of SA production that was opening - a production focussed on class and power, set in a debating preparation room with all the male characters played by women or gender fluid folk. It was at preview stage so it hadn't entirely settled in but I found it irritatingly didactic although a couple of days later it started starting to garner 5 stars reviews so maybe I'm just old and don't have much to learn about male power?



Our final cultural activity was to visit Carrick Hill, an imitation Tudor house built in the 1930s by the co-owners of John Martin's department stores. I don't know why I hadn't visited during my past sojourns in Adelaide. It's full of original Tudor period wood panelling, furniture and even window frames transported from England, as well a range of Australian and European art. The painting I was most suprised to see was the infamous Archibald Prize portrait of Joshua Smith by William Dobell. "ome artists claimed it shouldn't have received the prize because it was a 'caricacture". The painting was bought by Carrick Hill's owner Sir Edward Haywood but it was damaged in a fire at the house. Haywood didn't like the resulting restoration so had repainted over the top by a local artist. Would that be allowed to happen these days?



Overall, even though the weather wasn't as warm as we'd expected, the visit to Adelaide was enjoyable for it's main focus - Sebastian's graduation - but also for all the other things we got up to.

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