HIDDEN 2012

As I walked into work on my first day back from Canada, I was in a bit of a haze. It was pretty dark, the sun was just coming up, I was confused again, as I am almost every morning, with why I work somewhere where I have to get up at 4:45am and start at 7 in the morning. I was also kind of admiring the overgrowth and the budding fresias and the vastness of the place... when I happened upon massive wings. Angel wings. In the ground. What the ?#! I had completely forgotten about the Hidden art show at Rookwood...

I was pretty skeptical about the Hidden art show in the first year. There was some stuff which, even being generous, is hard to imagine recognising as work or art. Not being generous, well, then I would say there was some audacious garbage. The truckload of basalt rubble was bad enough, but when the 'artist' claimed that the meaning derived from it's being metamorphic rock, subject to massive pressures which re-formed it, and thus was like the passage of the Jewish people through the desert... well... you know... basalt is not a metamorphic rock. Does that mean that the whole thing was really a piece of meta-art. IE the artist was pretending to be a sham artist... just like the metamorphic rock wasn't metamorphisised?

 Over the years, however, the good, the engaging, the interesting, the skillful, and the engaged, well, they have come more and more to dominate. The cemetery is, right now, a very interesting place. (Of course, I must say, for me it is always a very interesting place... but, well, it's even more interesting right now!)

The Hidden team, and the artistic director, and the artists, and, too, all the grounds staff who've done the behind-the-scenes (hidden) work... they've created something special. It's also a testament to the management and the Friends of Rookwood that such an exhibition can take place amongst the graves... (although the pieces are not on any actual occupied graves, they are amidst them).

Libby and I voted for this sculpture... amazing that one can make something from fly screen... let alone something so evokative and beautiful...

Best viewed, I think, at sunrise...

The fabric ghost of Bea Miles, is, well, probably more amazing (but it has already won a prize so didn't need our people's choice vote!)...

There's also wonderful crows (also of fly screen) as well as a mix of non-fly-screen pieces of interest...

(Free entry, open sunrise to sunset... see the Rookwood HIDDEN website for more details...)