Janet Laurence at the MCA
Museum of Contempory Art, Sydney
(Until 10 June, 2019)
Heartshock/After Nature (2019)
Each time I visit the MCA I leave inspired to paint, draw, collect and collage but with little talent and less time, I get distracted and soon the creative urge fades. Until the next time. And it’s back in force today.
Janet Laurence’s After Nature exhibition has awakened my inner bower bird. Laurence is one of the country’s leading contemporary artists, and her work explores the interconnection of all living things through sculpture, installation, photography and video. The collections on display include metals, minerals, and a variety of organic substances, juxtaposed with common manmade materials.
The work reflects the fragility of nature highlighting the destruction of plants, animals and their environments, while also offering hope for the future through healing and restoration.
For an artist, Laurence takes an unusually rigorous scientific approach to her work, as can be seen in the library and laboratories nestled around the dramatic installation, Theatre of Trees (above). Her transitions from this point are as much poetic as they are scientific. The Great Barrier Reef display is a standout, with vignettes arranged in Perspex cubes, that draw attention to a dying reef and efforts to resuscitate it. In one display, colour-filled pieces of infant-like coral are mounted on petri dishes. They appear to be reaching up in an effort to grow, surrounded by older, bleached coral hooked up to breathing apparatus and other life support systems. The whole has been painstakingly assembled and gives an overall impression of vulnerability yes, but also speaks to the possibility for healing.
It is these elements of healing that museum guide Rosa is keen to point out. Rosa is a huge fan of the exhibition and sees it as a way to show us all not only the fragility of nature but its beauty and resilience and how we can work together to restore what has been damaged. Eyeing the small saplings hooked up to tubing like sick patients, she says that the exhibition has given her a new appreciation and respect for nature.
Rosa’s love of nature and the natural only goes so far it seems, for when a couple of tourists ask her about the café on level four she is quick to warn them about the current over-emphasis on vegan and vegetarian plant-based dishes. As the couple head for the exit she explains that with each new major showing the menu is changed to reflect the art. The result, she apologises, is that the current menu is “very green”.
Not to be put off, I head up to the café which boasts one of the best views in Sydney. Perusing the menu, I find that while the specials offering is indeed richly peppered with kombucha and kale, a standard menu caters to the less adventurous, with a selection of sandwiches, quiche, and meat dishes. I opt for the peach and goats cheese salad on the specials menu and am thankful for the museum’s creative approach to food as to art, for it is delicious. (This menu, the work of Cornersmith Cafe & Picklery is available until the exhibition’s close.)
If you’re a visitor to Sydney or an art lover who hasn’t been to the MCA in a while, now is certainly a good time to discover its treasures. Nestled on Sydney’s doorstep opposite the Opera House at Circular Quay, this museum is only a stone’s throw from The Rocks and close to many of Sydney’s top attractions.
The museum is free to visit and its offerings from local and indigenous artists are world class. As with any art gallery, there will be things you like and others you loath, but there will always something to make you think and perhaps, like me, to inspire your own creativity if only for a while.