WHERE: Palmer Projects, 238 PALMER STREET DARLINGHURST
Why are we all so obsessed with going out?
Is it to create intensity in our lives? To escape our bourgeois destiny?
Or is it because I just used the word ‘bourgeois’ and what you need most in the world right now is a drink to erase the horror of such pretention from your mind?
For me it’s CFOMS (chronic fear of missing something), which unfortunately often leads to CVDTIOI (chronic vomiting due to inevitably overdoing it.) I also have an abnormally overactive boredom gland (note in terms of human physiology the ‘boredom gland’ is totally incorrect and in fact something I just made up).
I often treat this hyperboredomemia with exhibition openings because they are a) free and b) I do actually like art, I’m not totally bitter (yet).
A few weeks back, I figured that a nice orgy would be a good way to blow off some steam after a lame week. By which I mean, Orgy, the exhibition which was showing at Palmer Projects gallery in Darlinghurst.
Ben Frost was the big name in this group show. I like Ben Frost, even if he does have pictures of Brandon Davis and The Veronicas with his work on his website. Frost didn’t disappoint with this effort; a pornographic, anime style acrylic painting in which the infantile looking protagonist has her vagina censored with an Australian Idol logo. Nice.
The rest of the work is fairly unremarkable hipster-kid collages and photographs. One artwork referred to Manly as ‘The Valley of Scum’, the accuracy of which I (being a northern beaches girl) can attest to; a phrase that made me smile and has since caught on.
The only annoying part about this opening was how overcrowded it was. Indie kids spilled onto the street with their artists friends. The two boys I was with and I couldn’t even get in to look at the mediocre art until after the bar tab was well dry (annoying). Of course this necessitated drinking at the Four in Hand next door whilst waiting for the crowd to clear, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
Anyway, I have literally no idea what will be showing there next, as the dodgy hips at Palmer Projects can’t even be bothered to list new exhibitions on their website. But whatever is showing, the opening night is December 3… And regardless of who or what is showing, I’ll be there to pilfer every bit of booze and culture that I can get my thirsty fingers on.
Eliza Milliken