Some exhibitions make you smile. Maybe it’s as simple as the title, Dancing Umbrellas – think Gene Kelly “Singing in the Rain”, Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Thank Heavens For Little Girls”, Maurice Chevalier in Gigi.
Paraplouie is the delightful French word for umbrella, and so appropriate that the artwork that inspired the exhibition title is Belle Bassin’s It’s easier to see your skin, a video installation where umbrellas float around Paris and travel through the stairwells in The Metro….. are you smiling already? Dancing Umbrellas has light, colour, movement and it is theatrical. On entering, the first work to catch your eye is Leslie Eastman’s For the Time Being. It’s geometric magic with mirrors; the perfect sculpture, it changes as you move around it, or it moves around you. Reflective in the literal and meditative sense. This was my favourite artwork in the exhibition.
For the Time Being
Peter Cripps‘ Masks are part of his experimental play City Life, Rebecca Baumann’s Reflected Glory IV uses mirrors and foil as footlights to an explosion of pretty pastels, while Minna Gilligan’s Song Outside My Window is a joyous mix of
collage and moving images. This is a large piece and its worth getting your nose into all the collages, each a colourful fantasy with its own storyline. (I contemplated the world on view from Minna’s window.) A bright orange-painted room houses Damiano Bertoli‘s Continuous Moment: Le Désir, various works, ‘props’ and design aspects of film or theatre
production, a mise-en-scène.
Masks Reflected Glory IV Song Outside My Window Continuous Moment: Le Désir
Heide has curated yet another beautiful exhibition: Dancing Umbrellas.
And, while you’re still smiling, I have to mention Sarah Crowest’s #straponpaintings. Such fun. Annie and Sam happily immersed themselves in this wholly inter-active exhibit.
© All artworks Heide Museum of Modern Art exhibition.
Photos: tPRo/Pamela Reid and Annie Blachly