i know what i like

I've always loved the painting Collins St, 5pm, by John Brack. I've admired it many times at the NGV, marvelled when its partner, The Bar, was displayed alongside it, and then delighted when the The Bar at last came into the (rightful) possession of the NGV as well. The NGV currently has a Brack exhibition at its Australian gallery, so that had to be worth an afternoon visit!

I was looking forward to seeing whole galleries of Brack's moody Collins St-esque painting. To my surprise, Collins St and The Bar seem to have been, literally, in a class of their own!

The majority of the works on display seemed to have little relationship to my two favourites. The experience was rather like when you hear a new song that you really love, so you decide to go out and buy the artist's latest cd, then find that nothing else on the album is like the tune that inspired you to buy it.

There were some striking individual pieces, particularly a portrait of Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage, which I've seen often over the years, but had never imagined to have been created by the artist of Collins St, and in his later years, Brack produced a series of eye-catching paintings based on postcard collections... you have to see it to get it, but I liked many of them.

However, they were probably in the minority. It was worth the effort to go see, even though I was disappointed that most of the art on display wasn't to my taste... that's the chance you take with any art exhibition, of course, and it didn't lessen my appreciation of the artist or his efforts.

And it was a nice way to spend a dull Autumn afternoon.