{"id":7509,"date":"2015-11-09T05:05:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T05:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.wordpress.com\/?p=7509"},"modified":"2015-11-09T05:05:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T05:05:11","slug":"the-sleeper-wakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=7509","title":{"rendered":"The sleeper wakes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are times when a gallery visit can be dull, and others that are unforgettable.\u00a0 When I walked into this room of old Australian art, I experienced a moment of consternation as the walls leapt out from behind the turn-of-the-century artworks.\u00a0 All four walls were painted in a red and black chevron pattern, clashing with the soft colours of portraits and landscapes in frames of ornate gold and timber.\u00a0 The intent was to shock, and it did.\u00a0 The pattern is a reference to the Wiradjuri people of Australia who paint chevrons on their skin and on trees.\u00a0 The installation artist is Brook Andrew.<\/p>\n

\"Brook
Under the Jacaranda, R. Godfrey Rivers, and Mt Coot-tha from Dutton Park, Evening, F.J. Martyn Roberts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was disturbed by the clash of loud and soft.\u00a0 But on this Monday morning there was something even more disturbing in the room.\u00a0 On one of the viewing seats was an obese boy who had fallen into a deep sleep.\u00a0 His carers were trying to wake him, calling his name and shaking him.\u00a0 The gallery guard came to help with a louder voice, keen to move him along.\u00a0 She called for her colleague to bring an ice pack, which was laid on his shoulders and neck.\u00a0 He didn’t wake.<\/p>\n

\"Monday
Monday Morning, Vida Lahey, 1912<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They phoned his mother, put it on speaker, put the phone near his face, all to no effect.\u00a0 The guard sent the carers off ‘to have lunch’, trying to trick him into feeling left behind.\u00a0 No reaction.\u00a0 He was now sliding off his chair, an ordinary chair, not a sofa, not even a soft chair.\u00a0 Just a gallery chair, hip but hard.\u00a0 The guards pushed him back onto it, talking to him all the while.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 One guard said to the other, “We haven’t had this before,” and laughed as gravity pulled the boy down again.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Portrait Group, the Mother, G.W. Lambert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The carers had not gone to lunch but were hiding from the boy in the next room.\u00a0 They peeked round the corner and saw that he hadn’t woken.\u00a0 The guards warned the sleeping boy that he would have to go home in the back of an ambulance.\u00a0 His hand twitched, and the guards and carers persisted with the cold pack, calling, rubbing and tugging.<\/p>\n

Forty minutes later:\u00a0 they stood him up but his eyes were still closed.\u00a0 As I left the room, relieved, they were following me out, the carers guiding him, one each side as he walked blindly.\u00a0 His huge black t-shirt was too long, hanging down past his shorts, revealing only his heavy shuffling legs.\u00a0They were taking him home to bed, they said.<\/p>\n

I returned to look more closely at the artworks, to try to understand why the walls were screaming in red and black.\u00a0 But I could think of nothing but the boy, who must have been heavily medicated.\u00a0 Those chevrons are emblazoned in my memory, but the boy whose eyes never opened will not remember them.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are times when a gallery visit can be dull, and others that are unforgettable.\u00a0 When I walked into this room of old Australian art, I experienced a moment of consternation as the walls leapt out from behind the turn-of-the-century artworks.\u00a0 All four walls were painted in a red and black chevron pattern, clashing with … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The sleeper wakes?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,20],"tags":[26,807,808,809,810,811,7,8,21,812,813],"class_list":["post-7509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-not-wwii","category-my-photos","tag-art","tag-brook-andrew","tag-chevrons","tag-godfrey-rivers","tag-gw-lambert","tag-martyn-roberts","tag-photography","tag-photos-2","tag-postaday","tag-queensland-art-gallery","tag-vida-lahey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}