Meet Phar Lap’s ‘curatorial strapper’

Thursday 4 November 2010, 3:10 PM
By The Team | Posted in People

Who is Phar Lap to you? A lovely, big red critter you like to visit at the Melbourne Museum? The representation of a generation’s hopes, dreams and hardships? Or the one gift requested but never delivered on Christmas morning?

To Michael Reason, Phar Lap’s ‘spokesperson and curatorial strapper’ at the Melbourne Museum, Phar Lap is all of these and much, much more. As he says, ‘Phar Lap’s so in demand that he practically needs a full time PA: me!’

 

 Given that it’s Cup Week and the Melbourne Museum’s 10th birthday, we thought Michael Reason’s Phar Lap duties required further investigation.

Do you ever give Phar Lap a little pat when no one is looking?

As much as I’d love to do this, he is sealed inside his display case, to protect him from insects, dust and other dreaded pests. I can `poke’ him on Facebook – but I’d have to take a number – Phar Lap now has 5,000 friends and 3,500 fans.

Tommy Woodcock called Phar Lap ‘Bobby’. What do you call him?

`Sir’, if it’s a formal occasion, or `Big Red’ or `The Champ’ when we’re away from the public gaze.

What’s the most common question you hear about Phar Lap? And what is the answer?

At the moment, as we’re hosting his skeleton on loan from Te Papa Museum in New Zealand, it’s `Why aren’t his bones still inside him?’ The taxidermists constructed a stronger artificial (skeleton), forged from steel, that will last for centuries to come.

What do you wish people would ask?

I think I’ve been asked every conceivable question about the life and times of Phar Lap, but it would be nice to be asked to one of those infamous marquees at the Melbourne Cup. I’m sure it would happen if Phar Lap was my `plus one’.

If Phar Lap raced in this year’s Melbourne Cup, what do you think his chances would have been?

Phar Lap’s training and preparations were completely different to today’s champions but, if everything else was equal, I still think he would still leave them all in his tracks.

He certainly had the `X factor’ rarely seen in horses. In my opinion, the only horse that may have come close to giving him a run for his money would be Makybe Diva.

What moment in Phar Lap’s life best captures why he is so loved and remembered today?

His triumph in the 1930 Melbourne Cup would be an obvious one, but the one for me was the public sending hundreds of sympathy letters – many now in the Museum’s collection – to Phar Lap’s owners after he died.

To many people Phar Lap was a beloved member of their extended family, a feeling which seems to have survived today.

(Indeed, we noted that the glass surrounding Phar Lap was much grimier at his face end. It seems quite a few people – us included – would give Big Red a bit of a tickle behind the ears if they had half a chance.)

We should also add that Michael Reason’s official job title is actually History and Technology Curator at the Melbourne Museum. Phar Lap’s curatorial strapper has a nice ring to it though, don’t you think?

Visit Phar Lap at the Melbourne Museum.

Join in the fun of the Spring Racing Carnival.

Become Phar Lap’s Facebook fan.

A rafting tribute

Tuesday 19 October 2010, 2:16 PM
By The Team | Posted in Places

When Theodore Gericault painted his famous Raft of the Medusa back in 1818, he had to do a lot of leg work to find ways to recreate the anguish, horror and despair of this nautical disaster and national disgrace. (When French ship The Medusa sank, 149 people aboard a makeshift raft endured two weeks of storms, starvation, insanity and cannibalism. Only 10 survived.)

Today we don’t need – as Gericault did – to visit hospitals or morgues to see what suffering and death look like. If we want to know, we can find images of pain with the click of a remote or a mouse. And then, if we don’t like what we’re seeing, we can click again and try and move on.

Bill Viola’s video and sound installation, The Raft, forces you to look, really look, at pain, struggle and despair.

In real-time, the events of The Raft would be over in moments. Viola’s use of extreme slow-motion forces you to understand that disasters endure long past the moment when we, the observers, choose to look away.

In The Raft, ordinary people are doing an ordinary thing – waiting in a line – when chaos is thrown upon them. A sudden onslaught of water batters the group, some resisting, some succumbing to the deluge.

We watch, in elegant and relentless detail, the struggle of individual people against a random but overwhelming force. The work evokes thoughts of international disasters: tsunamis, floods, fires and wars. But it also evokes thoughts of more individual disasters – illness, accidents and loss – and how we each, ultimately, endure these alone.

In the aftermath of the deluge, we’re faced with a group of battered and despairing people, some howling in pain and confusion, some slumped in misery, others already trying to make sense of what has just happened to them.

Artist Bill Viola describes the work as ‘an image of destruction and survival’ – but to me it’s no ‘feel-good movie of the decade’. Instead, it  is honest, brave and off-puttingly beautiful.  Much like the original painting that inspired it.

Bill Viola’s The Raft screens at ACMI until Sunday 20 February 2011. It opened in Melbourne as part of the Melbourne Festival.

Bill Viola
The Raft, May 2004
Video/sound installation

Room dimensions: 30′ x 23′ x 14′ (9 x 7 x 4 meters)
Color high-definition video projection on wall (396.2 x 223 cm) in darkened space; surround sound system
Performers: Sheryl Arenson, Robin Bonaccorsi, Rocky Capella, Cathy Chang, Liisa Cohen, Tad Coughenour, Tom Ficke, James Ford, Michael Irby, Simon Karimian, John Kim, Tanya Little, Mike Martinez, Petro Martirosian, Jeff Mosley, Gladys Peters, Maria Victoria, Kaye Wade, Kim Weild, Ellis Williams
Photo: Kira Perov

The art of thinking positively

Friday 15 October 2010, 9:39 AM
By The Team | Posted in Events

Are these spring showers getting you down? Pop over to No Vacancy Gallery in QV over the next couple of days for a pick-me-up of A1 poster proportions.

Thirty is an exhibition of the finalists in the 2010 Positive Posters competition. Each poster has been chosen for its ability to inspire the viewer to think positively.

It’s the second year for the not-for-profit Positive Posters competition and it seems the good vibes from last year’s competition and exhibition have spread far and wide -  this year there were more than 1500 entries received from artists representing 70 countries across the world.

So if you have a thing for type, a fascination for font and love colourful art that makes you smile, make sure you pop into No Vacancy Galley for a good healthy dose of positive thinking.

While you’re there, see if you can spot this year’s winning entry by Jesse Mallon called Turn that Frown Upside Down (tip: you might need to stand on your head and use a mirror). Jesse’s poster will be printed and posted across Melbourne’s streets and be sent around the world in a gesture to remind us to keep our glasses half full.

‘Thirty’ by Positive Posters is on at No Vacancy Gallery, 34 – 40 Jane Bell Lane in QV until Tuesday 19 October.

Photos from the launch

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