Chapter 77

"Well," I said, "Here we are! Is there anything on this afternoon's agenda?" We were in the Grand Hyatt and had eaten a snack.

"How about a glance at the Potter Center? It's only a few minutes away and they're open till 17:00."

I laughed. "And what are we going to see? I know you've planned something."

"This is the final week of the Sue Ford show."

"I guess that's the something."

Sue Ford [1943-2009] was a pioneer of Australian photography, and one of the most important practitioners to emerge in the wave of 1970s feminist photographers. This retrospective exhibition celebrates her artistic life and career. It brings together key photographs, digital prints, collages and films created over an almost fifty-year period, as well as important archival materials.

We walked from the Grand Hyatt to Federation Square. The Ford show was far more than I had expected. I hadn't realized that her interests included the "histories of Australia and its indigenous peoples." Of course, we bought the book by Maggie Finch, the NGV's photography curator.

:The Gallery's closed tomorrow," Rachel said. "So it's your pick."

"Do you have your student card with you?"

"Of course, why?"

"We'll go to the zoo. We get a third off as full-time students. I expect we'll spend most of the rest of the week at the Potter and the Gallery."

"Right. I want to spend time with the Williams especially the gouaches that aren't on exhibit and I want to see the Italian paintings."

"Italian paintings?"

"From the Prado in Spain. A lot of religious paintings, exotica and well-fed folks. We'll get a student discount there, too."

"Exotica?"

"Well, I know there's at least one painting of people riding elephants."

"I guess that's exotic. Did Winnie get you permission to look at the Williams collection?"

"I think so. The Gallery has about 250 of his works. If I do a dissertation on him, I'll have to spend time here."

"We'll worry about that when it happens. Remember, we were apart for months and months when you were in Japan."

We went out for pizza.

In the morning we took the train to the zoo. We spent some time in the reptile house and then walked past the construction of the lion enclosure towards the "Amazon Aviary," as Rachel wanted to see the multi-colored birds. We went to the Lakeside Bistro for lunch and then spent the afternoon at the Australian bush exhibit. There was less visible than when it was warmer, but we came face-to-face with a large grey kangaroo at one point and the small penguins were waddling through the grass, we read that they are fed fish and squid, but it looked as though they were eating worms and insects. By 1600 we were both tired, so we took a taxi back to the Hyatt.

"I don't care!" I don't like them."

"They're great paintings, Patrick."

We were in the second room of the installation of the paintings from the Prado: large, shiny, gaudy paintings in heavy-looking frames.

"Not my thing at all."

"What don't you like?"

"They're all too big. They have too much paint on them. And most of the colours are for effect, not verisimilitude."

"You've got to look at the Renaissance and then the Baroque and the Rococo for what they were."

"I'm sure they were what they were. But I don't have to like them. You saw those drawings and etchings by Cranach and Durer and Rembrandt and the paintings by Memling and Vermeer? Well, if you skipped from them to Constable it would be just fine."

"Memling and Cranach are fifteenth century. Vermeer's seventeenth and Constable is late eighteenth and early nineteenth."

"And your point is?"

"And all your examples are German, Dutch and English."

"Right. Though there are some French painters, too. Like the one who influenced Constable."