Monday Morning Culture

So, one thing to come out of my evening at the Black Rose on Friday, was that one of the other guests extended an invitation to me to visit his art gallery, Glyptotheca Gallaria.

Funnily enough, earlier that day, I had been moaning about how the same old clubs and venues that are open 24/7 seem to make it impossible for new and interesting places to get noticed because they just get lost in amongst all the noise. 

Given that I like to explore and photograph new places, I obviously find this situation to be most frustrating. I mean, as much as I like hanging out with the pervs at the Bunnies and Bulls beach resort, I don't want to spend all my time lurking there.

So, to hear about somewhere, not just new to visit, but a place of culture no less, was music to my ears and I promised to take up that invitation and drop by Glyptotheca Gallaria at some point. I thought it would not be until at least next weekend, since I was told that the gallery is only open across the weekend, but apparently that also includes Monday mornings

Which was great news for me since I found myself at a loose end this morning, with nothing better to do than aimless roam around. Obviously, with my camera in hand, ready to capture anything interesting that I should stumble upon, I made my way around Glyptotheca Gallaria. 

And, as it should happen, there were plenty of interesting exhibits to check out. A lot of them created by the gallery owner, Scribs, but also plenty contributed by other artists. Scribs was actually there when I arrived and, although he had hoped to give me a proper tour when he invited me to check the gallery out, other commitments meant that all he could do was greet me and then leave me to my own devices. Which, as I already said, I am totally cool with.

Broadly speaking, the gallery is spilt into 5 areas; the Rotunda which is where you enter initially enter into, the North and South Wings, the Planetarium and the courtyard outside.

The Rotunda's centrepiece is a Foucault pendulum, which dominates the space. Various paintings adorn the walls around the perimeter of the room and, my favourite piece in that room, a "jar of fucks" is placed by the entrance.

From there, I wandered into the South Wing, which is where you'll find various sculptures and statues. To be honest, I found the room a little bare with plenty of unoccupied floor space, but the exhibits that are in there, are all pretty cool. It's just a shame that there aren't a few more in there to maximise the use of the space.

Next up for me was the Planetarium, which I think is still a work in progress. At least, that's what the signs seemed to suggest. It's a pretty cool experience to walk through it but there wasn't much to keep me there for that long. No individual exhibits to look at so I quickly made my way to the next room

On to the North Wing, which I think was actually my favourite space to explore. Loads of paintings to take a look at, with each wall dedicated to a different artists. For me, Shane Munroe's collection was the one that really stood out. It's probably not a coincidence that his offering were all about nudity and the sensual form of the female body. You should know by now that I am a total pervert. All of the pieces that were contributed by the others artists were really cool as well. I don't want to give the impression that they weren't great as well. It's just that Shane's really appealed to my personal tastes.

Finally, after spending a good amount of time in the North Wing, I headed out to the courtyard to check out the final set of exhibits, which were yet more sculptures. Not sure why some of them weren't housed in the South Wing to better fill that space, but some of them were perhaps a bit of the larger

And, with that, I'd seen everything. Not a bad way to spend an hour or so, I must say. Well worth checking out if you want to get a little bit of culture in your life.