Last night was a corker for exhibition openings. Between the launch of ‘Studio’ at the National Portrait Gallery and FOCA (Festival of Contemporary Art) – which was spread across The ANU School of Art Gallery, Craft ACT and CCAS (Canberra Contemporary Art Space) – devotees of the plonk and culture scene made a progressive meal of it. The event down by the lake was particularly superior, of course, and up to its clacker with the ab-fab chattering classes, dahling. But what a treat of an exhibition. It’s a fascinating and satisfyingly voyeuristic collection of (61) photographs taken of Australian artists in their respective studios. We loved it big time. And then we were off to the less-rarefied air on the north side, where the grub and vino wasn’t quite so sumptuous but the art fest had plenty of kick nonetheless: Lauren Simeoni and Charlie Sofo were just two of our fave artists in the ANU SofA’s show; Knit1 Blog1 at CraftACT is a hoot (‘specially the knitted cup-cakes) and we totally creamed ourselves over Alex Asch’s pieces (deliciously politically subversive, as always) in the Crucible; and Golf Wars at CCAS was plainly a huge hit with the next generation of art aficionados. We’ll have to go back, of course, to check it all out again – opening nights being more about the natter and squeeze…
More snaps at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasscentralcanberra/sets/72157600806510867/
glass central canberra 
Hey Glasscentral, what an opening butterfly you are, making all those openings in one night is quite a feat, or the outing of a lonely office girl. The gang obviously needs the occasional dispersion to feed the pen hungry musings. Klaus’ wagnerian efforts are just that – what a scoop to get the first shots up and out there. Glasscentral slides in with a homer of equal proportions.
Thanks Babs, and it didn’t go entirely unnoticed that you too enjoyed a lonely office girl’s big night out! Except that for you it was more a case of lonely office girl still working. Congratulations, by the way, to you and your cohorts on the FOCA program. My camera unfortunately threw an epic spazzo – must have been zapped by the aural beams of my extreme excitement – so I apologise to all those other lonely office girls, both real and honorary (aka the blokes), who missed out on their moment in the mug shot parade. I got some real rippers too…so I imagine there’s possibly a few punters out there who’ll be fairly relieved!!!
And yeah, how fabulous is that piece of Klausie’s. Just spectacular.