Amazing Escher

Last weekend a friend and I flew to Melbourne for the Escher X Nendo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. 2700km is a long way to go for an art exhibition but this one was definitely worth it. It's on until 7th April so if you get a chance then go!

With the low lighting and reflections photographing the pieces was tricky. Not helped by whoever hanging them being about a foot taller than me! However I think these photos have a quality that you can't get from books- which is one reason I didn't buy the exhibition catalogue. Seeing the artworks in real life allows you to observe details you would miss in a reproduction and, of course, the scale is important.

The exhibition features artworks by M C Escher and the Japanese design studio Nendo. It's a large exhibition - we spent 3.5 hours looking around! There are tons of Escher original prints and drawings, many of which I'd never seen before even in books. My favourites were the black and white lino and wood cut prints. I didn't realise that Escher had done so many landscapes.

There were portraits, animal studies and the occasional still life.

Some of the prints were displayed along with their preparatory drawings. I liked this drawing more than the actual print.

Many of the pictures looked like pencil drawings and I didn't realise from images I had previously seen in books that they were actually extremely detailed prints.

Later works by Escher depicted repeating prints of amazing complexity. Most of these were lino cuts or wood cuts. The exhibition had some coloured pencil and watercolour preparatory drawings on display as well along with some of Escher's notes on the maths involved.

Escher's next works took on a dreamlike feel depicting strange worlds and juxtaposed conflicting elements. Many of these were printed in amazing fine details using the mezzotint technique.

There were many examples of the famous impossible figures and impossible buildings.

This example came with several drawings showing the design process.

The Nendo exhibits were very sympathetic to the Escher pieces they were displayed with. The exhibition opened with a light-show walkway.

One of the most interesting pieces was formed by reflections and shadows formed by house shapes cut into a shelf.

One of the centrepieces of the exhibition was this house instillation which could be viewed from above and walked through.

Two sections of the exhibition were connected with this walkway with it's exaggerated perspective.

Another large piece was made from 50,000 hanging metal houses.

The house motif was continued in these pieces which mirrored the repetition and shapes-containing-shapes found in the Escher works.

We still had a few hours left to explore the rest of the art gallery - more on that soon.