....... Divertimento: April 2012

Friday 27 April 2012

Salvador Dali sculpture in Central 薩爾瓦多•達利

It's great that in Hong Kong, art and other displays are not consigned to museums and galleries but is made accessible in small doses to the public. Current examples are the woolly mammoth display at the IFC Mall (see post of 19th April). Another is the display of cheongsam 旗袍 (qipao) in an exhibition that opened yesterday at Olympian City in Tai Kok Tsui (the exhibition runs until June 10).

Did you know that there is a bronze sculpture, Woman Aflame by Salvador Dali on display at the Landmark in Central? It located just inside the Queens Road Central entrance, next to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel next door.


















In case you find it difficult to read the text in the photograph of the plaque accompanying the sculpture, this is what it says:

"The ends of my moustache are radar aerials with which I feel everything that happens in the world around me and that people think throughout the day". Quotes such as this give us all an insight to the mind of this great and fanatical artist.
This sculpture of a woman with her skirt in flames and a chest of drawers down her front was adapted from Dali's famous 1937 painting "Burning Giraffe".
This painting drew upon Dali's premonition of an apocalyptic war. Here the imagery of a woman with drawers recurred in Dali's works  and alludes to his obsession with the mysteries of female sexuality. Dali was influenced by Sigmund Freud's work on the interpretation of dreams and the hidden sexual meanings of dream images. Dali was of the view that the human body is full of secret drawers that only the psychoanalysis is capable of opening.
Salvador Dali was a prolific Spanish artist known probably more for his paintings than his sculptures. In fact, as it states on the sign, this sculpture is based on one of his paintings, the Burning Giraffe:

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_Giraffe)

One of Salvador Dali's best known is perhaps the 1931 painting "The Persistence of Memory":

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD)

Recognise the melting clocks?

Friday 20 April 2012

Popcorn

There is a new food outlet on level 1 of the IFC Mall, next to CitySuper called Garrett Popcorn Shops. They sell a variety of "fresh made" popcorn both sweet and savoury. I sampled the cheese and the caramel flavoured ones. Both were definitely stronger in flavour than the ones at the cinema. The counter staff looked like they were having a quiet day so I thought, "why not?". I bought the smallest bag of the cheese flavoured one. I expected warm or even hot popcorn ("fresh made") but it was only a slightly warm when I picked the bag up. I had the popcorn about two hours later by which time the popcorn was already chewy. What more, it was very salty and greasy. It was not possible to have more than a handful without needing a drink. Perhaps the caramel one would have kept better? Anyway, I did not pick the caramel flavoured one because it was far too sweet and I knew that whilst the little sample was nice, it would not have been possible to enjoy a bagful. The popcorn is sold in a variety of sizes but I cannot imagine why anyone would want to get more than a little bag as the popcorn definitely does not keep well.


Garrett Popcorn Shops - IFC Mall Hong Kong

Menu

Cheese popcorn - $49

Thursday 19 April 2012

Baby Mammoth Lyuba in IFC Mall Hong Kong

I visited the hugely popular display of a baby mammoth that lived 42,000 years ago in Siberia. Located in the IFC Mall at the Hong Kong station in Central, the display drew a large crowd even on a Friday evening. The crowd was even larger on Saturday morning with a queue from the front door. I must say, the 32 day old baby mammoth named "Lyuba" is rather cute and worth a look. Entry is free.

Here are some pictures for you to check out: