Yvonne Todd : Creamy Psychology

I went to Wellington last week to see Yvonne Todd's survey show 'Creamy Psychology'. I've been so busy with work that I almost couldn't fit it in, but I would have been so annoyed if I had missed out, so me and my pal David flew down just for the day. Yvonne is one of our lecturers at uni.  

Before the gallery opened we managed to fit in a lot of Wellington sight seeing. I used to live there, but David hadn't had a proper look around in a long time. 

St Mary of the Angels

We saw an ad for an art center on the sidewalk so we went up this rickety old elevator and found ourselves here. We had to ring a bell, and two old ladies came out and said they weren't open yet, but let us in anyway. They shut the door behind us and I felt like we were never going to get out again. They had two galleries full of art for sale, it was all very cheap. I don't think community art studios are capitalizing on their outsider art genre. 

                                                             

 We left pretty quickly and explored their roof a bit.

Then we went up in the cable car, it's so cheap! We fell asleep on a hill outside the observatory, it was a pretty early start. There was this bizarre man who made perfumes, he said two bathtubs full of flowers makes 600mls. I don't know how he makes a living. He told me I looked familiar, but I'd never even seen his shop before. He had a documentary about himself playing in a little booth, he was wearing the same outfit in it. I think he only has one outfit. 

We got down just in time to see the Old Bank Clock. A huge group of tourists were there taking photos, and then they all clapped at it. 

By then it was finally 10 am and the gallery was open. This is the time I sometimes get up at home, and I already felt like I had lived a whole day. I was so excited to see the show, I took a lot of photos outside because I wasn't ready to go inside. 

It was even better than I had thought it would be. And all my favourite photos were there, around 150 of her works apparently. I had heard Yvonne or other lecturers mention certain series at uni so it was really cool to see them in person. 

The show included some of the gowns used in her photos. 

The display of Yvonne's old visual diaries was one of my favourite things there. The room was full of things that her work references, including the opening sequence of Valley of the Dolls played on a loop. It seems like it would have been a fun show to put together. 

Of course we took photos with the works. 

Before Creamy Psychology I think the best show I had ever been to was Andy Warhol's retrospective 'Warhol Immortal' at Te Papa. Yvonne's show was much better. At uni we always talked about Yvonne being exactly how we'd like to be when we're older, but now I think that if I was even half as badass as Yvonne I'd be happy. 

Sweet Mother's Kitchen

After the show we went to the library, and fell asleep there as well. We got lunch, and I got a snickers milkshake from Sweet Mother's Kitchen. I have to say I think Fidel's is better. 

We went to quickly check out Te Papa, and there was the nose of a Boeing 737 outside. It was hard to get a good photo in there, and I was distracted by all the buttons. I don't believe that pilots can really memorize what they all do.

I'm sitting in the pilot's seat, and David is the co pilot, naturally.

There was a show on celebrating 75 years of Air New Zealand. There was a virtual reality experience in the exhibition, I don't know what it's got to do with anything, but it was great. 

We quickly got back over to the gallery and went to a talk by Chelsea Nichols and Mischa Kavka on The Female Gothic and the Grotesque in Todd's work. Chelsea Nichols was great, her talk was informative and interesting, I didn't like Mischa Kavka very much though. Kavka compared Yvonne to Sam Taylor Wood. Wood directed 50 Shades of Grey, the film that glamorizes abuse for the masses, comparing her to Yvonne is just sacrilegious in my opinion. Wood's series of crying men is exploring the idea that you can't tell if an actors emotions are ever genuine, the series features very famous and well known men. If it was examining fragile masculinity then I could see a parallel with Yvonne's work, but it's just not. 

When the talks were over we had to run to catch the bus to the airport, we got there just on time, but our plane was delayed for an hour. When we got back to Auckland it was pitch black, just like it had been when we left.