The Heide Museum of Modern Art is absolutely beautiful. It also makes absolutely no sense, striking the visitor as closer to a disorganised bookshelf than a hand-curated gallery. On one wall hangs an abstraction of sexual assault trauma, the next, a tongue-and-cheek depiction of the creative process. If you are the type of person who combs through a gallery, consuming every artwork sequentially, Heide’s disorganisation is overwhelming. But if you take a step back, just gliding through the gallery, gravitating to artworks as they catch your eye, you have far better time. Which is to say, Heide is a place to enjoy with company, and possibly a little tipsy, if drinking is your thing. In this vein, I’ve invited Cassandra, my favourite not-a-cultist guide, to take you on a lightly unhinged tour.

 

 

Hello and welcome to the Heide Museum of Modern Art! Situated in Heidelberg, Heide is distinguished by its beautiful grounds, heritage buildings and extensive collection of Australian, American and Western European modern art. I would warn you not to climb our entrance sculpture Abstract Labour (Emily Floyd). Yes, even if you have children. This is an artwork. Remove your children from it.

 

 

On your right is our onsite café. It’s expensive for its quality, but isn’t everything these days? I’m contractually obligated to point it out but, between you and me, just bring a picnic. But if a picnic’s too much effort, our café does have some very nice pastries and isn’t deafening to sit in, even at its busiest.

 

The Sculpture Park

 

Keep walking and you’ll enter our sculpture park. On the constant search for the park’s next art piece, you might find this park a little like a treasure hunt. This could be viewed as labyrinthinely bad design, but as you move closer to completing the hunt it’s also, in a sense, a series of small accomplishments. Which is affirming if you’re constantly haunted by the belief that you’re a failure. I mean, it won’t fix that, we can’t replace decades worth of psychological therapy, but it’s still nice.

 

Speaking of therapy, this is Mary Magdalene by George Baldessin. Personally, I like to believe this sculpture’s lack of face and focus on hips and breast is a critique of female gender roles, and not highly misogynistic sexualisation. Often in Heide you’ll find yourself asking: is this artwork critiquing misogyny or just misogyny? Which is honestly a good simulation of what it’s like to study modern art. I’m serious, if you feel like some entertainment, ask an art history major whether Picasso was sexist or feminist.

 

 

Hidden behind this gathering of trees is Aeroplane Boy (Dean Bowen). He’s a boy. He’s also an aeroplane. The funnest thing about Aeroplane Boy is that he’s semi-proportionate from far away but the closer you get to him, the more moderately disturbing he gets. Go on, get closer. Look him in the eyes. Oh, you feel like he’s staring into your soul? Don’t worry, that’s just because he’s a vessel for

 

I like to call this one ‘I Hate Women’ because seriously, how much do you have to hate women to tear apart their bodies and piece them into a sexualised amalgamation. Can you tell which side of the ‘Is Picasso sexist?’ debate I’m on? I’m won’t highlight anymore ‘I Hate Women’ art because, frankly, it gets enough attention. But viewer beware, it is there.

 

 

You know when you get home and just peel open your skin to reveal the layers underneath? This is Unfurling and Andrew Rogers just gets it. He also sheds his skin like a snake.

 

Lee Miller

 

You may have noticed this building a few times as we searched through the sculpture park: this is our main gallery, which runs an everchanging variety of exhibitions. The last exhibit featured full-time surrealist, part-time girl boss, Lee Miller. Rest assured, the Lee Miller exhibit isn’t a treasure hunt, instead taking you through her works chronologically. Open until April, the exhibit… what was that? Well, yes, I’m aware it’s June. Just use the ritual to go back? There’s plenty of virgins on grounds to sacrifice! Okay, fine. Well, honestly, after reading every plaque, I felt like I personally knew Lee Miller. So, while it’s a shame that those of you who won’t use the ritual have missed out on her exhibit, at least you don’t have to deal with a new parasocial relationship. And, there is much preparation to do for His arrival, so I haven’t gone yet, but given Lee Miller’s fantastic precedent, I’m sure Hair Pieces, which opened in May, is also great.

 

 

For those of us who stop being whiny and just sacrifice a virgin to travel back to April, I’ll describe the exhibit for you. Lee Miller was a superb surrealist photographer, surrealism code for moderately unsettling but still beautiful. From her rose-coloured experimental beginnings as a portrait photographer (shown above) to her darker years as a WWII journalist (shown below), the exhibition is a delightfully colour coordinated chronology of Miller’s artistic and personal journey. The one downside is that she was friends with Picasso but hey, we all make mistakes.

 

 

Heide Cottage

 

Next in our lineup is Heide Cottage, the old house of Heide’s founders John and Sunday Reed. Here they would host a never-ending array of artists, pretty much daily. Imagine having people in your house daily. If I did that people would definitely find the bodies.

 

You may notice it’s very similar to those old 50s houses, that is to say, from fixtures to furniture, it's gorgeous. Note the lack of ‘must’ smell? Heide Cottage has an impressive level of temperature and moisture control, keeping our artworks relatively undamaged. An old building? Without mould? It’s more likely than you think.

 

 

Our first painting of note is a portrait of you when you get your marks back. That’s right, Charles Blackman broke out of this screen, stared right into your soul, then painted Prone Figure. Those aren’t actually pyramids at all but a symbol of the academic standards that loom over you.

 

Following is three artworks I like to call ‘Slice of Life’ paintings, because they’re so much like the average, monotonous day.

 

 

This completely non-disturbing artwork is called Angel Waking Up in a Tree (John Perceval). Why is the angel deformed and bloodstained? Clearly, you’ve never experienced Catholicism before. This is normal.

 

 

This next painting depicts Sauron in his youth, climbing up the personification of evil. Doesn’t it remind you of the fun little escapades you had as a kid? When I look at it, I think of when I first joined the cult of shadows and discovered  Good times…

 

 

Round the corner we see a piece I nickname ‘I Am Miserable.’ It just suits! I haven’t experienced motherhood, nor the misery that can follow, but I thought one of you might resonate with it. Painted by Joy Hester, who achieved the absolute feat of having feminist beliefs in 1950s Australia, without being hospitalised, if you’re interested in more of... this, her work can be found on the Heide Collections website.

 

 

And there are the cockatoos, specially requesting I introduce you to their feeding tree. A lovely aspect of Heide is our beautiful Australian wildlife. And then there’s the cockatoos. They're also here.

 

Heide Modern

 

In the 1960s John and Sunday Reed built a new "modern” residence. You may notice that, behind the artworks, every wall is a lifeless stretch of white plaster. Don’t worry that’s the modernism, you’re not in a hospital. Yet.

 

 

As we look at the next installation you may be wondering: do I only feel emotions and because I am prompted to by society? Can life truly be broken down to flash cards? And the answer is - yes. Life is an unending performance of roles and obligations. But it’s okay,  will soon rise and put an end to that, and all of human society.

 

Thank you all for joining me on this tour of the Heide Museum of Modern Art. If you’d like to return before the end of days, the grounds and sculpture park are free, but the three galleries are $25 for adults and $20 for concession.

 

Did you enjoy the tour? Cassandra’s just brilliant. Don’t worry about the ‘end of times’ thing, either, she’s been saying that for years. All together, I found the Heide Museum of Modern Art disorganised but, from grounds to artworks, absolutely gorgeous to look at. One of those museums you go to as a pretty backdrop to socialising, not really for intellectual stimulation. With exception of the Lee Miller exhibition, which was a masterpiece and highlight of my visit. But to my final ratings…

Beauty: 4/5 s

Cohesiveness: 2/5 s

Education: 3/5 s

Entertainment: 4/5 s

 

Note: A huge thank you to the employees at Heide for supplying some of these photos. If you’re interested in any works shown, artwork names are in the captions, so please feel free to look them up on the Heide Collections site. I'll also highlight the YouTube channel CallMeKevin as the source for ‘Glashnok.’ If any of his fans are reading and wondering if that was a reference, it was!