Southbank

Brisbane is hosting the wonderful Valentino Retrospective at the Gallery of Modern Art in the Southbank cultural precinct. We (me especially) were very excited to see this magnificent exhibition of 100 beautiful dresses, including those worn by Cate Blanchett (2005 Academy Awards), Julia Roberts (2000 Academy Awards), the Jackie Onassis wedding dress and iconic dresses worn by Nicole Kidman, Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Grace of Monaco, all very rich, tall and thin women.

The exhibition has been enormously popular. The $75.00 catalogues were all sold out long ago, much to my disappointment.

The Valentino exhibition was not the only joy at this gallery. It was also a privilege to see the Douglas Kirkland photography exhibition. I was stoked to see he's a Canon man now he's gone digital although those iconic Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland and John Lennon portraits and those famous stills for The Sound of Music and the Thriller video were from his Leica days.

We found Brisbane cool and windy today, not at all how we were expecting it to be. We kept getting confused at the way our 35 years ago mind map of Brisbane has failed to incorporate all those office and apartment block towers, the hemmed in Brisbane River and the looping freeways. The old Treasury building and the South Brisbane railway station look like funny little old fashioned toy buildings in amongst all this development.