Brick Bay

Today’s edition of Sunday Drives Around Auckland took us an hour north to Brick Bay Winery and Sculpture Trail. It was recommended to us by Alicia and was totally worth the trip.

We got there about 10:30 AM, but the restaurant was (supposedly) all booked up (although it never really seemed full). Nonetheless, we got seated outside and had a great lunch and a glass of the local cépage.

Then we paid the extra ten bucks to take the sculpture walk. There are almost 70 works of art along maybe two miles of path.

At first, I did pretty well at predicting the descriptions in the explanatory brochure. For the red folly above I got the dual nature of concealing and providing a vantage point. I got the juxtaposition of the natural and man made worlds, easy. Art words are a lot like wine words… you don’t have to have a lot of verifiable meaning. In fact, the less the better.

But soon enough i had to admit defeat. The brochure writer was clearly operating at a high level: the exploration of negative space flowed effortlessly into a field of dynamic energy, all framed by references to indigenous culture. The sublime was suggested in form, colour and movement, where I only saw one of those triangle snake toys you buy in the educational section.

There were sublime moments, like the medieval music projected into a grove of trees. My brain filled up rapidly, and by the end it was the work that subverted art world norms and challenged the viewers notions blah blah blah that I most enjoyed.