Samstag Museum of Art

A friend of mine is an art and graphic design student. He studies at Uni SA and has had to visit this place a few times. I was wandering aimlessly around the city, a meanderthal, when I ran into him on his way there. I’ve never quite gotten the hang of visual art appreciation. I know the concept of learning how appreciate art is a silly one, but to me (and to the postmodernist, I guess), there’s no different of worth between a Monet and a city-​street cartoonist.
My friend too me around the rooms and levels and told me what he thought about the visual art present. It really helped me to enjoy and admire everything. I particularly like this one dark room displaying what appeared to be a still image, but what revealed itself to be a film if you watched it for a long enough duration. It depicted deserted city streets, which my friend and I ended up identifying as Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Now I return to the Samstag every few months to see what’s new. It’s a great place. Hell, if you want a place to take a date, take him/​her here. It’ll make you look cultured and sophisticated.

Wow what an awesome museum. I had no idea about this place until someone mentioned to me that Partricia Piccinini was exhibiting some work in town about a year ago. I hunted it down and ended up stalking through the UniSA City West Campus trying to find directions to the gallery, figuring I’d stumble into some sort of scummy classroom gallery. What I discovered was an architectural delight stacked with plenty of thought provoking contemporary art and photography.
The Samstag isn’t massive but spans over three floors and comprises of three galleries for joint and individual exhibitions. I’ve never seen a disappointing exhibition here and entry is totally free for all galleries.

The Samstag is considered to be one of, if not the leading University Galleries in the country because of the excellent facility and the amazing work it manages to find and exhibit. Through the year there are a range of exciting exhibitions that challenge just about all the notions of art you can imagine. This is the very purpose of contemporary work as well as pushing the boundaries of fine art and arts practise. The drive behind the gallery is so forceful it tends to gain a greater reputation each year and it is always worth visiting to see what extraordinary events are taking place.
In recent times the works exhibited have included photographs by Bill Henson, and artist and photographer who has created a whole new controversy with his photographs of children, begging the question where is the line between pornography and art drawn in today’s world? Giant chess boards with fantasy chess pieces feature in the photographs I’ve taken to go with my review, and other amazing work I’ve seen in the gallery has included incredible new Chinese art that looks like a giant has dropped her knickers and is shamelessly walking the streets somewhere bare arsed for all to see; so there is a healthy sense of humour in the work that has been brought in here.
Adelaide is remarkably lucky to have such a dynamic space dedicated to contemporary art in exhibit.