Entries Tagged 'PUBLIC ARTEFACTS' ↓

Life imitates art – or is it the other way round? If “that flower pot thing” above is the subject of genuine disbelief in dinner party conversations, then surely “the challenger” below is worthy of our aesthetic attention? If the dinner party consensus is that the pylon for the new Gungahlin Drive Extension Bridge over Belconnen Way “looks better” than the “flower pot”, then what does that tell us about the quality of decision-making which leads to the installation of public art works on the streets of Canberra? Read on…

If, like me, you wonder about the art status of such things, in Canberra, it’s art once it’s been launched by the Chief Minister. Skip the guff, check the final line in the plaque below. And all the other plaques around town. Unlike London, we specialise in a scattergun approach, where we set minor works free on every street corner. But each new artwork has to be officially set adrift… This piece of street decor was personally selected by the Chief Minister, and launched as marker for the nonexistent Latin American Quarter! Thus we take extra pleasure when we encounter unofficial readymades like this Pylon above, which has no political or cultural stigma to carry.

P.S. Dear Minister for the Arts and Heritage. Stop work on the bridge! Iconophilia wishes to nominate The Pylon for Instant Heritage Status.

London’s Lord Mayor Boris Johnson announces Anish Kapoor’s sculpture ArcelorMittal Orbit, to be built in time for the Olympic Games. (See The Guardian video here). Apparently funded by Britain’s wealthiest individual, its title advertising his business identity, its 21st century character could hardly be further from Vladimir Tatlin’s dream of nearly a century ago.  Why Tatlin? His proposed Monument to the IIIrd International was far more ambitious, and despite its impossible futurism, given the technology available to him, there’s an echo here in form and structure, yes? And yes, I have nothing against an art which pays homage to its antecedents… If indeed, that is the case…

The Independent’s Jay Merrick says “It’s anti-bling, and its brusque form will be either loved or hated.” How very English. It’s an unfortunate choice of words, unless anti-bling means pro-spin? Either way, there’s an art-hyperbole thesis in it for somebody… And what will ArcelorMittal Orbit be saying in 95 years time?

Here’s a relevant post on another blog – and I’m sure there will be more! See Kapoor on the BBC,  Tom Dyckhoff. Farah Nayeri. Someone who calls themselves “live toad”.

Iconophilia was directed to this piece of abandoned sixties vernacular sculpture by local sculptor Richard Moffatt , who lives at Tathra on the NSW South Coast. It is hidden on the headland north of Middle Beach. In the age of the GPS and the PLB trig points serve no purpose. So nobody trims the trees around it any more, and it is only visible to connoisseurs of vernacular art and redundant technology who make the trek to this un-named headland.

Sixties? Thanks to the surveyors who spent ten cents to set this date stamp in the concrete next to their official marker we can give it its place in the style of the sixties…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, at Penders, Richard Moffatt has conceived the perfect analogue to the trig sculpture.

His friend and mentor Marr Grounds claims it is his MAGNUM OPUS (“a triumph of function over form!”). Working with the rusty steel offcuts of sixties aesthetic purity (gleaned from Sir Ron Robertson-Swann’s scrapyard), Richard has referenced a locally occurring subterranean wave form – a phenomenon known only to a select few…

Be it known that Iconophilia does not condone such vandalism… even at the front door of a University. But Relic is surely a soft target for undergraduate humour… these are before and after snaps, thanks to my sense of duty.

And, oh dear, it continues…

Iconophilia invites you to make up your own minds which version of this Rick Amor sculpture on Childers St and University Avenue you prefer. Vote Christo or anti-Christo? It’s the latest instance of the ACT Government’s iconopathic spree on public art. Apparently we specialise in minor works by minor artists – Rick Amor was unknown to the world of three dimensional art until his unhappy black dog was unleashed on the unsuspecting art world as a (tongue-in-cheek, surely) farewell gift to the last NGA Director Brian Kennedy. And who decided this glowering feetless Relic would be a great symbol for the entryway to the Australian National University? Is the CM having a lend of the VC?

Or it it the Family Law Court it’s referencing? Abandon hope all ye who enter here… It seems the ACT Government’s public art fashion sense has shifted to beaky, lumpy, semi-figurative bronzes which evoke British art from the 1950s. And good lord! It (presumably another copy) won the McLelland Award in 2007!

And it’s been a sculpture ‘launch” a week for the Chief Minister’s publicity machine recently. Iconophilia bets this one is destined to sink without a ripple in the dark waters of art history… And let’s hope there’s an exit clause…

Or, maybe not… It sure seems to Iconophilia that our first encounter with the PALR suggests that this may not be the panacea for the Global Financial Crisis after all. It just may be a tad too transparent…

Here we were in Nimmitabel last weekend, in the center of the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, face to face with the groundbreaking Fourteen-Silver-Birch-Tree-Led-Stimulus-Package. Yes, there are fourteen new bits of steel, concrete and Birch Tree in the main street of Nimmitabel, all in the name of the Government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan.

You’d want to ask, wouldn’t you, what is the contribution to the nation’s productive capacity in projects such as this? Surely little bits of public consumption like this is little more than the ol’ pork-barrel? I would have thought this was a risky vote-losing strategy in this revisionist economic climate?

Oh dear. It’s a fizzer. This “sculptural marker” for Canberra’s non-existent “Latin America Quarter” looks as gimcrack and temporary as the reports of its Sydney sojourn promised. Did the ACT Chief Minister really choose it himself? Maybe he only saw it in the dark… Either way, to elevate this tinny temporary effects $90,000 public artefact to the status of (permanent) “public art” is, I’m afraid, a bad joke all round… Plus there’s the budget for the “launch” – complete with marquee, portaloos, nibbles and drinkies. Incidentally, what the CT first reported as the “Latin American Quarter” is now the “Latin American Plaza”… And then in the CT’s breathless style the sculpture “took the artist three months to make” – well there’s an index of quality for you… one Phillips head screw every three days…

Seems designed to defeat drunken larrikins. A non-voting sector. Except those who vote with Phillips head screwdrivers. We’ll be watching it’s progress with interest. You have to wonder, is this the standard we’ll get for the Glassworks commission? How long before the etched gal rusts, and it’s dented and graffiti’d? C’mon Jon, get some better advice…

Well here’s the story. Iconophilia has discovered the hideous petuniae are funded by Canberra’s organisation of property owners, CBD Ltd. Despite their self-congratulatory spin, somebody must be in charge, some arm of government must have thought, what a great idea! Let’s have four months of naff, eight months of empty rings. (Despite their assurance: “On completion of the project the Planter People will totally remove all installations.” Well they didn’t did they?)  So let ‘em at it! There are 1300 plastic potties in all. Money must be burning a hole in their pockets. And the public loves it, so they say. They’ve got one totally legitimate email to prove it…

In their own words:

“Each Year Canberra CBD Limited contracts the Planter People [it's like living in PhotoshopWorld] to festoon the City with flowers. There are 350 locations (1300 baskets) from Hobart Place, along Northbourne Avenue through City Walk, Petrie Plaza and Ainslie Avenue. The flowers are installed early November and stay in place until after the Canberra Festival in March.

“The public love this addition to the City and following email is an example of comments we have received:

“You mentioned your plans to beautify the CBD and I keep meaning to send this note telling you what a great job you are doing. The flower baskets are sensational.

Congratulations on the wonderful addition of flower planters to the inner city areas in Canberra. What a breath of fresh air it is to see these wonderful colours everywhere”.

Adding insult to injury, each year Canberra celebrates Hay Fever Day by filling the thousands of empty hoops which are attached to every static vertical thing in Civic with petuniae. For eight months of each year these rusty coloured rings stand in idle anticipation of November 12, awaiting their plastic tubs filled with petunias to pretty up our manifestly dull metropolitan ambience. And see how sensitively relevant they are to our urban environment?

Of course these thousands of pots require twice weekly watering, which provides employment, and makes good use of our dwindling water resources. The petuniae, you’ll be please to know, have been genetically modified so that they do not release any pollen into the air. The only remaining question that worries The Iconophile is: what does the petunia farm produce in these idle summer months?