More of Melbourne’s Public Sculpture

Although public sculptures are generally intended for a specific location they are sometimes moved due to changes to the usage of the site. Melbourne has a number of major sculptures that have moved due to the taste of adminstrators. Melbourne’s moving sculptures include, “Angel” and “Vault”, the orphans of the 80s who are without a permanent home. “Angel” by Deborah Halpern originally stood in front of the NGV on St. Kilda Road before it was moved to, Birrarung Marr, on the banks of the Yarra River in 2006. There was no controversy over the sculpture or the move unlike Ron Robertson-Swann’s “Vault”.

Ron Robertson-Swann’s “Vault” is currently in its third location; originally commission for the city square, and installed in May 1980. “Vault” was controversial, many people in Melbourne had a avoided any kind of modern sculpture and in reference to Australian xenophobia the foreign modernist sculpture was nicknamed “The Yellow Peril”. Melbourne City Council quickly caved into the critics and less than a year later, in “1981”. Vault was exiled to Batman Park the banks of the Yarra, then a forgotten area of the city before the casino was constructed on the opposite side of the river. After the casino was constructed, in 2002, “Vault” was moved to its present location in the aesthetic preserve near ACCA. The people of Brisbane appear to have no problems with their Ron Robertson-Swann statue “Leviathan Play” 1985. Maybe it is the color but more likely it is the location outside the art gallery.

Ron Robertson-Swann, Leviathan Play, 1985

(This part of the entry was inspired by comments by Shifty MacDougal on my blog entry on Melbourne’s Public Sculpture. Thanks Shifty.)

I didn’t mention Simon’s Perry popular sculpture “The Public Purse” in my earlier blog entry on Melbourne’s Public Sculpture. “The Public Purse” is a giant stone and metal purse in the Bourke St Mall. “The Public Purse” is excellent public art; you can sit on it and it is witty, even if it is an idea borrowed from Pop artist, Claus Oldenburg’s urban monuments. Simon Perry studied art in England and now lectures in Sculpture and Art in Public Place at RMIT. Less well known is Simon Perry’s “Rolling Path” along the Merri Creek bicycle track. I like Simon Perry’s “Rolling Path” better than the “The Public Purse” because it is simpler and less derivative.

Petrus Spronk, Architectural Fragment, 1992

Another very popular Melbourne sculpture is “Architectural Fragment” by Petrus Spronk, 1992, at the State Library. It is popular even though it is post-modern sculpture with neo-classical references and you even can’t sit on it (although there is wear on one edge from skateboard riders). “Architectural Fragment” makes me think of the end of Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston on the beach but instead of the Statue of Liberty there is a corner of a library’s classical portico. And speaking of the beach, “Architectural Fragment” is based on Spronk’s sand-sculpture works.

The State Library forecourt has several other statues following the classical tradition of heroic statues: “St. George and the Dragon” by Sir J.E. Boehm and “Jeanne D’Arc” by E. Fremiet. These bronze editions of 19^th Century heroes belong to another era; they were imported to Melbourne with the aspiration of giving the public inspiring art that would morally improve them. This is not the aim of most contemporary public sculpture.

Peter Corlett, La Trobe, 2006

The name of the artist who made the statue of Sir Redman Barry in the State Library forecourt is not mentioned on the plinth’s panel amidst the all the many words about the subject and the commission. At least, the artist, Peter Corlett, has not been neglected mention in the panel about the statue of Governor La Trobe. The bronze statue has some colour to parts of its finish, a feature that would have been seen as retrograde by Hegel. It is not the colours on the statue that concern me but the very small plinth that makes La Trobe look like an eccentric soapbox orator. Peter Corlett has numerous other figurative, bronze, public sculptures around Melbourne.

Curators & Current Exhibitions

Some current exhibitions that I’ve seen in Melbourne made me think about the curators. In reviewing exhibitions in this blog I have endeavoured to give credit to the curators but it also time to give them some critical attention.

Bernhard Sachs and Brad Haylock curate the current exhibition at West Space. I don’t know why they bothered. The title of the show is a beautiful work of art in itself: “The Office of Utopic Procedures Presents: The Aesthetics of Joy – The Infinite International of Poetics” but the exhibition doesn’t support it. Both curators are also exhibiting in the show along with a more or less random selection of artists. Was the exhibition about the aesthetics of joy or was the title so vague that anything could be included? The works in the exhibition are diverse in every sense and there is little cohesion, even the hanging on deep blue walls didn’t create a unity. The exhibition contains the usual contemporary curator’s mix of video art, installation and wall painting. I expect something more from a curators than this exhibition with its pretentious title.

The curators do hit the jackpot with a work by Kellie Wells, a video installation with wall painting that actually appears to be on the exhibition’s theme. Kellie Wells is jumping for joy amongst horizontal strips of elastic. These horizontal strips appear in the minimalist wall painting. It was like the children’s game except played by an adult. The ominous rumbling soundtrack to the installation is the only discordant note in the work.

At Michael Koro Gallery I saw a simpler exhibition. It is simply titled with the names of the participating artists: Ash Keating. Andrew Hutson, Daniel Du Bern and Marcin Wojcik. No curator credited but the hanging was elegantly simple. Ash Keating likes to separate rubbish – it is the environmentally responsible thing to do. And Ash Keating takes rubbish separation to an art – a black pile of plastic waste and white pile of plastic waste. Andrew Hutson is exhibiting three sculptural scenes made of painted paper-mache. They have a whimsical mood, a simple direct style and clear ideas. Daniel Du Bern is showing 10 oil ink prints of strange handmade weapons, perhaps handed in during a police amnesty, as suggested by the series title: Amnesty. These crude but deadly weapons are depicted in a cool, neutral and grey style as artefacts. In the laneway next to Michael Koro Gallery Marcin Wojcik has made small sailing ship made of sticky tape over a wooden frame.

I also saw the Shilo Project at the Ian Potter Museum of Art is curator by Dr Chris McAuliffe. In the exhibition pop music album covers, and dot to dots, meet contemporary art. It is a curatorial dream of an exhibition to include so many artists with a theme exhibition with iconic pop status. The 100 works of art looked coherent because they were all on 100 copies of Neil Diamond’s Shilo album with its dot to dot drawing cover art. There are no breathtakingly great art in this exhibition but the installation of the exhibition is a curatorial work of art incorporating the record store style, a record player and even imitation record store bins full of Neil Diamond records. CDs, with their smaller format, killed the art of the album cover – this exhibition does not attempt to revive it but to redirect it.

The Museum of Electrical Philosophy

The Nicholas Building is the home to a lot of artists from the late Vali Myers (1930-2003) to the very much alive Stephen Giblett. They have their studios and exhibition spaces in the rooms of the Nicholas Building. It is also the home of Collected Works bookstore, the best bookshop for quality literature in Melbourne, along with the Victorian Writers Centre and other interesting shops. It is a wonderful old building that is well worth a visit itself, the mail cute in the stairwell and the antique elevators speak of another era of city office life.

The very name “The Museum of Electrical Philosophy” evokes all kinds of ideas about this prime force. The idea of a strange private museum, like a UFO museum exhibiting in glass cabinets things as evidence for their belief. And it is plausible, after all the Nicholas Building houses the offices of many a small and little known organization. The display at the door changes each month – then it was an electrical circuit that counted itself, kinetic sculptures powered by electric motors including a small revolving Madonna in a crystal. Each of them has had some electrical content.

There is a fringe to the art world, where there is an on going dialogue about the very nature of art and the way it is displayed. The Duchamp code of deconstructing the art world with ordinary objects has expanded to boring the audience with its continuous repetition. In articles by Jean Baudrillard and so many other critics on contemporary art there is an element of despair about this direction. And I felt, having written a thesis about Duchamp’s readymades, that I was part of this unfortunate conspiracy. But there is another side of Duchamp, and consequently the post-Dada fringe, Duchamp’s strange optical machines, his inventions, and chess obsession. It is somewhere between eccentric, prank, madness and life; it is the part that never stopped having fun. This is the part of art that is truly critical of the boredom of contemporary art, the alternative, experimental part outside of the art galleries. It is the Dadaist element manifest not just in street art, or zines but also in the creations like Jim Hart’s “Museum of Electrical Philosophy”.

“The Museum of Electrical Philosophy” examines the aesthetics of the museum, the act of putting things on display under a title. It makes us think about the evolution of the wunderkammers and cabinets of curiosity towards contemporary exhibition practices (I recommend reading Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, 1986).  I haven’t seen that many museums-as-art before; Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s “Museum of Soy Sauce Art” (1999) was complete with a fake history, curatorial notes, a kiosk, and ancient, modern and contemporary soy sauce art. Another was the “Museum of Modern Oddities” (2001) that had its own curators and guidebook to explain the exhibits, combining both visual and performing arts. “The Museum of Electrical Philosophy” may be the smallest of these museums but it is a continuous one.

And, of course, there is the Museum of Electrical Philosophy Blog where Jim Hart writes about the Museum and the Nicholas Building.

(This blog entry is an edited version of an entry published in my old blog, Culture Critic @ Melbourne. My old blog has since been taken down for reasons beyond my control but I thought that this entry was worth republishing as the Museum of Electrical Philosophy is still operating.)

Art Bars

The idea of an art bar is an appealing concept. Let us take a quick pub crawl through modern art history takes us the bars of Montmartre where Toulouse-Lautrec drank, to the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, to the cafés of Paris where the Surrealists drank, to the Cedar Bar in New York where the Abstract Expressionists drank, to the Colony Room in London where Francis Bacon drank. Any bar will do. It is not the atmosphere, nor the type, nor the quantity of alcohol that matters but the quality company with which it is consumed. What is important is culture of the drinkers and the culture of drinking.

Lord Ivy Art Lounge has a good location amongst the art galleries of Flinders Lane and full-page adverts in Art Almanac. However when I visited the art was too bland for my taste. Fad Gallery Bar also advertises an art connection but it has never been open when I’ve been in the area. There are plenty of bars in the city with a more artistic atmosphere. And there are plenty of pubs and bars in Melbourne that have had the occasional art exhibition.

There are many pubs and bars that have contributed to Melbourne’s music scene (not just rock or jazz but many kinds of music, even experimental music). They have also contributed to Melbourne’s live comedy scene, theatre scene and other vibrant aspects of our culture. Victoria’s liquor licensing laws have not helped Melbourne’s once world famous live music scene. There are only a few places left that I once played with my band still have live music – they have all closed or become ‘Irish’ pubs. Thousands of words have been written about the closure of the Tote in January 2010 in both newspapers, like The Age, and blogs, like Man About Town.

The changes in Victoria that have allowed more liquor licences in the city have had an impact on the culture, some artist run spaces and small galleries partially subsidize their operation with the licensed sale of alcohol. I don’t know if the argument of increased availability leading to increased consumption is anything more than a simplistic analysis of complex behaviour. Certainly prohibition has never worked to decrease consumption. The 2 am lockout did not change anything. The old restricted drinking hours and premises of the old Australian 5 o’clock swill did not create a positive drinking culture.

I prefer the liquor licence standards of Europe rather that Australia. Current Victorian legislation reminds me of the prohibition in 1915 of the most famous artistic drink, absinthe, by the United States and most European countries. It is simply moral panic and lacks supporting evidence. The re-introduction of absinthe to the world market has not had any measurable negative impact, nor will changes to the current laws. (I find that a metal tea strainer is an adequate substitute for the ornate absinthe spoons to suspend a sugar cube on.)

For more information about Melbourne’s bars, pubs and clubs read Melbourne Nightlife Blog or My, Aching Head (or one of the hundreds of blogs that review that scene.

January Exhibitions

I’ve been busy in January; I’ve also been working on preparing for this year’s Melbourne Stencil Festival – yes, already. I have been to a few exhibitions and I’ve been keeping my eyes open on the streets. I ran into performance and video artist, Michael Meneghetti in the street moving lumber by bicycle; it is good to see an artist using a bicycle and not adding more pollution. He told me about the upcoming exhibition at Michael Koro Gallery where he curates the Melbourne propaganda window.

I walked down Flinders Lane even though most of the galleries weren’t open and I wasn’t impressed by most of what I saw. Mailbox 141 had a selection of drawings by artists from various commercial galleries. I finally saw Guildford Lane Gallery, a two-story gallery made from a converted factory; some of the machines are still there. I particularly enjoyed “Vessel” by Janet Carter because it was black, beautiful and made the vibrations of sound visible. Guildford was showing part of the Midsumma visual arts program that occupies most of the gallery spaces that are open in January – City Library, Platform 69, Smith St. and more.

I saw the Pigment exhibition “new release” of recent arts graduates; I meant to see the exhibition of recent graduates at Blindside but was busy on Thursday and was only in the city on Wednesday. The exhibition had an unsettling quality to it because the more the artist looked comfortable and confident with their media the more boring I found their art. The art on exhibition that I enjoyed was neither comfortable nor confident. Valentina Palonen’s centrepiece sculpture “Separation Anxiety” was the most powerful work in the exhibition but it was so funky ugly, kitsch ugly that I never felt comfortable looking at it. I described some of Palonen’s smaller sculptures in my notes as: “ugly kitsch blobs”. Melissa Grisancich’s pop meets Frida Karlo images were also unsettling and mysterious, as were Kate Winterton’s surreal photographs.

Then there was the truly bad art, not just the disturbingly ugly. Bad exhibitions are often shown in January when those galleries that are open are desperate to exhibit something. I went to Brood Box but quickly walked out again as Bill and Helen Kemp mixed media landscapes are horrible. Mixing painting with fabric art is often a recipe for bad art and this exhibition is not an exception.

In the end I didn’t get to the opening at Michael Koro Gallery on Thursday as I was being interviewed for yet another documentary about Melbourne’s street art until 7:15. Maybe I’ll get to see it in February.

Psychogeography of the Yarra River

“Urbanism is the modern fulfilment of the uninterrupted task which safeguards class power: the preservation of the atomisation of workers who had been dangerously brought together by urban conditions of production.” Guy Debord (The Society of the Spectacle, 1967)

The Yarra River divides Melbourne more than just geographically. It is the polluted, poisonous brown snake that divides the northwest of the city from the southeast. It is a psychological division of the city. The Yarra River is the major psychogeographic feature of Melbourne.

‘Psychogeography’ is a portmanteau neologism by the Lettrists, a proposal for a study of the relationship between psychology and geography. In reality it was an excuse for the avant-garde of Paris to drunkenly wander the streets and for Stewart Home and other British Neoists to write magico-nonsense (Mind Invaders, ed. Steward Home, Serpent’s Tail, 1997). But if we take Debord seriously then the psychogeography Melbourne appears to divide and restrict the movement of its inhabitants, with a spoked network of railway tracks, tram tracks and roads. Whether this “safeguards class power” as Debord argues or merely the result of stupid and short-sighted governments is a matter for political debate.

For more on the psychogeography of Melbourne see Mapping Melbourne and Simon Seller’s “Urban Wasteland: A Pyschogeographical tour of Melbourne”.

The Yarra River was called Birrarrung meaning “Place of Mists and Shadows” by the Wurundjeri tribe, the local aboriginal people. In 1803 when NSW Surveyor-General Charles Grimes named it “Freshwater River”. In 1835 it was renamed “Yarra Yarra” by John Helder Wedge of the Port Phillip Association, in the mistaken belief that this was the Aboriginal name for the river. The name was subsequently condensed to the Yarra River.

The Yarra is not a wide river and there are many bridges; for a visitor of the city the river may not seem like a major boundary but it is to Melbourne’s inhabitants. People living south of the river rarely go further across than the CBD or MCG. And people living north of the river rarely go south of the river. I could go into generalizations about the affluent southeast and the working class northwest of the city or how the radial spread of the city train-lines, tramlines and roads to explain this division.

The river has become a tourist attraction. In a copy of London’s Southbank, the south bank of the Yarra was made into an arts precinct, later extended with a restaurant and casino area. Princess Bridge has become a prime location to photograph the city at sunrise or sunset. The south bank of the river was the first to be improved, although this had always had parks and boatsheds. A riverside walk and sculptures have been added to the north bank of the Yarra it remains dominated by the railway lines and Flinders St. station until the construction of Federation Square and Birrarung Marr park.

I live in the north and I rarely travel south of the river, except to go to the NGV or other venues in Southbank. I am sorry that I haven’t written more about the galleries and street art south of the river.

(This blog entry is an edited version of two entries published in my old blog, Culture Critic @ Melbourne. My old blog has since been taken down for reasons beyond my control but I thought that this entry was worth republishing.)

Self-referential street art

Nobody seems to mention the old sgraffiti technique of writing in wet cement as a form of street art. This is because mostly it is just names, expressions of love or football mania or the accidental evidence of bicycles, cats, dogs and bird prints. Why isn’t it considered part of street art, like tagging? Maybe someday someone will do something artistic with the media but most of it is just rubbish. It lacks what all art and decoration must have, an appeal or meaning to someone else besides the maker.

At the other end of the spectrum from names written in cement is self-referential street art. Self-referential street art is street art (graffiti, stickers, paste-ups) that is self-conscious about its status, or not, as art. I don’t mean self-conscious in the sense of awkward and shy, but self-conscious as aware of itself and its surroundings. It is self-referential in that it comments on its own conditions, media, and quality. Street art that demonstrates awareness of itself and goes beyond images, brands, tags and logos. Self-referential street art takes street art to a new level, not of quality images, but in the depth of thought. It is where street art meets conceptual art and it involves a lot of words; this is not that strange as street artists always called themselves writers. Yes, this is a heavy philosophical way of looking at what is often the lighter side of street art. It is funny because it is deep rather than superficial.

Self-referential street art is the more political and critical side of street art. Self-consciousness of its nature as art there is street art that attempts to broaden the genre of street art to include; performance art, street art sculpture, light graffiti etc. Once in Stevenson Lane there were some stuck on long trails of paper leaves, a very delicate work to survive as street art (another street artist trying to broaden the medium?)

Some graffiti is so conscious of its position as an underground art world. Graffiti that is aware that it will be photographed and stored in a jpg format file.

This street art appears is so ready for critical essays about culture as it comments on its own position in the art world.

Flinders Street Station Centennial

Today is the centennial of Flinders Street Station. The centennial of Flinders Street Station has been largely ignored amidst the debacle and neglect endemic in Melbourne’s public transport, there is nothing to celebrate. This iconic Melbourne building is a popular and convenient meeting place. The original Melbourne Terminus railways station was completed in 1854 but was soon outgrown but the city. In 1900 construction of the current Flinders Street Station building began and it was completed in 1910.

Jenny Davies is author of the new book, Beyond The Façade, about Flinders Street Station http://www.flindersstreetstation100.com/ and has curated the current exhibition at Platform. It is very relevant exhibition to the Platform exhibition space, the public and the time. There are artifacts, photographs and didactic panels in a very professional museum display presenting a decade-by-decade view of the railway station.

Major central railway stations are cities within cities and this was the idea of the original design for Flinders Street Station. The station had everything: a gym, a public library, meeting rooms, a ballroom and a children’s nursery. In the 1960s there was even a bowling alley under the station. Nothing has replaced these facilities; they lie empty and abandoned in the building. It is tragic that it has been neglected for so many decades by State governments more interested in building roads and hosting major sporting events.

Along with this didactic historicy exhibition at Platform there is there are two cabinets of art about Flinders Street Station. Artist, John Bates has very flat paintings of the station displayed in the “Vitrine” cabinet. And in the “Sampler” cabinet are stylish images of Flinders Street Station by industrial design student, Tristan Tait,

There are the microenvironments of the city centre that can be changed by the existence of art galleries. For example, the revitalisation of the Degraves St. Subway, also known as Campbell’s Arcade, that goes under Flinders St. to the station from Degraves St. The subway was completed in time for the 1956 Olympics and it has not been refurbished since. It has many of its original features like the long row of telephone booths (no longer functional). Campbell’s Arcade has its own dynamic, given that it is one of the entrances to Melbourne’s main metropolitan railway station. And since the Platform art space the Degraves St. subway became an interesting place to walk through and even sit and eat your lunch on the benches in during Melbourne’s winters.

The revitalization of Campbell’s Arcade started with Platform 2. There already was a Platform artist space in vitrines in a subway at the old Spencer Street Station. And buskers have always found the space at the end of the stairs attractive for its position and acoustics. Platform 2, now simply called Platform after the closure of the Spencer Street location. Platform utilized built in display cases that were originally intended for commercial displays but were no longer used.

I have taken an interest in the underpass after exhibiting at Platform 2 in 1995. A year later when a group of friends and I opened Subterranean Arts, an artist run space. There was, already, a millenaries and a shop selling PVA clothes leading the way on the alternate direction for the arcade. At the time there were still the traditional type of shops: the newsagent, second-hand book window and old-fashioned barbershop. Subterranean Arts closed down after six months when energy, finance and direction ran out; the fate of many an artist-run space. Other shops have opened and closed but the trend has been towards boutique alternative fashion and other interests like vinyl records and skateboards. Sticky, a shop specializing in zines, and other limited edition publication opened a few years later and has been growing stronger ever since. It is incredible to think that in the age of the internet people are still producing handmade publications. And Sticky helps them do it with an extra long stapler, badge machines and typewriters for public use. The second-hand book window has been converted into another exhibition space – Vitrine. And Platform continued to expand into more used display cases.

I have written about the exhibitions at Platform many times in this blog – including when it was flooded when road works above collapsed the roof – Is the Art Alright? When I was there on Thursday afternoon I meet the author, Jenny Davis and enjoyed a jazz busker duo playing.

Aside from Platform and Sticky there isn’t much art in Flinders Street Station, even compared to other major railway stations. The only officially commissioned work is the Mirka Mora mosaic mural was installed in 1986.

Bus Projects – January

There is a lot to see at Bus Projects in January with five artists exhibiting in five different spaces. It is a good first start for the new year; I didn’t dislike any it but I enjoyed some more.

In the main space is “For Illusion Isn’t The Opposite Of Reality” by Dida Sundet, an RMIT fine arts student. It is a fun exhibition with lots to look at and look at again. Her surreal photography is excellent, carefully staged with beautiful chiaroscuro lighting. It is like the Mad Hatter meets Hannibal Lector. The series of photographs was awarded two honorable mentions in the 2009 International Photography Awards. Along with the photographs there are elements that have been used in the photographs: painted animal masks are held out by plaster hands and in the center of the gallery there is an installation of a bloody dinning room.

Leo Greenfield’s “The Coverings Project” is installed in the “Sound Space” although not a sound installation. Greenfield is exhibiting a deceptively simple installation; a circle made of recycled t-shirts, titled “My teenage life”, on the floor and a series of six collaged photographs, “Garments in Motion” on the walls. It is almost an anti-fashion exhibition if his photographs weren’t so stylish – complete with Doc Martens boots. They continue the late-modern tradition of documenting body art through photographs but they have been altered with subtle and stylish collage. For more about Leo Greenfield’s art visit Fashion Hayley’s blog entry about him – The Bride Stripped Bare.

Jodi Cleaver’s video, “Little Machine” in the “Window Seat” space in the stairwell, is basically a good music video (without the industry standard images of the band playing) with music by the Ice Cream Creatures. And, why not? Music videos have done some of the most interesting film making for years. It didn’t have much of a narrative; Cleaver describes it as: “A little girl tries to fly her kite while being tempted and pursued by both a machine and a magician.” The video uses stop motion animation like those of Jan Svankmajer where ordinary objects that become magically animated.

In the “Skinny Space”, Brooke Wolsley’s “Feast” is a series of now rather traditional, that is Dada and Pop influenced, mixed media collages. The wall painting by Jessica Wong, “Parallel Universe”, in the Foyer reminded me of Tom Civil’s use of stick figures to draw worlds of people, but I didn’t take a close look at it as all the other exhibitions had distracted me.

Street Art @ Brunswick

When the weather has been pleasant I have been riding my bicycle around and photographing street art in Brunswick. I saw a guy with a tattoo designed by Phibs on his calf, a permanent commitment to Phibs tribal inspired style. And it is not the first street art inspired tattoo that I have seen.

There are plenty of new pieces in the streets between Brunswick and Anstey stations. At Royal Nuts, the whole factory painted by people from Don’t Ban the Can with a nutty theme. If you want to see how good Melbourne legal street art can be, look around this small area, there are several fresh and outstanding walls. It is a demonstration by the people from Don’t Ban the Can as a protest about Victoria’s draconian anti-graffiti laws. So far they have been able to convince businesses and private citizens but not the local council or state government. Is there something wrong with Australian politics that it is easier to convince private enterprise than the politicians? Of course, private enterprise, like Royal Nuts are being rationally whereas the politicians are not and cannot.

I photographed this stencil work in Brunswick; it is a plagiarism of a work of Noel Counihan, Melbourne artist with connections to Brunswick. Many stencil artists are no more creative than the photocopiers that they use.

Street art sculpture doesn’t always work and this tree, that was hung with junk over the silly season, looks like rubbish after two weeks.

This rectified billboard poster advertising a carbonate beverage now simply advertises “Freedom”. I don’t know why advertisers pay to use this billboard by the Upfield line as it is repeatedly altered.