In Geelong

I’ve been exploring Geelong and visited the Geelong Gallery and saw some public sculptures and street art. Most of it was located around the Lt. Malop Street area, Geelong’s cultural zone. 

Geelong Gallery needs both more space and a more substantial permanent collection. So it is very dependent on its current temporary exhibitions. When I visited, there was a temporary exhibition of John Nixon’s minimalist prints and an exhibition by women artists from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY) focused on the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters, the Pleiades) story. (Curiously, they identify the same stars as sisters as did the Ancient Greeks.)

The permanent collection consists of Fredrick McCubbin’s Bush Burial, a Eugene von Guérard, a Jan Senberg, a Gordon Bennett and a couple of other paintings. The exhibition space for the permanent collection consists of one large room for paintings above one small room for ceramics, in between, on the landing, some nineteenth-century marble statues. These included one from Charles Summers’s studio in Rome; I will return to Summers, who believed he was Melbourne’s answer to Michelangelo, later in this post. It is commendable that Geelong Gallery has both a community gallery space and a learning space, as these spaces are much needed in regional galleries.

Mark Stoner, North

Mark Stoner’s North, 2000, has an ideal, site-specific installation. It’s large sculptural sails or fins forms are a waterfront landmark. Stoner is a Melbourne-based artist whose sculptures are like landscapes. He has public sculptures in Melbourne’s Victoria Harbour and other locations in Melbourne and Geelong.

What most of Geelong’s public sculpture lacks is site-specific installations. Some of it has been dumped in Geelong, like Charles Summers’s marble statue of the future King Edward. It was originally part of a set of sculptures of the royal family adorning the NGV when it was first located in the State Library. Nobody wants them now; Edward looks awkward in his ceremonial pantaloons and stockings. I’m unsure where they all are, but some are now at the Melbourne Show Grounds.

Charles Summers, King Edward

There is also an older generation of public sculptures along the Geelong foreshore with an appreciation for their location. Jan Mitchell painted bollards and the little bronze men or gnomes of the Poppykettle Fountain by D.G. in 1980.

Some bronze cranes were imported to Geelong in the 1880s and relocated to the Botanic Gardens in the 1970s (a few others scattered around the Geelong foreshore). They are from a time when public sculpture was donated by local plutocrats rather than commissioned and curated.

More recent public sculptures in Geelong include a collaborative work with a nautical theme by Julie Collins and Derek John. And Louis Laumen’s The Newsboy (the third statue of a paperboy I’ve seen in an Australian city after Philip Cannizzo’s in Caulfield Park).

Manda Lane & the community

Finally, the street art in Geelong’s city centre consists of a few pieces commissioned by Manda Lane, VKM, and Baby Guerrilla. The community colour-in-paste-up by Manda Lane, who usually works in black or white, is a fun, collaborative piece. Otherwise, there is one service lane off Lt. Malop Street with a few pieces. It is mainly by a local artist, Glummo, who repeats his glum character at various scales, from whole buildings to small paste-ups. Why is his character so glum? Do you know someone from Geelong?

Glummo

Hotel Art

The chain hotel had paintings on its walls. Not prints; anyone could see the thick acrylic paint. It made them look like real paintings. These canvases are hanging everywhere, several in each room, the halls and the lobby. They were unsigned, anonymous, and did not wish to be known.

This was not a five-star or an art hotel with their curated experience of unique art in every room. Nor was it the two-star experience of prints and designer wall decorations. This was the three to four-star hotel art attractive but not desirable, bland but not tasteless, handmade but impersonal, original and yet identical. These are wall decorations to fill the wall spaces in the room, corridors and lobbies where you can’t put any more mirrors.

The size of the canvas, 1.5m square, makes it difficult to sneak past reception. People walk out of hotels with art, sometimes in the most obvious ways—many stories of stolen art along those lines, including some valuable pieces. But they wouldn’t do it with these. They obviously have no resale value.

Regarding the value of art … it would have been a good income for an artist to paint three hundred-plus paintings for a hotel. It would be hard work — a production line of art with standardised variations. You might want an assistant or a partner in the enterprise. Maybe it was even worth renting a separate studio so their colleagues wouldn’t see the production line of bland paintings.

These paintings have not been acquired for speculative value in the future but for their  current decorative value. Their cost would be written off in tax as a legitimate business expense. It is important to remember that in a capitalist system, not all art is produced to be endlessly tradable commodities. Like hotel art, public art can only be sold once; no future transactions are anticipated. It is tough to sell public art once it has been installed somewhere. It is often difficult enough to give public art away when it is no longer needed for that space. I wonder what happens to hotel art when new decor is installed, probably it is trashed.

What is the value of art? Not the market price but the value to people who don’t own it, to distinguish between consumerist and epistemological economies. Consumerist economies measure likes and cash, whereas epistemological economies measure the distribution of information. The bland hotel art reminds me that there are many ways to value art from market value to cultural, historical, artistic, educational, personal… Not everything gets commodified. Neo-liberals and NFT stans don’t understand that there are some things that decent humans don’t sell.

For more on hotel art:

Aaron Bachler “Where do hotels buy their art?” Marketplace speaks to hotel owners and hotel art providers in the USA.

Jenny Peters “Behind the scenes: The life of a hotel art curator” The Points Guy writes about the art collections of high-end and art hotels.  

A visit to Adelaide

I was recently in Adelaide, where I visited the Art Gallery of South Australia, Carrick Hill and two historic artist studios. I was aware that I was coincidently continuing my research into art crimes as I was visiting the scene of some historic art thefts, photographing windows, and retrospectively casing the joints.

A painting by Paul Gauguin that was stolen in a robbery from Carrick Hill

The Art Gallery of South Australia the gallery’s collection has been wholly rehung in a vast improvement from the traditional hanging I remember seeing on my last visit over a decade ago. Indigenous artists repainting the white colonial arches, paintings hung on patterned wallpaper, items juxtaposed, works placed high and low. The binaries of European and non-European art and historical and contemporary are ignored to give thematic coherence and more for the eye to find.

In contrast, the “2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State” (at the Art Gallery of SA) was hung in the now traditional manner for contemporary art. Basically, one work or artist per room. This safe approach applied to its curation, which was fun enough without anything new. There was a diversity of contemporary Australian artists, from Abdul-Rahman Abdullah to Reko Rennie. It was also good to see the work of the former Melbourne street artist known as Miso, now doing contemporary art under her name Stanislava Pinchuk.

Stanislava Pinchuk, The Wine Dark Sea, 2021

I had been warned about the cafe at the Art Gallery of South Australia by a random lady on a bus, but I ignored her warning about my loss. If you fail to fill a coffee order, you fail as a cafe.

Carrick Hill, the former home of Australian ultra-rich couple Bill and Ursula Haywood now open to the public. The mock-Tudor house is a Frankenstein creation bringing to life parts from a demolished English manor. The odd contemporary sculptures have since been added to the estate’s expansive gardens but not enough to call it a sculpture park. The wealthy art collectors were purchasing safe options. Their tastes were conservative and uninspired but expensive. A Turner, a Gauguin, several works by Augustus Johns, about ten busts by Jacob Epstein and other works of English, French and Australian artists. The Gauguin and a Boudin were stolen in a break-in just after the house was open to the public but were fortunately recovered shortly after.

Some of the items displayed at Nora Heysen’s studio

Hans Heysen’s studio

In a bucolic setting out of the city, just outside the town of Hahndorf, are the historic studios of Hans Heysen and his daughter Nora Heysen. The landscape, even some of the same trees from his paintings, can still be seen close by. There are very few historic artist’s studios open to the public in Australia; the other is Brett Whitely’s studio in Sydney. Historic artist’s studios are an opportunity to see the artist’s actual materials, tools, brushes, palettes, easel, collection of art books, and even some incomplete works. Again a few contemporary sculptures have since been added to the rural property but not sufficient to call it a sculpture park.

The nearby Hahndorf Academy had a couple of art exhibitions by some contemporary artists, some historical exhibits and a couple more drawings by Hans Heysen. Heysen had donated more pictures to them, but they had been stolen in a break-in decades ago, uninsured and never seen again. Except for their frames which were found discarded in someone’s backyard on the way to the airport.

I would have liked to have seen the Samstag Museum of Art at UniSA but ran out of time on my brief visit to Adelaide.

detail from Marguerite Derricourt, A Day Out, 1999, Rundle Mall, Adelaide

Cosplay in Keitaknen Garden

Seeing a cosplay photography session in Keitakuen Garden in Osaka was super-kawaii. What I saw was a collaborative cultural practice between the cosplayers, photographers, and gardeners as the garden provided the final collaborative element in this cultural practice. I have long wanted to write about cosplay and other para-artistic cultural practices but until recently I didn’t have the right opportunity (or my own photographs which essential for a blog post).

Cosplay in Keitaknen Garden

When I visited Keitakuen Garden on a Sunday, the first day of December, it was a warm sunny day and there were about twenty people in costume. There were a few older people, enjoying in the scenery of the garden and the presence of cosplayers, but the cosplayers and their photographers were majority of people using the garden. In the garden’s pavilion an older man sketching of the view in brush and ink.

The garden, designed by Jihei Ogawa, was part the Sumitomo main residence and is a designated important cultural property. It is a man-made landscape, a circular garden with central pond that provided many varied backdrops for the photographers and cosplayers.

The cosplayers had fantastic costumes, along with wigs, props, make-up and stacks of bags for all this stuff. Their poses were static, frozen positions for even in action poses, as if posing for a drawing and not a photography.

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Many of the female cosplayers were portraying male characters, complete with foam or latex male chest parts, but this was more Takarazuka Revue (which, like cosplay, is manga influenced) than a drag-king.

Almost all the cosplayers were women; there was one man in costume who was also a photographer. The gender of the photographers was more varied, as was there standard of equipment. Some were also participants using cell phones but there were also photographers with a very professional set-ups with tripods and light reflectors.

I didn’t recognise any of the characters but then I know very little about Japanese manga. Was the woman in the dark kimono a cosplayer?

It raises the question, are all people that I saw in kimonos (or hanboks in Korea), engaged in a kind of cosplay? And, consequently, are all people in tradition clothing/wedding costumes also engaged a collaborative culture practice that closely resembles cosplay? These questions present new angles on old questions. Does cosplay empower or exploit those involved? Does it expand the possibilities of life or narrow them?

Cosplayer and photographer at Boso-no-Mura farmhouse gate

I saw some more cosplayers a week later at the Chiba Prefectural Open-Air Museum Boso-no-Mura. There was even a “Cosplay Center” there, although I’m not sure what they were providing besides renting out kimonos and ninja suits.

Hosier Lane 2018

Hosier Lane has changed and will continue to change, it has also stayed the same. The homeless are still in Hosier Lane, seeking shelter around the corner in Rutledge Lane. There are still people doing graffiti in the lane, residents who live in buildings and the workers in the businesses but mostly there are the tourists, local, interstate and international tourists. Hosier Lane is an established part of the Melbourne tourist experience.

From the instigator, Andy Mac moving out of his laneway apartment to draconian anti-graffiti legislation and the threat of installation of CCTV there have been many predictions that the lane would cease to be a successful street art zone. However no-one predicted that the lane would be killed by its own success. What did you expect from street art and graffiti’s aim for mass appeal?

Now many street artists and graffiti writers are complaining that the lane is being destroyed by tourists. There were always tourists who visited the lane but now there are more tour groups and individual tourists than ever before. Tourist attraction are the Kali Yuga, the fourth stage of the world.

There always was developments and building in the lane but now the Culture Kings shop is ripping a hole in the middle. At least we spared it overshadowed by a massive tower, yet another of its predicted demises; Keep Hosier Real.

It has long been an established photo location for bridal, fashion, advertising and selfies but now it is difficult to even walk up it because of the number of cameras pointed across the narrow lane. Every metre there is someone posing for a selfie next to its walls thick with aerosol paint.

Melbourne’s great graffiti location has become crowded with tourists, tour groups all day, every day. There always were tourist in Hosier Lane, often they were on ‘spraycations’, visiting graffiti writers and street artists from around the world had long contributed some of the graffiti in the lane. However, now there is tagging on pieces by people whose handwriting demonstrates that they have no idea of graffiti or its etiquette (do not tag on a piece).

It long ago ceased to be the best place in the city to see street art and graffiti but the tourists don’t care. They are too busy taking photographs of each other in front of its walls. It doesn’t matter that the quality of the painted walls because the focus of their cameras is on the tourist and not the walls. Although it once was sufficient to see Hosier Lane to understand the vibrant scene; seeing or painting in Hosier is no longer necessary for the survival Melbourne’s street art and graffiti.

One obvious benefit that Hosier Lane still provides is that it is an example to every local council and business as to what a success that a graffiti and street art zone can have in the centre of the city. One of the more surprising recent changes is that along with the tourists there is more protest art in the lane, for more on that see my Political Graffiti in 2018. I have been watching and reporting on the development of Hosier Lane for over a decade and I intend to keep on.

Protest art in Hosier Lane 2018

You are here, wish you were there

I didn’t expect to see Godzilla in Tokyo. On my recent trip to Japan; I encountered Godzilla, a bit of graffiti and a few art galleries.

The statue is based on the film “Shin Godzilla” released in 2016 and had just been installed when I first saw it in March. It is the second Godzilla sculptures in the square; the previous statue, from 1995, was modelled after the original 1954 Godzilla. It is not monstrous, the statue measures about 3 meters in height, which seems small for Godzilla. It is located in Hibiya Godzilla Square where Toho Studios, who made the Godzilla movie, was founded. And it, stands next to a booth for buying cinema tickets.

“This statue contains the surviving final version of the shooting script and storyboard from Godzilla (1954). Here resides the soul of Godzilla.” The statue’s plaque states along with: “Man must live with Godzilla – Rando Yaguchi Unidentified Creature Response Special Task Force Headquarters” It is the first sculpture based on a movie that I have seen but as the quote from the movie script argues we have to learn to live with monsters. (“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 146)

I almost always write a post about what street art I saw on my holiday (see my posts on Athens, Dublin and Korea) only I didn’t see much Japanese street art or graffiti. I was expecting to encounter some along the streets or lanes or along the rail corridors but I didn’t see enough to write a blog post about. Nothing that was even worth a photo: a bit of tagging, a paste-up and even a small piece of yarn bombing.

I did see several art galleries in Japan from the elegant contemporary, Museum of 21st Century Art in Kanazawa to the Sumida Hokusai Museum, the most unergonomic museum that I’ve ever visited (both C and I came out with aching backs from leaning in to see the prints). I have already written about some of the exhibitions that I saw in one post about sakura influenced art in Japan. I don’t think that I will be writing anymore as writing blog posts was way down on my list of priorities in my travelling to Japan.

Sakura influenced art in Japan

The influence of cherry blossom time on the art of Japan. The masses of pale pink petals exploding across the bare trees before any green leaves appear have been a feature of Japan art for centuries. On a recent trip to Japan I did flower viewing hanami) of the cherry blossoms (sakura) in Ueno Park, Nara, Kyoto and in the mountains around Kobe. I also saw a couple of exhibitions and many beautiful works of art influenced by sakura time.

Tsuchida Bakusen, Oharame, Women Peddlers, 1915 (photo Yamatane Museum of Art)

The Yamatane Museum of Art was showing a thematic exhibition: “Sakura, Sakura, Sakura 2018 – Flower Viewing at the Museum!” (Exclamation marks are common in Japanese translated into English.) It was an exhibition of traditional Japanese art, separated from the influence of contemporary international art; paintings in ink or the thick opaque mineral based Japanese pigments. Even though most of the paintings were recent, their techniques and style are traditional. However, tradition does change and in Tsuchida Bakusen’s Oharame, Women Peddlers, 1915, there is an awareness of French modern art in the way the women’s foot was loosely drawn.

There were other exhibitions influenced by cherry blossom time, paintings beautiful women (bijinga). I didn’t see the exhibition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, “Masterpieces of Beautiful Women Paintings”, but I did see the Sumida Hokusai Museum’s exhibition “ Hokusai Beauty – the brilliant women of Edo”. The roots of bijinga are in genre paintings and ukiyo-e in the Edo period and although Hokusai is noted for his landscapes he did many bijinga during his long career. Paintings of beautiful women are genre in European art too but in Japan the focus in more on the fashion rather than the flesh.

The Sumida Hokusai Museum is a shiny new building built near the artist’s birthplace. It does not a large permanent exhibition but without the temporary exhibition it would have been a disappointingly small experience. The design of the building has a real triple bottom line by enhancing the local community with a local park and a children’s playground on the museum’s plaza. 

For more on sakura art read the Library of Congress notes on another exhibition.

(photo thanks to Catherine Voutier)