Street Art Notes October 2023

You would think I would know what I’m doing after all these years of writing this blog. After one thousand and seven hundred-something blog posts, you would think I’d have learnt something from the experience.

Viki Murray stencils

After four hundred-and-something blog posts about street art, I no longer know where to begin a blog post. Have I run out of things to say?

When I started this blog, I called it “Melbourne Art and Culture Critic”. The word ‘culture’ was meant to indicate that it was about more than just art. That distinction between art and not art didn’t matter; it was all visual culture.

You might imagine I have a stack of blog posts ready to post because that would be the smart thing to do. And, very rarely, I have something prepared in advance, but this is not one of those posts. This is one of those times when I’m trying to put something together from my notes and photographs.

What is the Cave Clan’s contribution to Melbourne’s visual culture? But some photos of stickers, an old zine stashed away (somewhere?), and memories of second-hand stories about exploring Melbourne’s stormwater drains are not enough to make a blog post.

I wish to write a blog post about the skill of the anonymous hand holding the spray can—the repeating curves along the surface of the bike lane — linear beauty for a block.

I have already updated my post about street art portraits of Julian Assange with Kyobi’s portrait in Degraves Street.

I spotted a sweet collaboration between N2O and Manda Lane in Northcote. N2O is one of the few remaining stencil artists in Melbourne’s street art scene.

Finally, is there a story about the construction in Rutledge Lane, which comes off Hosier Lane? Hosier Lane was even blocked off for a morning for it.