Federation Square & the Melbourne Prize

There is plenty to see and do in Federation Square; someone could probably write a blog and post nothing except all the stuff happening at Federation Square. There is a lot happening all the time both officially and unofficially: music, art, dance, food, videos and that is just what is happening outside.

I visited the Pop-up Patch, a vegetable garden in the middle of Melbourne in part of the disused carpark at the end of the Federation Square. There are patches used by restaurants and other people, including a planting of hops by Little Creatures brewery. It is a great little vegetable garden overlooking the Yarra River.

I normally don’t write many blog posts about Federation Square, I spend more time on Sydney Road, Gertrude Street or Hosier Lane. This is more a case of overrated (and consequently over-reported) and underrated rather than an idea of an authentic Melbourne location. This week I have been exploring Federation Square, walking around looking at the finalists work in the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2014. (See my post Installing Ursa Major.)

The six finalists for the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture have work installed in Federation Square but don’t expect to see things of bronze, wood or stone on plinths. Juliana Engberg, Artistic Director of ACCA, said that the sculpture prize “reflects a shift in thinking, a long way from plonk space.” Another one of the prize judges, the sculptor Callum Morton, pointed out that the sculpture can be “propositional, monumental, performance based”.

Geoff Robinson, 15 locations/15 minutes/15 days

Geoff Robinson was very happy to win Melbourne Prize; the $60,000 cash prize would make most artists very happy. His work 15 locations/15 minutes/15 days is a sonic sculptural event using the space and time of Federation Square. Robinson thanked the hundreds of volunteers who are ringing federation handbells, courtesy of Museum Victoria at the 15 locations each marked with a multi-coloured pole.

On the subject of sonic sculptural work, I have to mention the exhibition of The Instrument Builders Project (IBP) at NGV Studio. I love exhibitions of musical instruments, especially when I can use some of the instruments. IBP is an experimental collaborative project between Australian and Indonesian artists and musicians. It is also fantastic fun, with plenty of instruments that you could play on. Pedal power synthesisers, combinations between strings and percussions, foot pumped horns running on air power. Music as installations driving water and lights. There is a beauty in both the sculptural form of musical instruments along with the awareness of sonic potential in the object.

Back to the Melbourne Prize awards…

Kay Abude was completely surprised to win the $10,000 Professional Development Award. She had just been working in the Atrium, casting plaster ingots and painting them gold, before the Award presentation and was still wearing her work shirt and shorts. She didn’t think that she would win and hadn’t invited her parents.

Kay Abude, Piecework

Aleks Danko was the recipient of the Rural and Regional Development Award.

As I was leaving Federation Square on Thursday evening I saw a woman with a red plastic typewriter and a sign: “Free a Letter” sitting on the plastic grass. She was offering to type what you want to say. I wished that I could have found out more but I wanted to catch the 7:41 Upfield train and couldn’t hang around for another twenty minutes.

As I wrote at the start, there is plenty to see and do in Federation Square.

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Installing Ursa Major

I was a bit too early on Monday morning for the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2014 as some of the sculptures had not yet arrived. The information stands were up and installation was underway but for a while the only thing that I could of the finalist’s sculptures were Geoff Robinson’s coloured poles (“spatial markers”) that are part of his work, 15 locations/15 minutes/15 days. Then I saw parked on the Russell Street part of the square, where the tour buses pick up passengers a polar bear on the back of the truck and the name of business: J K Fasham Pty Ltd.

J K Fasham Pty Ltd in Clayton South is a firm that specialises in architectural metal fabrication, mostly windows and doors. They have also fabricated and installed sculptures for over four decades and have done work on public sculptures for Inge King, Anthony Pryor and Deborah Helpburn. Moving a large sculpture is an expensive operation it itself and can be a major item in the budget for a sculpture.

The polar bear was the most recognisable object in Louise Paramor’s Ursa Major, 2014, another one of the finalists in the Melbourne Prize. The sculpture is an assembly of unlikely objects, a chance encounter of the surreal kind in the warehouse that allows “industry, novelty and domesticity to collide”. The bear is seated on a stack of palettes, with a table balanced on its head and a slide on his back.

Considering the size of the plastic and fibreglass sculpture of the polar bear and objects and compared to some of the other sculptures that they have installed this was not going to be a demanding job. However, it was worth watching to observe a professional installation of a temporary public sculpture.

The sculpture is installed in a little used part of Federation Square at the back of the Atrium overlooking the Yarra River. It was a precision operation carried out with care, attention to detail and professional experience. The sculpture was attached to the concrete base with long steel bolts.

It was installed by two men, a truck with a crane, a pallet jack and another small crane. The second crane was a fantastic little piece of machinery, with retractable bracing legs that lifted the single track vehicle off the ground. It was perfect for the small pedestrian space.

Everything went smoothly. Louise Paramor, the artist was watching and photographing the process.

“We can still move it, if you want.” I heard one of the men say to Louise.

In the end the biggest problem was where to put the laminated “Do Not Climb” sign and how to attach it. It was a problem for the artist and Melbourne Prize organiser, Simon Warrender; the two men from J K Fasham Pty Ltd were packing up the small crane and moving it back to their truck.

Louise Paramor with her Ursa Major

Urban Sculpture @ Fed Square

Today I went to see the exhibition of six finalists for Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2011 in Federation Square. I looked at the sculptures and observed how the public was reacting and interacting with the sculptures.

The exhibition contrasted the obvious and constant sculptures and the intermittent and obscure sculptures. “The aim of the 2011 Prize is to focus on the urban environment and importance of sculptural practice, in its all its forms, and its role of informing and enriching public life and civic space.” How does the obscure inform or enrich public life? And how does an intermittent sculpture enrich a public space?

Greener & Maddock, "Apostle No.2", 2011

Isaac Greener and Lucas Maddock’s “Apostle No.2” is a reinforced polyester resin version of the original natural tourist icon that collapsed in 2005. People still pose for photographs with this smaller, semi-transparent version, as they did with the original monolith, but this time they can touch it.

Hester, "a world, fully accessible by no living being", 2011

Bianca Hester, “a world fully accessible by no living being”. Although this sculpture is the winner of the Melbourne Prize the public were ignoring it; a man lights his cigarette in the shelter of the breezeblock wall and Xavier College students sit with their backs to the wall as they are lectured about the cathedral’s architecture. I didn’t see anyone else take the tabloid of proposals/propositions, stacked in a hole in the wall. The grey breezeblocks merged with the grey stone of the square.

Leber & Chesworth, "We, The Masters", 2011

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth “We, The Masters” (vinyl, 2 channel audio, speakers etc.) was only partially there. I saw the small vinyl banners text in the trees but in the text filled environment of Federation Square they made less of impact anymore than the other signs and advertising logos. I tried to hear if there was any sound coming out of one of the many speakers but I didn’t hear anything; I leaned so close that I bumped my head against the speaker – definitely no sounds were coming from them.

Murray-White "Sara Delaney - a head of her time", 2010

Clive Murray-White “Sara Delaney – a head of her time” is the most traditional sculpture in the exhibition; a face made of Chillagoe marble with a plinth of granite and galvanized steel. It was attracting some attention from other people in Federation Square; I had to wait for the cyclist to finish looking at it before I could photograph it.

Stuart Ringholt & Mark Holsworth

Time to look for Stuart Ringholt’s “Do you want to talk about sculpture?” Today I was the first person who had said “yes”. He said that it was difficult to get people to talk about sculpture. Stuart is recording the conversations to document them and photographing his contact. Stuart had a yellow plastic children’s seat with him as a token object or sign of sculpture.

I didn’t get to see Tom Nicholson’s “Unfinished monument to Batman’s Treaty”. This sculpture was another public action; for the duration of the exhibition with off-set printed black and white sheets, except that the woman had run out of copies by the time that I encountered her.

Dface, spray cans, 2011

Not part of the exhibition but also temporary sculpture in Federation Square, were Dface’s two concrete spray-cans that appeared to break through the pavement. I don’t know if Federation Square is a good environment for sculpture, as the architecture of the square denies focal points. The square is designed to control the civic space and restrict public interactions.