Visiting McClelland Sculpture Park

I remember climbing on the pile of white bubbles with my siblings when we first visited the NGV. Health and safety have changed significantly since then. “Don’t climb” reduces the meaning of Peter Corlett’s Tarax play sculpture 1969. Corlett’s inspiration was from a formal teaching exercise about sculpture, starting with a composition with different-sized balls of clay.

Peter Corlett, Tarax Bubble Sculpture at McClelland Sculpture Park

It is no longer at the NGV but part of a collection of about a hundred sculptures by notable local and international artists at McClelland Sculpture Park. The park is a not-for-profit organisation located on sixteen-hectare property in Langwarrin on the city’s eastern edge. Like Melbourne University’s Parkville campus McClelland is a place where sculptures go to retire from public life. And along with the Bubble Sculpture, Ken Reinhard’s Marland House Sculpture 1970-72, Lenton Parr’s Customs House screen 1966 and Zikaras’ Untitled (GPO) 1964 all had previous lives as public art. Since 2012, the Southern Way McClelland Commissions have been installed along freeways. One moves from the freeway site every two years to McClelland’s sculpture park. However, I didn’t see Gregor Kregars Reflective Lullaby (aka Frankie the chrome gnome) because it was on loan to Frankston Council.

The collection attempts to tell the history of Melbourne’s post-war sculpture from the modern to the contemporary. Zikaras’ Untitled (Eta) 1961-62 is the earliest sculpture in the park. Phil Price’s spectacular, kinetic sculpture Tree of Life 2012 is the most recent.

Many of the sculptors were post-war modernists with optimistic dreams. The Centre Five group of Vincas Jomantas, Julius Kane, Inge King, Clifford Last, Lenton Parr, Norma Redpath, and Teisutis Ziakaras are all represented; an early Inge King recognisable from the bubbling molten and arty edges on the black steel.

Norma Redpath, Paesaggio Cariatide (Landscape Caryatid) 1980-85

There are notes of dissent and critical views. Ken Scarlett’s Monument to a segregationist is amazingly prescient in its critique of monumental colonial sculpture. He could see this in 1966; we are playing catch-up to his critical vision of the history of sculpture. Along with the more recent work by Colin Suggett, National Anxiety Index 2010 with a dragon ripping the rating arrow out of its scale.

Although the gallery had a retrospective of Fiona Foley, no Indigenous artists are in the permanent collection. Still, hopefully, the new board member, Associate Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher (Wiradjuri), Director of Research Capability at the Indigenous Knowledge Institute and the Associate Dean (Indigenous) in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne, will work to rectify this.

There have been new acquisitions, including two audio works that caught my ears: Terrance Plowright’s Tubular resonance 2012 and David Chesworth’s In The Dark Wood At The Bottom Of The Garden 1996.

Adding natural synergies to Peter Blizzard’s jazzy constructions of stone and steel. The bush setting worked for some of the works. However, nature is irrepressible; birds nest in Louis Paramor’s sculptures, and spiders spin webs in David Wilson’s.

Dean Colls Rex Australis, the king is dead long live the king 2012

It is not an easy walk around the grounds, especially in wet weather where the paths can be slippery or the low parts of lawns sodden. Dirt paths lead to some sculptures; some can only be seen from a distance on islands in ponds. A small boy in gum boots enjoys the puddles, and a visiting dog looked like it was having its best day seeing Dean Colls’ Rex Australis.

I enjoyed seeing works by familiar sculptures by local artists. Even more was the encounter with the unfamiliar sculptures Gary Diermenjian, a surreal sight, evoking urban infrastructure and the remains of a failed civilisation.

The elegant minimalist breeze block gallery, gift shop and cafe building, designed by architects Munro and Sargents in 1971, is another modernist statement reminiscent of Heide I by David McGlashan in 1963.

Gary Diermenjian, Flake 2010

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Southgate Sculptures

Southgate on Southbank was one of the first shopping centres in Melbourne to commission notable sculptors to create a collection of public art for the centre. Positioned right next to the Arts Centre, it is on the border of Melbourne’s arts precinct but it is still a shopping mall; there is a food court at the river level. This means that however good the restaurants and however classy the specialty shops, including those that call themselves art galleries, there is a certain kind of homogenised taste that goes with a shopping mall.

Deborah Halpern, Ophelia, 1992, concrete and ceramic, crowded out by outdoor dinning.

I have looked at shopping centre art before; Barkely Square Shopping Centre in Brunswick and Melbourne Central in the city.  There is more I have yet to see Robert Hague West Orbis (2009) four metre tall sculpture at Chadstone Shopping Centre or the Lenton Parr sculpture at another.

At Southgate the main problems has been with the placement of the art. Sitting alone upon her own dusty inaccessible balcony is Loretta Quinn’s ‘Crossing the First Threshold.’ This is a bad case of dumping a sculpture in a poor location. Hardly anyone notices this sculpture and it has been reduced to being a bird roost. Not surprisingly, Loretta Quinn is better known for her sculpture at the city square.

Maurie Hughes’s spiky style is evident in Southgate Sheraton Complex Gates, Forbidden Areas, 1992. I have never seen the gates closed so I don’t know how forbidden the area behind them is but the gates are pretty spiky with the demons and spears. Hughes is best known for his sculpture Ceremony and Vehicle for Conveying Spirit on Russell Street but he also has a few other public art commissions including the Security Gates, 1994, Lincoln Square South in Carlton. Hughes has his home and studio in South Melbourne and taught at art department at Frankston’s TAFE.

Ophelia by Deborah Halpern is part of the Southgate complex although it is now located closer to the river than it once was, see my post about its move. It is made of ceramic tiles over a fiberglass core and was cleaned and restored in 2011 when it was moved to its current location but it looks like it could do with another restoration.

There used to be a sculpture on the upper level mall, the seated figure of a woman, Maggie by Peter Corlett was made of ciment findu, a type of calcium aluminate cement. It was vandalised beyond repair. Public art is not safe even with the security in shopping centres. This brings together two issues, the placement of the art to allow public interaction and to prevent damage to the work from this contact.

Walk to Giant

Jamit was planning to buy some spray-paint at Giant in North Melbourne and I agreed to walk with him.

Setting up for Tiana Sanjaya to paint with spice in front of State Library of Victoria

We started at the front of the State Library. When I got there I found that there was an Indonesian artist, Tiana Sanjaya was setting up to paint with spices. Tumeric, candlenut, horseradish, mustard seed, nutmeg and chilli; it smelt good. It was part of the AsiaTopa 2017, the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts.

On the way we had a look at Blender Lane. Now that Blender Studios has closed I was wonder if the quality of the work in the lane will continue without Doyle being present?

Junky Projects, Melbourne

Phoenix, Blender Alley

Further to that subject, we also looked at the graffiti and street art in Lovelands, a series of lanes near Victoria Market carpark, near the corner of Queen and Franklin Street. It also has the same questions of redevelopment hanging over it. It doesn’t look like much has changed since I saw Itch painting last year during the Meeting of Styles.

We passed another lane painted during the Meeting of Styles in April 2016 but there is more to see on the streets than just graffiti and street art.

I am not just looking at graffiti and street art; I have other interests, like public sculpture. Outside School No.307 on Queensberry Street I stop to look at a Peter Corlett sculpture of Henry Barstow. Henry Barstow was the architect who designed many state schools. I hadn’t seen the sculpture before but this is not surprising given Corlett’s prolific production creating several figures each year.

Peter Corlett, Henry Barstow, 2011

Finally we reach Giant in North Melbourne. Maybe we should have taken the tram but the walk has been worthwhile. Nth Melbourne is a long thin suburb and its geography of Nth Melbourne is disorientating because the streets are not aligned to the same axis as the grid of Melbourne’s CBD.

You have to be buzzed into the shop. Then there is a room, covered in stickers and aerosol spray paint where we are to leave our backpacks. Then there the room full of spray cans of paint, maker pens, graffiti magazines and more cans of paint, the whole spectrum plus metallics, plus effects…

“Hello Mark” is the first thing that I hear.

At first I can’t see who is speaking because there is a big dude between me and the voice. It is Toby who runs Just Another Agency. Everywhere I go I run into people that I know, a bonus for writing this blog.

Jamit buys about two dozen cans and even though the cans are cheaper by the half dozen he doesn’t walk away with much change from $150.

Recent Public Sculptures in Melbourne

Alex Goad, Tethya, 2015

Alex Goad’s biomorphic Tethya on the corner of Fitzroy and Jackson streets in St. Kilda is a recent public sculpture. Since my history of Melbourne’s public sculpture was published last year there are a few new public sculptures around the city. Not that Sculptures of Melbourne was intended as an index of all the sculptures in greater Melbourne, that would be insane as I included street art sculptures.

Two ballet dancers, Les Belle Hélène by David Maughan, were installed on the lawn at the Arts Centre. And John Olsen’s Frog was installed in a pond in Queen Victoria Gardens. As if either location needed any more sculptures.

John Kelly with maquette for Man Lifting Cow

Further out of town and in a better, some might even say “site specific” location, John Kelly’s Man Lifting Cow was installed in Sunshine marking a return to his home suburb for Kelly. Brimbank Council really milked the cow with associated events: the 1000 cow project, an art prize, a John Kelly exhibition and an education program at the Brimbank Civic Centre.

Most of the recent public sculpture has been temporary sculptures or pieces put up by street artists. Local street artist, Kranky and other were reviving Presgrave Place. Ironically there were several street sculpture homes this year including several by MOW from the USA. MOW was in Melbourne sticking up a few tiny doors and windows.

MOW and GT Sewell, Presgrave Place

MOW, Presgrave Place

Unknown, Abandoned House, Hosier Lane

Detail of interior of Abandoned House in Hosier Lane

The campaign this year to save Chris Booth’s Strata had a happy ending with MONA agreeing to take the sculpture and pay for it to be reassembled. Melbourne’s loss will be Hobart’s gain.

There was no campaign to save Peter Corlett’s sculptures of John Farnham, Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Edna Everage and Graham Kennedy in the Docklands. There were many reasons for this chiefly because they had very little artistic quality, few people in Melbourne want to remember that these entertainers came from Melbourne and no-one ever saw them in the Docklands.

10 Melbourne Public Sculptures Intended for Children

These Melbourne public sculptures are all intended for children, due to their theme or because they can be played on. Although Inge King did not intend the black curves of Forward Surge at the Arts Centre for any particular audience, she does appreciate the enjoyment that children get trying to climb up the curves and sliding down. Definitely for any child with ambitions to climb sculptures. This is without looking at the sculptural value of play equipment like the dragon slide in Fitzroy Gardens or a carved logs in the playground of the Fitzroy housing commission flats.

Listed chronologically.

Photograph courtesy of State Library of Victoria

Paul Montford, Peter Pan, 1925 Melbourne Zoo The figure of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is modelled on Montford’s son and the flora and fauna on the base are all Australian.

Ola Cohn, Fairy Tree, 1934, Fitzroy Gardens, Like Montford’s Peter Pan, the fauna on Cohn’s Fairy Tree are Australian. Cohn also wrote a Fairy story to go along with her carving.

Tom Bass, Children’s Tree, 1963, Elizabeth Street, Bass intended for children to climb on this sculpture.

Photograph by Dan Magree

Peter Corlett, Tarax Bubble Sculpture, 1966-68 Originally at the National Gallery of Victoria it is now at the McClelland Sculpture Park. The sculpture was intended to be climbed in and on.

Tom Bass, Genie, 1973 Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne, Bass intended to be climbed on by children.

There are two sculptures based on children’s book illustrations State Library forecourt. Ron Brooks, The Bunyip, 1994, from Jenny Wagner The Bunyip of Berekeley’s Creek.

Smiley Williams, Mr Lizard and Gumnut Baby, 1998, from May Gibbs, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Bruce Armstrong, Untitled Installation 1999, at Flemington Children’s Centre, Flemington. (no photo available unfortunately)

Browen Grey, Matryoshka Dolls, 2002, on the corner of Brunswick and Gertrude Streets.

photograph courtesy of EastLink

Emily Floyd, Public Art Piece, 2006 EastlLink. Even though children can’t climb on it or even touch it Floyd did make it with the children in the back seat of the car in mind.

Emily Floyd, An Unfolding Space, 2010, Phoenix Park, Malvern East, sculpture at children’s centre. (I couldn’t get a photograph for this one.)

I will end this with a plug for my book Sculptures of Melbourne, a history of Melbourne’s public sculptures.

Mr Poetry Breaks A Leg

Last month Mr Poetry, the sculpture of the fat man on the corner of Brunswick Street and Argle Street in Fitzroy, was hit by a truck. One leg and part of the plinth were broken in the accident. The outer bronze shell was cracked at the thigh and the steel armature exposed.

The sculpture is now at the Perrin Sculpture Foundry in Cheltenham and Bill Perrin, who originally cast it, is repairing it. Bronze sculptures are repairable, the sculpture was originally welded together from separate parts, the broken leg will be welded back into place and then application of the rust-red patination will conceal the weld.

I spoke to Peter Corlett about the accident. He is philosophical about the damage and told me that this is the second time that the sculpture has been hit by a truck. “These things happen in a vibrant city.” Corlett thinks that the truck was probably doing a three point turn and that the driver was probably watching the plinth in his review mirror but didn’t see the leg sticking out.

Although the figure will be repaired and reinstalled the minor damage to the side of Mr Poetry’s plinth will not be repaired. As the plinth is concrete there would be difficulty in getting the repair to match and Corlett thinks that the slight damage will fit in with the atmosphere of Brunswick Street.

The Yarra City Council has plans to install a bollard on the corner to provide protection for the sculpture in future.

Read my earlier post for more on Mr Poetry.

Flexible sculptures @ Sutton and Seventh

On my way to Sutton Gallery on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, one of the problems of rigid sculptures was made brutally obvious to me. One of the legs on Peter Corlett’s Mr Poetry was broken, the rigid bronze shell was fractured and the leg was only attached by the greater strength and flexibility of steel armature. The plinth had also been damaged where it was hit by the leg. Serious damage, but probably not irreparable.

An alternative to the standard rigidity of sculptures in both materials and concept is demonstrated in two current post-minimalist exhibitions: established international artist, Peter Robinson’s Neologisms at Sutton Gallery and emerging artist, James Parkinson’s exhibition Free Time at Seventh Gallery.

New Zealand artist, Peter Robinson has cut pieces of black and yellow felt sculptures that are pinned to the wall, stacked in piles, place against the wall and laid out on the floor. Some parts suggested letterforms, the new words of the title like the embossed text of a plaque. Robinson uses both the positive and negative forms and there doesn’t appear to be any waste material – it is all present.

Neologisms appeared to be commenting on the history of modern sculpture. From Marcel Duchamp’s 1918 Sculpture for Traveling made of rubber and string with ad lib dimensions. The grid of modernism hangs on the wall distorting its rigid geometry, the cube of the minimalists is made of felt sheets stacked in a corner. There is even a playful piece of figuration while other forms looked like early Geoffrey Bartlett sculptures.

Although flexible sculptures do not so much define a space, as they are defined by the space and the pull of gravity, Robinson’s Neologisms determined the viewer’s movement around the gallery. Clear paths are laid out between the blocks of forms, there are linked chains across part of the gallery blocking movement and a reference to Robinson’s earlier sculptures involving styrofoam chains.

A few blocks away from Sutton Gallery at the shopfront artist-run-space of Seventh Gallery was another post-minimalist exhibition by an RMIT fine arts student, James Parkinson, Free Time. People kept on coming in from the street and asking: “What is this place?” Only to be told by the attendant that it was an art gallery and yes, you could play in the ball pit.

The main gallery at Seventh is filled with plastic balls of different colours, you have to wade through the balls to see the other rooms at Seventh. Parkinson calls his ball pit, ‘Prison’; the balls are in a prison, contained within the low walls at the front and back of the space. This prison gives freedom to enjoy the ball pit and playing in the ball pit is fun.

Free Time consists of a ball pit, a post-minimalist sculptures made of many plastic balls and four walls pieces, walls of plastic Lego blocks in uniform colours: grey, sky blue, orange and pink. (Where do you get Lego in those colours?) There is a fun contrast between lack of play in the rigid walls of Lego blocks and play of the ball pit contained with its rigid walls.

Post-minimalist adds a degree of play, levity and oxymorons to the serious formal rigidity of minimalism. This flexibility gives the sculptures freedom,  their flexible form has play in it, in that the materials have give and there is some slack.