Vampire killing at the Police Museum

Sometimes a small focused museum can be a wonderful thing, at other times, not. The Melbourne’s Police Museum is a small museum on the mezzanine level of the World Trade Centre on Flinders Street. You probably didn’t know that Melbourne had a police museum and this is possibly intentional as the museum, and the gift shop, are really for members of the force only, except that it open to everyone with a gold coin donation.

Caricature of Sir Thomas Blamey by Leonard Frank Reynolds 1926

Aside from one suit of armour from the Kelly gang, the managed carcass of the car from the Russell Street bombings is the centrepiece of the museum. When I visited there was a temporary exhibition about members of the force who died in World War One which tells more about Australian nationalism than policing. These memorials to dead members of the force gets in the way of any other narratives that the museum could present. There is no display showing the development of handcuffs, uniforms or police radios. Technology, such as bomb disposal is presented in isolation rather than as part of a progression. This is because conservative history and museums are about memorialising the past rather than examining or explaining developments.

The Police Museum acknowledges that its former Chief Commissioner Blamey was a fascist in displaying a caricature of him. However, there is no examination on how that effected the Victoria Police (whose motto of ‘uphold the right’ has to be viewed differently in light of this association).

The purpose of the museum can be summed up by the strangest of all the museum’s exhibits is a vampire killing kit. Vampire killing kits are a thing and this isn’t a great version. They are about as real as religious relics, almost as common and like many religious relics vampire killing kits are confections concocted out of antiques. The kit contributes nothing to anyone’s knowledge of the police. The simple reason that it is on display in the Police Museum is that it is a curiosity that the police posses after confiscating it from a criminal.

The museum is hardly worth visiting but I did as part of my research into Melbourne’s art and crime. I was disappointed because I learnt almost nothing from the my visit, however, in examining my disappointment I have learnt the difference between a conservative and a progressive museum. Conservative museums are about memorials rather than explanation, events rather than developments, and satisfying curiosity rather than gaining knowledge. And the police museum is a very conservative museum.

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Justice Repeatedly Delayed

When Paul Yore mention hearing was scheduled for courtroom 1 of Melbourne Magistrates Court I had some hope that the case might progress. Courtroom 1 is the courtroom where they hold the mention hearings for the big cases; the murders, the baby killers and MP Craig Thomson’s corruption accusations.

Looking at the court lists on the ground floor of the Magistrates Court I was disappointed to see that it had been moved to Courtroom 11. Again there were a few journalists in Courtroom 11 from before 11 am and, again there was no sign of Paul Yore or the Informant, Snr. Cons. S. Johnson of Victoria Police. There was a notice on the door of courtroom 11 that impenetrably said that “SOL cases” had been moved to courtroom 12. By the time that the AAP journalist and myself found out what “SOL cases” meant the Paul Yore hearing had been adjourned again until the 14th of February.

Last year on the 25^th of November there was meant to be a mention hearing for Paul Yore in the Melbourne Magistrates Court but the case was adjourned. See my post: Justice Delayed.

The whole absurd case is a waste of time and is just creating further delays in Victoria’s justice system, as if there isn’t enough delays in Victoria’s justice system already. Victoria’s Magistrates Courts have the largest backlog of cases of any jurisdiction in Australia; according the annual report of the Victorian Magistrates Court 8.7% of cases pending for more than 12 months. (Annual Report 2011-12 p.91)

Scroll down the page for the inevitable comment from the troll that started this legal waste of time, Adrian Jackson.

Paul Yore Justice Delayed

On Monday the 25^th of November at 11am there was meant to be a mention hearing for Paul Yore in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. On Saturday 1st of June police had raided the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts and removed 7 collage works by artist, Paul Yore alleging that the art was child pornography. There were about four or five journalists in Court Room 7 from before 11 am.  There was no sign of Paul Yore or the Informant, Snr. Cons. S. Johnson of Victoria Police.

Paul Yore, “Fountain of Knowledge”, 2013

Paul Yore is young Melbourne artist who has work on exhibition in Melbourne Now currently on at the National Gallery of Victoria. 2013 has been a strange year for Yore along with multiple exhibitions and the police raid, he was thrown out of Sydney Contemporary at the last moment and won the $8000 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award. Through all of this Paul Yore has been keeping silent and a low profile. This was the tactic that spin doctor, Sue Cato recommend to Bill Henson and Roslyn Oxley when the media storm blew at them. Yore’s team has adopted this same tactic.

It has been difficult to get information out of either side. Senior Sergeant Brens, the Acting Senior Sergent of the Media Unit of Victoria Police wrote on the 30^th August: “The investigation is ongoing and there is no update. I’ve been advised there may be some progress in a couple of weeks so please check in again after 13 September 2013.” Then on the 7th of September, the day of the Federal Elections, news that Paul Yore had been charged with producing and possessing child pornography came out the in Murdoch owned media.

Australia has a poor history of philistine persecutions of artists; the exhibition that the police raided at the Linden Centre, “Like Mike” was a response to the Australian artist, Mike Brown. In 1966 Brown was convicted of obscenity and was sentenced to three months hard labour that was reduced to a $20 fine on appeal. Since then the Australian police and censors have been intermittently and unsuccessfully tried to prosecute artists. It is a repeated pattern and questions need to be answered about the police censoring the arts in Australia. Moral panic over the depiction of children is currently being used as an official cudgel to beat artists. Bill Henson has already withdrawn from 2014 Adelaide Biennial after a SA police detective urged Premier Jay Weatherill to stop Henson’s participation. Sydney Contemporary’s Director Barry Keldoulis uses a lawyer to determine if artists can be shown in NSW.

It was former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who promoted attacking Bill Henson’s photographs in an appearance on breakfast television. Not that the Australian government is any kind of example of benevolent treatment of children. Not that the police seizure of Yore’s art has much to do with moral panic it is more about the police being used by some right wing politicians trying to destroy the Linden Centre’s funding model. The story has no traction except for commentators like myself.

The silence and delays have not been good for the Linden Centre’s staff. In October 13 The Age reported on claims that gallery staff were bullied into quitting. The silence and delays have not been good for Paul Yore. The silence and delays have not been good for the public who desperately want a resolution to the long running art censorship debate in Australian culture. There have been glum expressions around Melbourne’s art world for the last half-year whenever Paul Yore’s name is mentioned. Bill Henson was in Sydney and was already a big name but Paul is in the same position of many of Melbourne’s artists. Glum expressions are not what Yore’s art is about; it is funny, irreverent and ribald. The silence and delays only assists the retreat of the conservative forces and a petty right-wing troll who is seeking to destroy the Linden Centre.

Back in the crowded courtroom number of 7 of Melbourne Magistrates Court the 3 rows of seats were full. The magistrate was trying to keep cases moving, there were adjournments and more diversion orders. Slowly the seats were emptying and the journalists were getting restless. Court adjourned and the media finally finds out that Paul Yore’s case has been delayed until 10^th of January 2014.

After half a year of waiting for a resolution to the police raid and we can only speculate at the reasons for the delays. It only took the NSW Police two months in 2008 after they raided Bill Henson’s exhibition to return the photographs without laying any charges.

(For more on the Paul Yore case see my post: Police Raid Gallery and Political Motivation Behind Police Raid.)

The Meaning of a Moustache

Facial hair is once again fashionable for young men; the two-day growth is also fashionable, except if you are in Victoria Police who are busy with a legal challenge at the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal.

For complete disclosure I have had a full beard but I’m currently clean-shaven, my father has never had a beard but my maternal grandfather was a member of Kobe Moustache Club. But I’ve always wanted to write something about the cultural of male facial hair because it is a reflection of the collective consciousness of the society.

Male facial hair fashions are not independent of other forces – politics and religion is especially evident in facial hair. There are all kinds of faith-based beliefs about beards; I’m sure that if there is a heaven that there is a hair inspection for entry, just like in prison. Beards can be indications of wisdom and rank, like a silver back gorilla.

Historically Alexander the Great appears to have started the fashion of shaving amongst European men. Beards swung in and out of fashion in the Roman Empire and then continued to be the subject of fashion for the rest of history. Legislation and rules about beards started in 1698 when Peter the Great passed legislation against beards in Russia. For Turks moustaches are an indication of conservative politics. Beards amongst Moslem men are also considered an indication of conservative religious views, likewise amongst some Christian sects.

Aside from the uniformed services early childhood educators in Australia perpetrate one of the strangest claims; that men with beards – like Santa Claus, are naturally frighten young children. And that men going into primary or preschool education were encouraged to be clean-shaven.

In a multi-cultural society beards and other types of facial hair do not have any particular meaning. Sikhs are permitted to have beards in the Victoria Police and the Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay has the opinion that beards look unprofessional on police unless it is a beard grown for religious reasons in which case it looks as professional as being clean shaven, whatever that means, if it means anything at all and isn’t Lay’s mental/legal diarrhoea. The legal fight against a stricter appearance code implemented last year goes on.

Victoria Police has many more serious problems than grooming and hair management, like racism and for them to be wasting their time with regulations about hair.  As Jesus said: “ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16) and not “ye shall know them by their beards”.

Follow-up like Mike?

It is over a month after the Victoria Police raided the Linden Contemporary Arts Centre in St. Kilda on Saturday 1st of June – what is happening? Not much has happened. Heide, Gertrude Contemporary and the Victorian Tapestry Workshop have praised Paul Yore for his time with them. And a small side issue has developed with a scrap between artists and the Linden Centre. (For more about the police raid see my article in Crikey.)

Writing and researching this story has been way out of my usual territory of writing about the arts but having started on it I want to stay on the story. For let us not forget that at the heart of this story there is still a young artist, Paul Yore whose contribution to the “Like Mike” exhibition at the Linden Centre has been censored by the police, and that a month later some of his art in the hands of the police and his legal fate is still up in the air. Justice delayed is justice denied.

I’ve been trying to get information from the Victoria Police, politicians, people on Twitter, anybody… Nobody has been quick to comment, especially on the record. It looks like everyone is trying to bury this embarrassing episode quietly and slowly before allowing common sense in the discussion. Finally, the police replied to say: “the investigation is still ongoing. No charges have been laid at this time.”

Saturday 8^th of June, artists rally at Linden Centre demand that the Centre reopen the “Like Mike” exhibition and stop pandering to censorship. Protesting the closure Stephen Haley has resigned from the Linden board of management. Geoff Newton, the co-curator has called for artist’s to boycott the Linden Centre.

The Linden Centre re-opened on the 11^th and it issued a statement by Sue Foley, Chairperson
Linden Board of Management Inc on 16^th. The  statement did give some further details; “we were notified by the Australian Classification Board that elements of the work by Paul Yore are considered Classification 1 – Restricted. This means that the work is considered to contain adult content and should be restricted to people 18 years and over.” (This classification was on Yore’s exhibit minus the work removed by the police.)

Although the Linden Centre has reopened to the public, with extended hours, the room with Paul Yore’s work remained closed. Closed is what the Linden Centre describes as “working through what this (the restricted classification) means in practical terms and will continue to consult with all the artists and our stakeholders when making decisions about how best to proceed.”

What is wrong with this picture?!

Political Motivation Behind Police Raid

The motivation behind the Victorian Police raid on Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in St. Kilda is becoming clearer with more research. The Victorian Police are not in the habit of visiting art galleries looking for child pornography but they are too easily manipulated to do just that by conservative wanna-be politicians.

On 28^th of May Adrian Jackson and Chris Spillane along with Cr Andrew Bond were at Port Phillip City Council meeting. (These three people were the only people complaining about the exhibition in The Leaders’s article. For more on these people see my post, Police Raid Gallery.) In public question time Chris Spillane’s agenda is made clear in the minutes of the meeting.

“Chris Spillane asked about a current art exhibition at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in St Kilda. He stated that while he hasn’t seen the exhibition himself, from what he has heard about the exhibition it is offensive and pornographic in nature. He suggested that the exhibition should be shut down or at the very least there should be more appropriate signage warning of the contents, age restrictions in place, and this section of the gallery should be cordoned off. He asked, as sponsors of the gallery, what action the Council intends to take?”

“Mayor Amanda Stevens responded that the gallery is run by an independent board and that there is already appropriate signing regarding the exhibition in question in place.”

Adrian Jackson’s agenda become apparent in a comment that he made in The Leader. Posted at 7:31 PM June 2, 2013: “Mission accomplished – the kiddy art exhibition is now closed. Next step is getting the Linden Gallery to be self funding instead of behaving like a parasite on ratepayers. Currently $100,000 PA is spent by Port Phillip Council on maintenance and equipment in the Linden which has been a ratepayer owned building for the last 25 years or so. This money does not appear in the Linden’s annual Statement of Affairs (see their website) as far as I can see but what is included is about $250,000 PA in ratepayer funds in “operating cost”. All this for 6 or 7 exhibitions per year involving about 6 artists per exhibition. The large post card exhibition could be moved to the town hall and the Linden closed if it cant be self funded. Other galleries in Port Phillip can fund themselves so why cant the Linden committee. I understand that this years exhibition was probably organised last years before the current new committee member joined it.”

The artist, Paul Yore has interviewed by detectives from the St Kilda Crime Investigation Unit and the police have yet to lay any charges. The detectives and the mainstream media have yet to examine the conservative political agenda behind the complaint. It is a shame that they are unable to do the same research that I have done.