Art that's out there
The Age, Friday March 9, 2001
Public art is controversial, and so it should be, writes Jane Rocca
Controversy and public art collides head-on at some of Melbourne's busy freeways, roundabouts and intersections. These days public art is no longer simply about inhabiting the inner city landscape of malls and walkways - its changed lanes and slipped into another gear and has the public talking.
While it hasn't caused a traffic jam yet, Inge King's sculptural installation on the Eastern Freeway is certainly turning heads near its Doncaster Road exit. The piece titled Sentinel cost the City of Manningham $120,000 - King virtually donated her work considering most of the expenses went into the construction of the piece. It's the first sculpture to be placed on the freeway and has rekindled the age-old debate of what is the purpose of public art and why is it on our roads?
Local councils as well as State and Federal Governments fund public art in Australia - in fact there's around 150 public pieces on display in the City Of Melbourne - with around three quarters of these works on permanent display in the CBD.
Applying for a public art tender is a bit like entering a competition, only that artists who bid for the tender need to pitch their idea through a formal process of paperwork to even be considered. Artists usually have to work with a community need in mind as well.
When Inge King migrated to Australia from Germany in the 1950s, public art was no where to be found, but in 2001 councils are particularly committed to the needs of art in our communities. The renowned 83-year-old sculptor who lives in Warrandyte says it was difficult for an artist to make a living - let alone find a government body willing to pay for art. "On the whole public art is infinitely better than it was 50 years ago," says King. "Nobody will get rich on commissions but they are adequate and there was nothing when I first came to this country. Contemporary sculpture just didn't exist and it was a hard battle."
Sentinel is seen as an icon for the City of Manningham - its watchful eye looking over the area since it was erected last September. The 13-metre high sculpture's curved shape symbolises the two creeks of the municipality - the Mullum Mullum and the Koonung Creeks.
But where would art be without controversy? "Of course there have been complaints left right and centre about my work and that the money should be spent on road works or public health," says King whose 1970's public art commission is located on St Kilda Road near the Victorian Arts Centre called Forward Surge.
"But first of all it was Centenary money that was given to the City Of Manningham, and people don't realise culture, whether it is art or anything else, is necessary for public health," she says.
Gippsland sculptor Adrian Mauriks, whose commissioned works can be found in Melbourne and George Street Sydney as well as Wollongong couldn't agree more. One of his pieces, Opus 15 is located at the corner of Bridge Road and Punt Road in Richmond and was commissioned by the City Of Yarra in 1995 for $5000. Mauriks believes art is the necessary lifeblood of a community, but cutting deep into its veins is the demoralising process by which to obtain a grant.
"You can't produce art by consensus or committee or public dictates," says Mauriks. "Here you have a big problem because the whole notion of tendering involves the community and there isn't a great deal wrong with that, but it depends on which way you look at public art. If it is as it used to be, public art denoting art that inhabits public domain is one thing, but what you have more of late is art that promotes a kind of democratised mode of creativity which is kind of a legacy of post-modern ideals. I think there is some kind of content gap between the artist as creator and the creative designer."
The City Of Yarra has put a freeze on public art spending over the last couple of years. According to Collections Curator Anat Meiri, the council is reviewing its policy. "We are currently in the process of reviewing our public art strategy and so whilst this process is under way, funding for new public artworks is temporarily on hold."
Further east, the City Of Manningham is more encompassing of art. Inge King's sculptural piece is one of three that will make up The Gateway Project - developed through the Council's Urban Design Strategy as part of the Streetscape Program.
"We wanted to develop works that become icons for the city, that come out of the culture and the heritage and that builds the natural environment and really means something to the community," says Sally Finlay a Cultural Planner with the City Of Manningham.
Architect Michael Bellemo and Cat MacLeod, a designer, is the husband and wife team who created River Peel located on the roundabout of Williamson's Road and Fitzsimon's Lane in Templestowe. Their work is part of the Gateway Project - with a third sculpture that is yet to be commissioned to be placed out the front of the Museum of Modern Art at Heidi. The $100,000 funding set aside for that third commission has been put on hold after artists were short-listed for the project.
River Peel is a huge chunk of steel painted apple green plonked on the roundabout. Its distinguishable features promote its architectural and design influences. The sculpture cost $40,000 with the Emerging Sculptors Trust contributing $20,000.
"I like working in public art because it is relevant and people can't ignore it," says Cat MacLeod of her first public commission. "A lot of public art is coinciding with a lot of work being done on roads. Speedway architecture is becoming more evolved, so it seems like there is this recognition that the world we live in leads off the roads."
Simon Perry lectures in a Masters degree at RMIT for Art in Public Space. His most recognisable piece is the Public Purse in the Bourke Street Mall commissioned in 1994 which cost around $30,000. "It is great to participate in the culture of Melbourne," says Perry. "The work I do is very much about interacting with the public."
The City Of Melbourne spends $350,000 on public art each year. According to David Risstrom - who is the first local Greens councillor, public art funding is important to Melbourne's culture. "It's a good thing that art causes controversy and it's a good thing that art questions. It is important that art stimulates debate and I am not frightened to have controversial art in the city," says Risstrom. "The city is the centre of activity, it's a lively place, it's an appropriate place for lively debate."
The City of Darebin dedicates $80,000 on public art per year - its overall council budget is $96million. Fido the dog made its kitsch entrance to Station Street Fairfield in March last year. The 5.5 metre dog cost $50,000. The artists behind the work are David Davies, Alistair Knox, Ian Sinclair and Jacki Staude.
"It is really important that if public art is done at all that some seriousness is attached to it from a funding point of view," says Ian Sinclair. "Artists are generally not big money makers and they don't rort the system."
For Jacki Staude, art is not necessarily meant to be provocative, it simply should be a part of a community like advertising. "It is important for artists to get the opportunity to work on the scale which everything else is done - that we get an opportunity to be as big as billboards and buildings and trains."
But Mauriks, who has been working as a sculptor since the 70s and recently exhibited with other Australian sculptors including King and Jock Clutterbuck in Volume & Form and Oblique Shadows in Singapore, says public art tenders need to be reassessed.
"Public art by tender seems to favour the notion of art as public consumption but it discourages the artist or sculptor because of the paperwork you have to go through. Artists are generally not good business people," says Mauriks. "It encourages designer architects and business people who know how to deal with that sort of stuff."
