More public art at the ACT Public Health intersection

Colourful, commissioning some public art is cheaper way of tarting up brutalistic monostrosities that knocking down and rebuilding. Plus you don’t get rabid architects condemming the rest of the world as philistines for doing so.

I reckon it makes the place look better, not worse. It may not be the best art around, but it does improve the space (I’ve only seen pics though). I hope they organise some drummers to do some creative performances there during peak foot-traffic periods 🙂

I’d really like to see some money spent on graffiti artists to make the Belconnen area between the shopping centre (Westfield) and the bus interchange look a lot better. Some decent stuff covering those awful raised walkways and their supports would look unreal, and completely transform the place. It wouldn’t even cost that much.

Same thing for those concrete jungles in and around civic.

Pandy said :

I personally like it!!!!!!
It hides the heroin addicts from street view.

LMFAO In that case i can think of a lot of other place in civic where they can put 44 gallon drums LOL

I know I shouldn’t, because it doesn’t make sense, but I like it.

It makes me smile.

I think it looks cool

shanefos said :

However, the CAVE people that frequent RiotACT are always going to find fault with this sort of thing, regardless of the artists’ intentions.

Oh boy… the cave dwellers are going to have a field day with the pointy spikes (art installation) that will soon be gracing the linear park (between the BigW and Coles blocks) in the Gungahlin Town Centre.

I personally like it!!!!!!
It hides the heroin addicts from street view.

Though come to think of it they also commissioned it infront of one of the worst intersections in Canberra, it’s always fun to watch the 4 way traffic jams in the middle during the day as well as all the near misses. To think that they could have spent the money installing traffic lights there instead..

I was thinking it must be stanhopeless’ first decision made after the the Greens announced they would support him. No doubt there was some nasty liquid in them at some point, they must have dumped it in the lake somewhere.

The drums make me happy.

What a surprise. Stalinhope gets another term so he buys more public artwork.

Can be.

I have no gripe with grants for public art. I do have a gripe about the closed shop arrangements for deciding who gets the grants.

It would be nice to see at least one arts project a year to be a Peoples Art Project, selected by people who are not part of the “Arts Community”.

If Hamish and Andy can create to People’s Chip, can Canberra do less than create a People’s Art Work?

astrojax said :

real art inspires debate – seems this fits the bill, eh? 😉

Painting yourself bright green and standing naked in the middle of Garima place yelling “I am a teapot” would also inspire debate but is it art?

blah blah blah my tax dollars.

^ Poolroom.

real art inspires debate – seems this fits the bill, eh? 😉

Thanks for the inspiration Sepi.
Have found the artsACT link with a list of this years grants / art answell as info on how to get involved.

http://www.arts.act.gov.au/pages/images/2009%20ACT%20Arts%20Fund%20announcement.pdf

for all those interested.

blah blah blah my tax dollars.

shanefos: Apparently it’s determined by committee.

Pommy bastard said :

NoAddedMSG said :

Was anyone actually paid for it though? If it is part of an art school end of year display, then the artists probably weren’t paid for it and all this rage about your tax dollars is being wasted.

If it’s an end of term display, it gets; 2/10 must try harder, go look at some real art.

Pray tell, what is “real art”?

NoAddedMSG said :

Was anyone actually paid for it though? If it is part of an art school end of year display, then the artists probably weren’t paid for it and all this rage about your tax dollars is being wasted.

If it’s an end of term display, it gets; 2/10 must try harder, go look at some real art.

Taxpayer funding takes many forms, not just piles of cash being shovelled down willing artists’ throats.
Even if it wasnt a struggling art student, they now have thousands of people seeing their stuff everyday.

Maybe Steve Pratt did it, now that he has some time on his hands!

Was anyone actually paid for it though? If it is part of an art school end of year display, then the artists probably weren’t paid for it and all this rage about your tax dollars is being wasted.

I have no problem with public art, I have problems with hideous taxpayer-funded public art without accountability or oversight.

This one is an example of why I dislike the latter.

Methinks a change of career is warranted. If someone can get paid for that, I’ll find a 5-year old and set them to work with fingerpaints on some ACT Government walls. Or maybe a sculpture …

get organised and set up the retirement fund now, folks.

When I first glimpsed at it in the photos above, it made me think of ‘happy pills’. Fitting considering it’s proximity to ACT Health.

Then I found out they were drums, which kind of ruined it.

I’ll echo some above posters in saying that I’m a big fan of ‘graffiti’ art.

On private walls through voluntary agreement of course 😉

what’s in the drum’s, poptop? why, that’s the art, sir…

Dont get too excited. The sign on this one say’s its temporary.

sepi said :

Nothing to stop anyone being an artist if they want to. It’s not usually a well paid career though.

But arts grants are open to everyone to apply, so go for it if you can do better.

The more art around the place the better I think.

Any art about the place would be better, instead we get this ludicrous “public art”. The empty oil drums, the rock egg cups and the scrap yard(on the GDE), the broken clock on Yarra Glen, how much more of this waste is going to go on, and all on our tax dollar too.

The bridge there could certainly do with a lick of paint.

Actually, the more I look at those drums, the more potential I see in them to be the framework for a much greater and more meaningful art project.
I’d go right in there and ‘fix it’ but I have too much respect for public property and the artist involved.
Or perhaps the artist has deliberatly left them like this to tempt us all??

stereo henry said :

if the ACT government were serious about ‘beautifying’ the civic centre and attracting people to the area they should commission artists to paint civic laneways as opposed to putting on crap like ‘grooving in garema’

Yep. That’s pretty lame.

And that is money well spent, justbands.

if the ACT government were serious about ‘beautifying’ the civic centre and attracting people to the area they should commission artists to paint civic laneways as opposed to putting on crap like ‘grooving in garema’

Um, isn’t this stretch of road used for a public art display by students at the School of Art around this time each year? Remember the sign that read “ALINGA STREET – ELEGANT STAIR…” and the Tupperware that was put on streetsigns a couple of years back? I seem to remember the same comments being trotted out on riotAct each time over the last couple of years that this display has occurred (around November). If so, then it only lasts for a couple of weeks. So those of you who hate it need not worry. Those of you who fear that you won’t be able to find the taxis hiding behind the art (honestly?! wtf?) also should be happy that in two weeks the taxis will be in plain sight again.

And those of you who ask “how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did this cost” should get a grip.

We do pay for some of it…mostly the stuff that looks ok.

Yeah it is, but we don’t pay for it and, from what i’ve seen around the country and the world, it’s got to be better than what we’re seeing come out of the public coffers here

Street art isn’t public?

definitely more street art and less ‘public’ art

The kind of art I like involves spray cans and lotsa colour and I know a lot of people take offence to it.
I would particularly support seeing a lot more stencil art around town.
It’s not all about the money, either. Its about the expression. Im sure there are alot of artists in town who would just like the space to display.

A highlight of colour in a drab concrete jungle. I say more of it!

jakez said :

shanefos said :

“[ED – Well done to the authorities on blocking the view of the taxi rank, who needs to see if there’s a cab before you get there?]”

What’s the point of your question?

Personally, I think the public art displayed around the West Row/Moore St/Alinga St intersection is a good thing. Anything to brighten up what is normally a fairly dull and lifeless place.
However, the CAVE people that frequent RiotACT are always going to find fault with this sort of thing, regardless of the artists’ intentions.

So people who don’t like a particular piece of art that you like, or people who don’t like art being funded through the point of a gun, are automatically cave people?

You sir, are a bloody idiot.

+1 jakez. Nice reply, beat me to it. I actually like some of the other public art being installed around Canberra, inluding the crazed windmill on at the end of Adelaide Ave. and the native grass on the GDE. I do think though that this latest effort is an amaturish blight. Maybe it’s an attempt by the greens to get into the public art area by insisting on the use of recycled materials!

Colour is better than concrete.

What’s in the drums?

Yuk

Nothing to stop anyone being an artist if they want to. It’s not usually a well paid career though.

But arts grants are open to everyone to apply, so go for it if you can do better.

The more art around the place the better I think.

Lily white, Letting your juices flow in public could lead to a charge of public indecency or at least a few licentious and lascivious comments from passers by.

I’m very jealous that my creative juices aren’t allowed to flow in public. There is nothing more I would like to do than drop a big juicy art turd in public, get paid for it and command attention and comment on it 🙂

shanefos said :

“[ED – Well done to the authorities on blocking the view of the taxi rank, who needs to see if there’s a cab before you get there?]”

What’s the point of your question?

Personally, I think the public art displayed around the West Row/Moore St/Alinga St intersection is a good thing. Anything to brighten up what is normally a fairly dull and lifeless place.
However, the CAVE people that frequent RiotACT are always going to find fault with this sort of thing, regardless of the artists’ intentions.

So people who don’t like a particular piece of art that you like, or people who don’t like art being funded through the point of a gun, are automatically cave people?

You sir, are a bloody idiot.

It’s a pile of crap. Why the hell would any sane person call this art? Is “public art” a new term for “look what I can get paid for and get away with!”

I passed it yesterday, shame I didn’t have my drumsticks with me. How long before the first person gets busted for giving it a bit of the old Keith Moon on them?

Whoever authorised this should be out of a job forthwith.

I like it
it is nice to see that we can have some interesting art around the place even if it sometimes looks like a Uni Student prank
I am still not sure the milk crates on the pole wasn’t some drunks waiting too long for a cab!

Come on, it’s not art. Someone just dumped some old 44 gallon drums so they didn’t have to pay a tip fee.

Should have just gone to a Drum Muster collection point.

“[ED – Well done to the authorities on blocking the view of the taxi rank, who needs to see if there’s a cab before you get there?]”

What’s the point of your question?

Personally, I think the public art displayed around the West Row/Moore St/Alinga St intersection is a good thing. Anything to brighten up what is normally a fairly dull and lifeless place.
However, the CAVE people that frequent RiotACT are always going to find fault with this sort of thing, regardless of the artists’ intentions.

There are also other new pieces across the road from this. They include something called ‘Nobules’ (i think) that looks like bushes wrapped in net. Also some art stuck under the stairs that go up near the ‘fragile’ box. All pretty average IMHO.
Will try and get some pics up.

Oh, and…

This place now seems to be ground-zero for average installations (it’s opposite the ‘fragile’ sculpture).

Our fragile sculptures are now also known as new office buildings.

Looks like a prank I reckon. A pretty good one too.

Why not? It worked for Snowtown…

Perhaps we are looking at innovative solutions to declining care standards and staff & bed shortages: bodies in barrels.

*I saw that on Sunday… sorry folks

I saw rhat on Sundat on a rare sojourn into that part of town. This installation looks cheap and nasty. How painting 44 gallon drums and piling them between columns of a brutalist style building is consider art is beyond me. My kids bring home better artwork from Pre-school and kindy.

How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did that cost?