The 'not' in the title by the way is a reference to a slogan on some street art I saw. Today was an artistic one. I took in an exhibition at the ACMI Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square and also the Ian Potter NGV Australian Art Gallery. But let me begin today's itinerary like a Canaletto landscape, with the journey of the Melbourne art scene in Carlton at the Royal Exhibition Building. Yes, that's me there looking dickey as usual in my electric blue hat, mini skirt and Dr Seuss socks taking a photo of myself in front of the fountain. I'll spare you the self-portrait on this occasion. The fountain like the grand building behind, was commissioned for the 1880 Exhibition displaying all that was new in the 'civilised world'. For European settlers in isolated Australia the lavish exhibitions formed a vital link to the outside world ensuring that they did not fall too far behind civilisation. The Antipodean Classical fountain designed by Josef Hoehgurtel depicts reptiles attempting to climb out of the surrounding pond to the haven of the classical mer-people on the island fountain. At intervals platypus peer down over the edge of the catchment dishes to the water creatures below.
So now that we have established a grand tradition of Royal Exhibitions by Jove, let us speak more about the birth of the arts for which Melbourne is so renowned. There are two parts to the formal display of visual art in the city and both are called the National Gallery of Victoria. One houses works by international artists, treasures for the city to cherish and align itself with other international art galleries. This is the building with the cascading arch entrance on St Kilda Road next to the ballerinered Arts Centre. The second NGV Ian Potter Centre for Australian Art features homegrown treasures, indigenous Aboriginal works and European influenced Australian artists from the early 19th Century to today. This is the gallery I visited today.
There are two distinct sections to the Ian Potter building. On the first floor is the Aboriginal art and above it the rest. I found the Aboriginal art most interesting as a writer for the artist's comments written on the walls providing an insight into the minds of these indigenous artists.
“They tell my life, my family, they keep that story alive,” explains Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson about his reason for painting. “My Dreaming is my painting. That story will not finish – my son will take him.”
Aborigines paint to record their history as their own personal stories are entwined and indistinguishable from the story of the land.
“Our spirits lie in the water...It lies in the ground. It lies in the earth but we are bringing it out. We bring it out and paint it on bark where we can see it.”
The paintings of the Aborigines whether the canvas is bark, rock or decorated bodies, is the genealogy of the people of Australia, sacred and profound.
Upstairs are a different set of memories. The paintings of the Australian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries reflect a reluctance to cut ties to the European traditions and create a style of their own. As I read about the origins of the art scene in Melbourne I am whisked back to my passage here this morning in front of the Royal Exhibition Building. Two international exhibitions in the 1880s focussed world attention on Melbourne and subsequently European artists started coming to the Antipodean Mecca. This period is considered the heyday of Melbourne art.
It was a particular display entitled “9 by 5 Impression Exhibition” in 1889 which really launched Melbourne into the art world and here is why. Leading art critic of the day James Smith, hated it thus proving the theory that all publicity is good publicity. If someone hated it as much as Mr Smith did, then people had to visit the exhibition to see what was so ghastly about it. What they found instead of heinous crimes against the eyes, were in fact a series of 183 small works with dimensions of 9 inches by 5 painted as quick impression sketches on cigar boxes. The idea was for the artists to rapidly jot down the essence of a scene. The group numbered among their ranks Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin. Melbourne art was labeled crap by pompous critics and therefore it had arrived for the masses, right on and power to the people!
By the end of the 1880s the economy crashed and a depression set in that drove the fickle artists away again as easily as they had come. Fortunately there were others now trained to take their place and a women emerged as a new force of talent to rival the staid English impressions of the Hugh Ramsays and the John Longstaffs. Clara Southern, Jane Sutherland and Jane Price came of artistic age in the later years of the 19th Century.
Two interesting temporary exhibitions caught my eye today. One was Klippel/Klippel's “Opus 2008” a strikingly displayed collection of Robert Klippel's household miniature sculptures set to the sonic response of his son Andrew. I stood there transported back to my days as a miniature model maker and thought, hmm, I would have had fun doing that. The other was “Correspondences” at the ACMI. This exhibition showcased the short films of two filmmakers born within a week of each other in Spain and Iran. The lives of these two men only touched for this exhibition and yet their filmwork on childhood parallel so easily that they are able to be viewed side by side. The filmmakers are Abbas Kiarostrami and Victor Erice.
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