Public art on the corner of Moore and Rudd Streets

pajs said :

I’d be guessing you’d apply a similar logic in your purchases of music – shying well away from any album titles involving metaphors or other such ‘pretentious crap’.

Funnily enough, no. But I would shy away from buying music which had no meaning or beauty, pretentious name or not.

The pretentious naming of these “items” is just the butter in the sh!t sandwich

Ben_Dover said :

folding ground
across the inbetween

sky shard
above the inbetween

Doesn’t that just howl; “PRETENTIOUS CRAP!!”?

Seriously.

“Bit of steel painted pink / bit of steel painted blue,” would have been far more honest.

I’d be guessing you’d apply a similar logic in your purchases of music – shying well away from any album titles involving metaphors or other such ‘pretentious crap’.

Apsara said :

Is it just me or does the pink one look like a vagina?

Is it awaiting the return of the Belco owl?

folding ground
across the inbetween

sky shard
above the inbetween

Doesn’t that just howl; “PRETENTIOUS CRAP!!”?

Seriously.

“Bit of steel painted pink / bit of steel painted blue,” would have been far more honest.

You’ll notice on the ground around the blue “thing” that there are ripple tiles around it to guide blind folk (colour matched also).

The story I heard was that not long after it was put in, some blind guy was walking past it and ran into the sharp point poking left in the photo and cause a serious flesh wound…. hence an effort to “rectify” potential law suits. (The red “thing” doesn’t have the ripple tiles around it).

Apsara said :

Is it just me or does the pink one look like a vagina?

As remembered by a blind origami master.

It’s a lovely shape.

Interestingly, the blue one is outside a building with blue highlights and the red one a building with red highlights. But each is just enough different in colour from the respective buildings to jar.

To me it seems it would have made more sense to either exactly match the building highlights, or swap the positions so that the mismatch isn’t so obvious.

I can take or leave these particular pieces – they don’t speak to me but I don’t mind them and I think Canberra is better for the various art pieces. As long as they aren’t placed in the middle of major intersections where drivers should be concentrating on the road…

Apsara said :

Is it just me or does the pink one look like a vagina?

It’s just you

Is it just me or does the pink one look like a vagina?

bd84 said :

It shows the Governments priorities when they put artwork at opposite sides of an intersection that is one of the most dangerous in the City because traffic crossing from Rudd St does not have a clear view of oncoming Moore St traffic. There’s been at least 10 accidents at the intersection in the last few years, and about 10 near misses every day.

Better put up some point to point speed cameras then….

It shows the Governments priorities when they put artwork at opposite sides of an intersection that is one of the most dangerous in the City because traffic crossing from Rudd St does not have a clear view of oncoming Moore St traffic. There’s been at least 10 accidents at the intersection in the last few years, and about 10 near misses every day. Spending money to make it look pretty, but not into making it safe.

They’re currently spending money making Alinga St/West Row/Moore St pretty, instead of putting money into fixing the dangerous intersection and zebra crossings arrangements.. I suppose they might fix it one day when someone dies there.

When you see crap like this still going up it makes the ACT govt’s protestations about the Budget and being deprived of GST revenue sound very hollow indeed.

Has anyone else played Infamous (PS3)????

These are exactly like the shards you collect around the city to boost your powers. I used to work in the building on Moore st and as soon as they appeared I was going to take some photos and set them next to a screenshot from Infamous. In Infamous 1 they are blue, in Infamous 2 they are red.

Coincidence…

Ahhh, the never ending saga of publicly-funded art. I love these posts, and even more so the comments that follow. I, personally, think it’s a nice piece, but I’ve no idea what it is suppose to convey (if indeed it does convey an idea). Basically, I like to see sculptures decorating our streets – I think it gives the place a nicer feel. Mind you, distinguished architecture would achieve the same, and the stuff we have here is rather boring.

On a different note, we have to always remember that art, by definition, doesn’t have a pragmatic purpose. You can ALWAYS argue that budget provided for art could be better utilised elsewhere in health care, foreign aid, and million other causes. Art doesn’t have a measurable goal to achieve, so it’s somewhat difficult to define appropriate expenditure for it. On the other hand, living in a city with absolutely no art would be quite boring, at least to me, and I’m happy to see that we do have some budget for art, even if it’s sometimes obscure or just plain silly.

I-filed said :

Great works – badly sited. These would look amazing in a rural setting, on low hills, spotted while driving past. They look like crap here, but not because they’re no good.
The poor artist of course will have to take the money, even if their work is being diminished by naff placement by bogan ACT Government public servants.
What a shame!

It’s true that the installation of architectural pieces is half of their beauty. I’m afraid that where the ACT Government chooses to install them leaves a lot to be desired.

Great works – badly sited. These would look amazing in a rural setting, on low hills, spotted while driving past. They look like crap here, but not because they’re no good.
The poor artist of course will have to take the money, even if their work is being diminished by naff placement by bogan ACT Government public servants.
What a shame!

SO hang on – you get 4 bits of roughly-cut steel, weld them together, spraypaint them, give the resulting piece of junk the 100% pseud’s corner title, “folding ground, across the in-between” – being especially careful to ensure the title has no actual meaning – and the ACT government will bung you a big wad of ratepayers’ cash?

You know – I’m not a big fan of foreign aid, but if the ACT government reckons it has money to burn, wouldn’t it be far more constructive to spend that apparently superfluous money funding an orphanage in Vietnam, rather than just keeping one wanktist in booze and drugs for a year?

The first “leaper” who lands on the “blue spike” is going to redecorate a large portion of the vicinity in red.

Apart from that it’s just another fine example of an utter waste of public money on this so called “art”
.
Pure rubbish.

Ahhh, the on-going street art debate. In looking at these, and the other pieces that have appeared around town and are also now extending in to the suburbs, I am wondering what is the Government actually trying to achieve? Does anyone know? Putting a “piece of art” on a street corner or in the middle of a busy dual carriage way does not all of a sudden make the streetscape nicer to look at or more exciting. It does not make me feel that I live in a really exciting, almost euro style city. It does make me wonder how much it cost and where that money could go and achieve a better result.

Nothing against street art, but I think there they are taking it all a bit too far now. One or two good pieces in the right places is more than enough.

I took photos of these last year and just didn’t get around to sending them in. I reckon they look great!