'Rhizome' ain't all that bad.

Rhizome, isn’t that the car mob who’ve just been given the boot by the ACt gov’t? I can see why.

And it doesn’t look like Stanhope’s hair. It looks more like Zed’s hair.

Never been up close enough to appreciate it, but I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking was it the remains of a building that once was.

I don’t know much about art, but I know that piece is a piece of shit.

Strawmen Sepi.

Maintenance of the commons is always a legitimate area of government and social equity, of which public education is the most important part, is the cornerstone of societal longevity.

Taking tax dollars from everyone and spending them on arts which only a small number are even aware of let alone enjoy is a bit different.

When public funding of art appears to actually reduce the society’s great cultural outputs it’s an even harder sell.

I’m happy for governments to fund art. and I love the little man in petrie plaza.

If governments were to just get right back to basics what would be left. Would schools be gone – they aren’t vital to our survival? Ovals and parks?

Not to mention that almost all art was publicly funded under the soviets.

And by private I mean non Government. I must stop falling into the public=government language trap.

astrojax said :

and i for one am happy to fund this community boon from the public purse than live in east berlin or stalingrad in 1944.

Most people are more than happy to fund things they like with other peoples money.

As for East Berlin and Stalingrad, I don’t think it serves your purpose to use regimes that actively repressed free private expression as examples against someone who is advocating for private expression.

Get up close to it, really appreciate it, and it will speak to you. Not all art can do that let alone monumental sculpture.

JB, that is exactly the problem with the work. I’d be curious to know what you had to do to get close to the piece – park in the emergency lane and walk up?

The piece, in the way it is intended to be viewed (in a car at speed) is inappropriate. It looks like a mess. However, whilst I don’t particularly like this piece’s execution, the idea is brilliant for a public space where people are free to walk through the piece, clamber over it, and climb it. The art would be in the interaction with the piece rather than the aesthetic.

For example, the courtyard at the National Museum – I find it ugly and kitsch. However, I enjoy walking through it observing people as they run up and down the mounds, following the “roads”, walking through the area playing with echos (especially in the building) etc. The interaction is the art to me.

You just don’t get that with Rhizomes. You get a 15 sec look as you pass at 90kmh. And thats what makes this piece a waste.

I am a big fan of public art – just not this one.

FB said :

I like art, I go to galleries, I worked in a place that contained lots of art.

I have a large print of Menin Gate at Midnight by Will Longstaff. It moves me. I can understand what the artist was feeling and trying represent. I think it takes a very cold person to look at the original in full size and not be moved.

This is a pile of scrap. I believe art should mean or represent something and that average Joe should be able to understand that meaning without it having to be explained. I know this is supposed to represent native grass but I don’t see it. I have never seen native grass so tangled like that, except after I have trod on it. I am not against art just this type of art. If it looks like scrap, smells like scrap & is made of scrap then its scrap. Just by saying it represents something doesn’t mean it does.

Rhizome has both a botanical meaning (think: bamboo) and it’s also allegorically or metaphorically used to represent culture or cultural elements that are suppressed/repressed/chopped off, but inexorably rise to the surface elsewhere. (Hence my pithy comment above.)

Anyone who’s tried to tame bamboo in the backyard can probably empathise.

I have no idea if that’s got anything to do with the artist’s intent, but at least this thread has prompted me to take a swing out there and take a closer look for myself.

Sounds like you’re on the threshold of understanding abstract art FB,

Go on, step over the edge, it’s an exciting world.

I like art, I go to galleries, I worked in a place that contained lots of art.

I have a large print of Menin Gate at Midnight by Will Longstaff. It moves me. I can understand what the artist was feeling and trying represent. I think it takes a very cold person to look at the original in full size and not be moved.

This is a pile of scrap. I believe art should mean or represent something and that average Joe should be able to understand that meaning without it having to be explained. I know this is supposed to represent native grass but I don’t see it. I have never seen native grass so tangled like that, except after I have trod on it. I am not against art just this type of art. If it looks like scrap, smells like scrap & is made of scrap then its scrap. Just by saying it represents something doesn’t mean it does.

astrojax said :

what is your trouble with public funding of art, JB?

Too often it encourages mediocrity. The grant process invariably becomes politicised if not corrupt. And it’s hard to point to many great works of art to come out of the process anywhere in the world.

Private patronage on the other hand seems to produce better outcomes.

Melbourne’s brand of “grant music”, produced to appeal to grant committees rather than any member of the public, being a particularly telling case in point.

Having said that public funding of art seems to be something we’re stuck with and if we are going to have it then this sculpture is, in my personal opinion, a better use of the money than many others.

what is your trouble with public funding of art, JB?

do you also have trouble then in public commissioning of architects and urban planners, who consider aesthetics in their brief? [rhetorical with you, of course]

as for public art not being necessary for our existence, sure, but it is much more mentally stimulating than without, and i for one am happy to fund this community boon from the public purse than live in east berlin or stalingrad in 1944.

even this piece has you all stimulated, one way or another!

tickboom said :

As for “the role of the Government”: I’d say pretty much by definition public art *is* the role of the Government. You might be arguing against all public art in every form (so it seems), and if you are then I repeat what I said in the thread about the sculpture being intalled on Yarra Glen: I am glad you are not the one deciding how “my taxes” get spent. The world would be a very boring place if so.

Bullsh*t.

Art is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. The definition of public art is the role of the public hence the term ‘public art’.

And what are the public saying about this piece so called ‘art’, well the majority think it’s a piece of sh*t from what I can gather.

You want to make this art public? Then get together with you neighbours go and grab some spray cans and add your own personal touch to it. Art for the public, by the public.

tickboom said :

Newsflash, jakez: “taxpayers money” funds a number of things that individual taxpayers might not like. Not just public art.

By your logic, I don’t live in Gungahlin or have any reason to go there, so why should *my taxes* pay for the GDE? Gungahlin residents should just all pool together and pay for a dirt track…

As for “the role of the Government”: I’d say pretty much by definition public art *is* the role of the Government. You might be arguing against all public art in every form (so it seems), and if you are then I repeat what I said in the thread about the sculpture being intalled on Yarra Glen: I am glad you are not the one deciding how “my taxes” get spent. The world would be a very boring place if so.

HA, I expected that. I’m well aware that taxpayers money funds a number of things that individual taxpayers might not like. This is why Government should restrict itself to that which can only be achieved through a monopoly of force. I would suggest that roads are a legitimate form of Government because they cannot be done privately and are fundamental to our existence.

Public art is not necessary for our existence, it is an aesthetic.

As for Government being necessary for public art, are you serious? Oh my how did art ever exist before the Government was involved. You confuse public art with Government funded art, and Government is not necessary. It is precisely because the world would be a boring place without public art that we don’t need Government to force people to pay for it. The history of our world is littered with examples of people wanting to express themselves and share the joy of art with others, without a profit incentive.

I too have trouble with the concept of public arts funding.

But that’s not a pertinent issue when debating the aesthetics of this piece.

Newsflash, jakez: “taxpayers money” funds a number of things that individual taxpayers might not like. Not just public art.

By your logic, I don’t live in Gungahlin or have any reason to go there, so why should *my taxes* pay for the GDE? Gungahlin residents should just all pool together and pay for a dirt track…

As for “the role of the Government”: I’d say pretty much by definition public art *is* the role of the Government. You might be arguing against all public art in every form (so it seems), and if you are then I repeat what I said in the thread about the sculpture being intalled on Yarra Glen: I am glad you are not the one deciding how “my taxes” get spent. The world would be a very boring place if so.

tickboom said :

I like it.

There are also some public artworks I am not particularly fond of (the little man in Petrie Plaza, the brick shapes in City Walk). But I am still glad they’re there. I think the “I don’t like this, therefore it is a waste of money” view is particularly cringeworthy. Do any of you people go to art galleries? Do you expect to like every work you see?

That’s an innacurate representation of the point we are trying to make. They are not saying it is a waste of money, they are saying it is a waste of taxpayers money.

There is no choice when it is taxpayers money. I can’t say no, I can’t say yes. It’s simply not the role of the Government.

You want an homage to Sonic’s hair? Fine. You want a sexually suggestive sheep statue (and who doesn’t)? Fine. You want brick shapes or little men? FINE! Just don’t force me to pay for what you want. Put a bit of effort in and voluntarily get some people together to do it.

For the record, I often go to art galleries and I put down my own money to do so (yes I realise they are subsidised).

Being able to strategically pile sticks together so they don’t fall down is a party game, not artwork.

And yes, I define a heap of scrap metal ‘dancing in the sky’ as not art. Its junk piled strategically high.

I like it.

There are also some public artworks I am not particularly fond of (the little man in Petrie Plaza, the brick shapes in City Walk). But I am still glad they’re there. I think the “I don’t like this, therefore it is a waste of money” view is particularly cringeworthy. Do any of you people go to art galleries? Do you expect to like every work you see?

Wreckage doesn’t dance in the sky the way this thing does.

It all falls down.

Jesus, whats so great about this ‘artwork’? Looks like Falujah after the Marines have been driving insurgents out of town.

It will always be Sonic’s Haircut to me…

Ok! stop, I have just thought how they could tie this structure in with “ART” So obvious, I can’t imagine how they over-looked the idea. …. Get a nice artistic piece of rope, and hang Bill Hanson from it! Any objections?

I believe that the “Grass” cost in excess of 3/4 million bucks. Thats one hell of a joint!
Strangely I was pondering this morning when I drove past it, what would be the best way to destroy it one night by way of protest? Gas axe? Grinder, Expolsives? Just pondering, not planning! I may change my mind after I pay my tax & GST bill though!

I agree with specialG. Johnboy moved back to Canberra ‘cos the crack is cheaper here.

Working transport system etc. The basic role of Government, particularly a local/state Government, are being left behind. It’s time the ACT Government concentrated on those areas.

The market of art and the market of ideas will take care of the rest.

It really goes to the heart of the role of Government. I love art in all of its forms (except for Opera….sorry). However I cannot see how anyone can possibly justify money being taken from the average Joe taxpayer, and put into art.

Let people like myself pay for the art that I enjoy, let the Government (particularly the ACT Government) get on with the job that it is their to do, ie, to protect us, to provide a working judiciary, to provide a working health system.

This one has been disgusted previously. The prize comment was comparing the high voltage wires on the other side of the road to giants striding across the landscape.

At risk of being moderated. JB you’re on drugs.

hey, at least it isn’t the “stones on koppers logs with lattice, in a series”

what did that one cost??

Ralph said :

Disgusting waste of taxpayer dollars.

This monstrosity looks like ground zero.

You Know I actually had a friend from ourt of town comment to that effect. They thought it was a piece from ground zero! Shipped out here as some kind of monument! haha!

I agree with Johnboy – the sculpture itself is not that bad. However, the issue I think most Canberrans take exception to is the fact that the “improvements” to the road are an absolute clusterf*ck and the sculpture cost a substantial amount of money, that would have been better spent on the road.

Disgusting waste of taxpayer dollars.

This monstrosity looks like ground zero.

Was anyone asked if they wanted this? Was there a choice of what got built there? I know that i was not asked whether or not i wanted this waste of my tax dollars. If this was the best thing that could have been installed there i would hate to see what did not make it.

Looks like it fell off the back of a truck taking it to the metal recycling joint in Fyshwick. Crap metal!

It has been rumoured that the sculpture was left over RSJs and will eventually be cut up and used for building the other side of the bridge when the government round to finishing the job.

AngryHenry said :

It’s a pile of sh*t… If it wasn’t deeply concreted down someone would have thought it was scrap and come and cleaned it up.

Nah, that wouldn’t work because the roots would just burrow underground and shoot up somewhere else.

(Little vocab joke there. Move along. Nothing to see.)

I gather that the grass sculpture…or the ‘train wreck’ as I call it, cost around about the money the money they saved in the first year of the closure of Flynn Primary.

maybe, if the act government wants people to appreciate the GDE, they could have (gasp!) made it dual Lane. bugger off the art, make it easier to drive down.

the money that was spent could have gone to the important dual lane, or more beds in hospitals.

It looks like a truck has lost its load in spectacular fashion…

I’d like to see a big tardis on the side of the road. Now that would be art.

Yeah I’ll bite too!

It’s a pile of sh*t… If it wasn’t deeply concreted down someone would have thought it was scrap and come and cleaned it up.

Hey but from and artisitc point of view if it’s stimulating conversation, then I guess it’s succeeded. I mean that’s what art is supposed to do isn’t it, encourage debate, create controversy, stir emotions.

What a shame we all had to pay for it though. Richard Goodwin must be laughing all the way to the bank at our expense.

Why is it these so called ‘artists’ are hailed by the government, given grants and even worse, commissioned to build sh*t like this?

Why don’t they put up some public art spaces (i.e. legal graffiti walls) rather than spend money on this crap? Give some up and commers an opportunity instead of commissioning this peice of sh*t.

We should all be watching the road anyways when we drive past… So what is the point really?

It’s a bloody eyesore and a waste of F**king taxpayers money!

Fishing for bits today, are we? I’ll play. It’s an abomination.