fitzroyalty

The current Labor state government seems to have a fear of colour and modernity. Their aesthetic values are those of the bland featureless outer suburbs. Now they are trying to impose their archaic aesthetic values on the city.

Image courtesy of the Age – no photographer credited

First came the absurd decision to remove the bold red signs of the City Museum located in the old Treasury building on Spring St from the front steps. The signs cost $110,000 to make and a $40,000 contribution to this was made by the Bracks Labor government – the same Labor government supposedly still leading Victoria.

The signs met heritage requirements and were approved by the government. There is nothing wrong with them and they should remain in use for many years to promote the museum. Replacing them is pointless and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The government is obviously ready to waste lots of OUR money to appease THEIR petty narrow minded aesthetic stupidity, or at least that of the current premier John Brumby and the tourism minister Tim Holding.

Second came the revelation that Tourism Victoria has been criticised by Brumby and Holding for including replica street art covered laneways in a Melbourne tourism display at Florida’s DisneyWorld. The Age reports that:

“The Premier said the “nice part” of Melbourne’s lanes was the “European-type” style, not the graffiti.”

There is more to life than “nice”. Life can be messy, colourful and anarchic, and the vibrant laneways are a huge tourist attraction in Melbourne, as much for their art as for their bars and restaurants.

Brumby and Holding, get it into your pitiful little heads that your banal aesthetic values are not a valid foundation for formulating government policy. Keep your opinions on art and design to yourselves and let the marketing experts of Melbourne’s tourism industry do their job. The artists themselves think you’re a joke and so do many voters.

Posts you may find relevant and interesting

• courage and cowardice, 21 August 2007
• graffiti and street art in Fitzroy, 30 October 2008
• naming and shaming food hygiene standards breaches, 12 August 2008
• the world belongs to the living, not the dead, 23 May 2009
• FOI on food hygiene in the City of Yarra, 21 May 2009

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am and is filed under Melbourne, art, galleries and museums, media, misanthropy, politics, social issues.
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