Meggs, Rone, Sutton gallery and the Yarra council
One night in January artists Meggs and Rone completed a joint pasteup on the prominent Brunswick St wall of the Sutton gallery. I did not get to see it as it had been removed by Yarra City Council cleaners by the time I next walked that way. The photos used in this story are from Meggs’ Flickr account and are used with his permission. Thanks Meggs – I hope I don’t annoy you with what I want to say. While I generally like street art and think that a degree of leniency in terms of the law is sometimes appropriate, this instance is complicated and I want to consider the different points of view about it.
Photo by Meggs – used with permission
Photo by Meggs (detail) – used with permission
Soon after these photos were taken (it is not clear how much time passed), cleaners arrived and removed the work. Meggs comments on the photo below that:
In subsequent comments responding to my questions, Meggs indicates that he is referring to advertising in public spaces, from which he believes the council profits. I do not know if this is correct.
Photo by Meggs – used with permission
If the artists knew the council would react by quickly cleaning up this prominent space then I have to question why they chose to use it. Deliberately wasting the council’s time and the ratepayers’ money by placing work where it will be immediately removed is frustrating and unnecessary.
Did the gallery complain to the council? Did they want it removed? Did the council remove the work because of its location, regardless of what the property owner wanted? Was it necessary for the work to be removed? Did the council overreact?
In many instances street art (in the eyes of many people) improves public space. How difficult is it for a street artist to decide which spaces to use? I understand that part of the thrill is in installing work late at night in unauthorised locations while dodging the Police.
What obligation do artists, who are also members of the local community (I believe several prominent Melbourne street artists live in Fitzroy), have to other members of the community in not wasting the rates they pay to the council by not forcing the council to send in the cleaners?
Can the council do more to identify appropriate (albeit unauthorised) spaces for artists to use, and communicate more with property owners and artists to facilitate this? The Yarra council has detailed graffiti policy information on their website, but much of the focus is legal rather than social. The graffiti management policy (88kb PDF) dates from 2004 and does not even mention paste-ups as a form of graffiti.
There are legitimate reasons to limit the locations where illegal graffiti (of the artistic kind, not tags) is tolerated, and Fitzroy has many de facto streets where it is not removed. Either the property owners don’t care or they condone the work. Many more private buildings contain legal commissioned works.
A policy that decriminalises certain spaces and encourages them to be use for art, not tags, may be worth considering. Better communication between all parties would be required for this to happen. I’d like to start the conversation here. What do you have to say?
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Other posts you may find relevant and interesting
- graffiti, artists and respect, 16 February 2009
- why do some spaces not work?, 4 February 2008
- Yarra Council free graffiti cleaning service, 6 February 2009
- graffiti and street art in Fitzroy, 30 October 2008
- Makeshift gallery open for business, 12 September 2008
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 am
The reason it was cleaned off is because too many people were walking past the gallery and assuming it was advertising for a show for meggs. The gallery were constantly turning away disapointed punters.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Interesting! I didn’t think that Sutton gallery exhibited this kind of work. If they were receiving lots of interest, perhaps they could consider it.
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July 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
not interesting! sutton is one of australias best galleries, and they know their stuff. for them, this stuff obviously didn’t make the grade.
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July 4th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
You would be interested to know flav, that a lot of Melbourne’s top fine artists’ have a background in graffiti, with some still active in the graffiti community. And I don’t mean nice paste up’s etc, I mean real graffiti. Their is even some in the Sutton stable!
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July 4th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
So you recognise a difference between tagging and other forms of graffiti art?
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July 4th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
No I don’t, they go hand in hand. You will find many of your personal posterboy’s of the street art scene including Phibs and Dabs, are regular practitioner’s of tagging and do it very well too. I was trying to distinguish between various degrees of graffiti writers/street artists. There are those that concentrate on one form, like posters and there are those that are very active in all facets of graffiti including tagging. The latter are those I was referring to.
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