Ute melbourne electronic magazine

Transcription

1 grap 2251 Design studio 5 Ute melbourne electronic magazine ingrid riddervold s rmit communication design october 2007

2 the street issue Street illustrators Who are they? The secrets Discover Melbournes best hidden treassures lost and found Stories found on the street # October

3 Melbourne style Content Hidden shops Melbourne streets the street issue Street salesmen Market guide Graffiti - art or crime? Street slang Laneway festival lost and found Stories found on the street Street art moves to a posh new hang-out A life on the street Under your footsteps small businesses Ute interview The secrets, Melbournes best hidden treasures Shopping for artists Street illustrators Who are they? Photo: Ingrid riddervold The big lunch guide

4 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p24 Street art Street art moves to a posh new hang-out by Richard Jinman spray-on works have joined the national collection. In Hosier Lane, an alleyway adjacent to Melbourne s Federation Square, a pair of giggling Korean tourists are taking photographs of the graffiti inflaming the dull brick walls. The young women saw some of these designs in a documentary about street art shown on Korean television. Now they re standing in front of them, excited by a dense, lurid collage that ranges from rudimentary signatures drawn in marker pen to giant day-glo paintings and intricate paper prints pasted onto the wall. Very good, says one, indicating a playful image of a moon-faced Asian child hugging a docile killer whale. I like it very much. That opinion is shared by the National Gallery of Australia, which has just bought its first collection of contemporary street art. The 300 stencil designs by more than 30 artists took three years to compile. They document the explosion the street art in Melbourne between the 90s and 2004, when the city s council announced a widespread graffiti clean-up operation before last year s Commonwealth Games.

5 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p25 Street art We focused on Melbourne because it seemed to be the most dynamic area of stencil art, says Anne McDonald, the gallery s curator of Australian prints and drawings. The images are mostly printed on paper although some are on found objects or cardboard. McDonald won t reveal how much the gallery paid for the collection, but says its council members were blown away by the prints they bought on March 9. The designs by street art luminaries including Marcsta (Marc de Jong), Dlux (James Dodd), HaHa (Regan Tamanui) and Vexta (Yvette Bacina) will be the focus of an exhibition at the national gallery late next year. The gallery views the stencils as a natural addition to its extensive print collection, which includes Australian political and social posters from the 70s and 80s. Some of the imagery is very similar, says McDonald. They re both [posters and stencil art] a means of getting an image out cheaply and effectively. Few would dispute Melbourne s standing as an international hotspot for street art. Along with cities such as New York, London and Barcelona, it s a place where the form flourishes and the results are celebrated on websites such as The world s most famous graffiti artist, Britain s Banksy, calls Melbourne s street art... arguably Australia s most significant contribution to the arts since they stole all the Aborigines pencils.

6 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p26 Street art itty, playful, often angry, the free rein taken by Melbourne s street artists became about much more than just daubing a wall, he wrote in an article for inthe Guardian last year. It has drawn in generations of artists, thinkers and tourists to explore and experiment in the city. But street art is still controversial in the Victorian capital. In February last year, the launch of Stencil Graffiti Capital, a book and photographic exhibition celebrating Melbourne s street art scene, drew an angry response from politicians and resident groups opposed to all forms of graffiti. Police were urged to infiltrate the launch party, identify perpetrators and take action against them.

7 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p27 Street art Melbourne city council remains committed to the immediate removal of any form of graffiti in highly visual areas. Still, the designs in Hosier Lane and many other laneways that criss-cross the city centre seem to go untouched. And late last year, the council introduced a system allowing residents and businesses to apply for a permit to preserve street art they considered worthy of protection. In 2005, Alison Young from the University of Melbourne s department of criminology, drew up a draft graffiti strategy at the council s request. It recommended tolerance zones; places where street artists could work with the approval of local residents and businesses. The zone proposal was rejected, but Professor Young suspects there were... internal divisions within the council on what stance to take on graffiti. Some would take a zero tolerance approach, some see the value of having areas like Hosier Lane untouched she says, referring to street art s appeal to many younger visitors to Melbourne. Young believes the National Gallery s of Australia s purchase may be seen by some street artists as a validation of their work.

8 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p28 Street art I WOULD IMAGINE IT WOULD GIVE PEOPLE A BOOST TO THINK THEIR WORK IS VALUED, NOT JUST IN THE STREET ART COMMUNITY, BUT BY AN INSTITUTION SUCH AS THE NGA Alison Young, University of Melbourne s Department of Criminology

9 Photo: Paul Barberra p29 Street art I would imagine it would give people a boost to think their work is valued, not just in the street art community, but by an institution such as the NGA, says Alison Young. That there is cultural value to what they do - that they re not just mongrels and scallywags. That opinion isn t shared by Andrew MacDonald, an artist and the founder of Citylights, a public art project showing work on wall-mounted light-boxes in several Melbourne laneways. He compiled the gallery s collection using his extensive contacts in the scene and rejects the notion the purchase validates a controversial form. Street artists by their nature don t look for validation from national galleries, he says,

10 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p30 Street art They already have one of the biggest audiences you can get. Of course, it s very exciting that we will be able to show the rest of the country what s been happening here. But the debate about whether or not this is art is over. A lot of the artists have branched out by starting clothing companies or working as illustrators, designers or professional artists. Marcsta is one of them. He is working on a series of paintings that will be exhibited at the Sullivan + Strumpf gallery in Sydney in June. I m pretty stoked, he says of the gallery s purchase. It s been a long time coming in terms of the work being accepted. It s just a very positive thing.

11 Photo: Ingrid riddervold p62 lost and found One mans trash, another s treasure. What are the stories behind these photos, these people, these lives? Let your imagination run freely and come with us into the lost bits and pieces we found in the streets of Melbourne.

12 p63 lost and found Found 26/ in Victoria Market Bianca takes a wild guess Mr. Johnson and Mr. Sörenson are agreeing on splitting the bill from the marriage of their daughter and son who was married the week before. The daughter of Johnson, Elizabeth, met Swedish Göran when she was an overseas student in Milan, and he came with her back to Britain to live happily ever after. background Photo: Ingrid riddervold Found 18/ Corner of LaTrobe and Williams Andrew takes a wild guess This photo is from America, Im guessing The photo has been lying in the granddaughters purse, but when a man tries to robs her, the photo flies out and gets lost. The two ladies on the photo are on their way to a small town casino to meet a forth girlfriend (#3 is taking the photo) for a round of fun and gaming which they do once a month. What they don t know yet is that the lady in the pink dress will end up winning $60 000, divorce her husband, leave her three kids behind and move to Turkey where she ll meet Ali who is 21 years younger. The love is amazing, but then she gets breast cancer and decides to move back home to the states.

13 background Photo: Ingrid riddervold p64 lost and found Found 3/ near the bins in Degraves Lane Herold takes a wild guess This photo was taken by Damien, the son of this old man. Damien was always afraid of his dad, he was hardly around except for weekends, and then he didn t talk much. Damien is now all grownup and he often thinks about talking to his dad before it s too late, but he just doesn t know how to. Found 29/ on St. Kilda Beach and kept ever sence Keith takes a wild guess Betty, the woman on the beach, is 29 years old and on her honeymoon with husband Greg. On their holiday they took a detour to see Greg s brother Paul, who lived in Spain. Unfortunately for Greg, Betty and Paul hooked up and she moved in with him in Madrid. When Greg developed the photos from the honeymoon, he tore it two and crunched the part with Paul. He kept the piece with Betty for three years before he threw it away.

14 background Photo: Ingrid riddervold p65 lost and found Found 19/ at Telstra Dome Theo takes a wild guess The year is 1971 and Rafael is having an extra early breakfast while he s talking to his grandma about this new mixed tape he has made. Today is special, he had to get up early to see a horse racing, and it s gonna take him 2 hours on the train to get there. When he got back, his grandma had passed away.

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20 UTE Magazine Frontcovers All cover photos Ingrid Riddervold the street issue Street illustrators Who are they? The secrets Discover Melbournes best hidden treassures lost and found Stories found on the street # October FLOWER POWER ATCHITECTUAL flower trend setters Who are they? What does it all mean? Codes you need to know a true romantic story What s luck, what s destiny architects Who are they? melbourne s famous buildings little pearls Architectural details you ve never noticed # December # February