We're on a hoarding to nothing

LORD Mayor Clover Moore has an uncanny ability for finding artistic beauty in the most unlikely places.

LORD Mayor Clover Moore has an uncanny ability for finding artistic beauty in the most unlikely places. Some of her visions show a truly unique gift for the arts and even greater talent for throwing ratepayers' money at it. The dazzling psychedelic keyboard cycleway that played music when you rode your bike over it was an inspirational use of my council rates - (as was the construction of the cycleway as a whole) - and that now there'll be a 'cultural hub' in Taylor Square where bike riders can congregate and worship the Malvern Star, makes the artist inside me feel all warm and fuzzy. But just when you think the Lord Mayor must surely have run dry for creative ideas, she has turned her artistic attentions from the cycleway to the impending Devonshire Street light rail that will soon begin its six-year construction.

Artwork: Warren Brown.

It's difficult to imagine now, but the light rail's creation will involve the erection of hoardings that will run the length of Devonshire Street, effectively cutting the suburb in two - something like a smaller scale Berlin Wall. The hoarding - and the construction process - will be ugly, but thank goodness we have the Lord Mayor's artistic talents at hand, for these hideous structures will be transformed into a street long easel, becoming Sydney City Council's very own 'Louvre by the Footpath'. The hoardings will be adorned with 'public art' to no doubt sooth the nerves of locals who were advised last weekthat ten nights of work - from 9pm to 5am - are about to commence in just a few days. And this is just the entrée before preliminary drilling starts in a few weeks.

So what sort of 'public art' should hang along Clover's builder's-ply Guggenheim Museum that will somehow turn six years of heavy construction into dazzling installation art? Perhaps artwork painted along the old Soviet theme - the Lord Mayor in overalls clutching a spanner, revealing to the unenlightened masses her great leap forward in spending their hard-earned roubles on whatever project takes the council's fancy this week. Personally - I've always been a fan of the dogs-playing-poker picture - but then again, as an artist myself - I'd like to throw my hat into the ring to paint my view of the Lord Mayor - dog-collar and all. Where do I apply?