Susie O;Brien: If only we could wave hooroo to bad public art

When it comes to public art, there’s often a gap between the artist’s vision and the public’s acceptance — and many Victorian creations have cost a bomb.

Perhaps Melbourne’s most controversial artwork is Vault, which sits outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Cheese sticks you can’t eat. Hotels you can’t stay at. Purses that hold no money.

Melbourne’s public art has long been controversial.

This week it was revealed the Melbourne City Council is spending at least $2m on a large kangaroo sitting in a chair that will go on display at Southbank.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien summed up the feelings of many people about this project (It’s not often anyone utters this sentence).

O’Brien said: “There’s a whole lot of reasons Victorians aren’t coming back into the CBD. The lack of a $2m sculpture of a kangaroo sitting in a chair is not one of them.”

Melbourne’s public art has long been controversial. Picture: Ian Currie

Well, what can you expect given the project was the brainchild of an Irish art expert and is being created by a New Zealand artist drawing on Indigenous heritage and German notions of “gesamtkunstwerk”?

When it comes to public art, there’s often a gap between the artist’s vision and the public’s acceptance.

Artists rave about the amoebaean moment of the work’s creation and its symbolic tracings that touch lightly on the landscape.

The rest of us are left shaking our heads and wondering: “How could they have paid so much for THAT?”

“I reckon I could do better myself.”

And: “Christ, haven’t we suffered enough?”

It’s no wonder there’s an annual British art prize called “What’s That Thing?” for the worst public artwork installed in the country each year.

Public art has been a talking point in this country since the federal government paid $1.3m for Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock in 1973.

Most Aussies thought it looked as if it had been painted by a toddler, but it’s now worth about $350m and is internationally renowned.

Many Victorian public artworks cost a bomb and are undoubtedly hated as much as they are liked.

Perhaps Melbourne’s most controversial artwork is Vault, which sits outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

Public art has been a talking point in this country since the federal government paid $1.3m for Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock in 1973.

It’s better known as the Yellow Peril and resembles a giant metal folded sticky note the colour of Coon — sorry, Cheer — cheese.

Vault artist Ron Robertson-Swann said he was not trying to offend people with his creation.

“At the same time there was (Stelarc) from Sunshine in Melbourne, who was hanging himself naked from meat hooks,” he said.

Fair point.

The lofty origins of public artworks often give way to popular names.

You probably know Melbourne’s International Gateway, which is a yellow beam representing a tribute to Victoria’s gold rush. It points to red poles symbolising the state’s wheat industry that lead towards an enclosed metal bridge over the freeway. They are better known as the cheese sticks, the rib cage and Jeff’s condom.

Melbourne’s notorious Cheese Sticks on The Tullamarine Freeway.

Sydney artist Ken Unsworth would sympathise — his iconic installation Stones against the Sky is better known as Poo on Sticks.

Councils are known for spending big bucks on unpopular public art. Remember the Federation Arch that cost half a million dollars but was better known as “pick-up sticks”?

A few years ago, the Melbourne City Council “donated” it to Hume Council and it now lives dismantled in a Sunbury depot.

There are also 19 windsocks on a hill in Cairnlea that won a 2008 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects President’s Award. But it doesn’t stop them from looking like dirty socks on poles during the day.

Darebin Council also came under fire for spending $30,000 on spiky steel street art. Someone even splashed them with red paint to make a point about how dangerous they were.

Ken Unsworth's Stones Against the Sky in Kings Cross is is better known as Poo on Sticks.

And don’t get me started about the Yarraville village street polka dots. They had the desired effect of slowing down traffic — mainly so people could dodge children who thought the area was a playground.

There are many examples of public art clangers overseas.

In Britain there’s an eight-foot marble statue of Margaret Thatcher that is so hated people keep knocking its head off. It’s now visible by appointment only.

There’s a concrete sculpture in a Canadian university that looks like a sexual accident, and an artwork of an American sunbather that looks like giant mangled pink poo.

Throw in a beer gut guy in Germany, two animals bonking in a Luxembourg park, creepy faceless bronze babies crawling up buildings in Belgium, and the “Leaning tower of turd” in Des Moines, Iowa, and one thing becomes pretty clear. A kangaroo sitting on a chair might not be so bad after all.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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