Melbourne City Council plan for $2 million artwork in Southbank

MELBOURNE City Council plans to spend $2 million for a single artwork in Southbank. But the Acting Mayor admits the Yellow Peril saga has the council on edge. Do you trust them to get it right?

The Yellow Peril saga has made the council nervous about public art.

CITY of Melbourne ratepayers are set to stump up $2 million for an “ambitious scale” artwork in a redeveloped Southbank precinct.

An Irish academic has been engaged as “public art strategist” to oversee the project that will also see three other works produced to assist the transformation of Southbank Boulevard.

But a free enterprise think tank has slammed the proposal as a waste of money, and called on the city council to lower rates instead.

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Controversy over public art has a long history in Melbourne, with the most famous involving Vault, or the Yellow Peril, which was moved from City Square in 1980 after an outcry.

Other council acquisitions include $340,000 for a full-size sculpture of a W-class tram at the corner of Flinders and Spencer streets, and $360,000 for giant steel seed pods in Royal Park.

Artist Ron Robertson-Swann with his 1980 sculpture Vault, or the Yellow Peril. Picture: Nicole Cleary

The Yellow Peril is dismantled for its removal from City Square.

A report considered by city councillors said the four commissioned works in Southbank should involve “a cohesive experiential ‘gesamtkunstwerk’”; a German phrase meaning “a total work of art”.

A council meeting tonight heard that the Southbank proposal was one of the council’s biggest art commissions in recent times.

Acting Lord Mayor Arron Wood said that since the Yellow Peril saga, the council was nervous about public art.

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But Cr Wood said he was looking forward to the artwork “putting us on the world map”.

“(It is) something you will have to see when you come to Melbourne,” he said.

Councillors voted unanimously to approve the project.

The first piece, costing $2 million and dubbed Destination Artwork, will be a large-scale commission from an artist of significant international standing.

It will be located in Dodds St, Southbank, near the Victorian College of the Arts, and will bridge “the natural and built environment in a manner which incorporates an

understanding of ‘technology’ as an innovation”.

One of Melbourne’s most distinctive sculptures, A History Apparatus, on Russell St. Picture: Mark Stewart

However, Evan Mulholland, from think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, said the move

confirmed for Victorians that local councils were too “bloated and waste our money on projects that aren’t of interest to the community”.

“At a time when power prices are at record levels ... it is a slap in the face to Melbourne City Council constituents to see their rates going to vanity projects instead of being returned to them through lower rates,” he said.

Irish art expert Vaari Claffey has been appointed Southbank’s public art strategist, and she spent two weeks here last August for research at a cost of $12,334.

The Habitat Filter sculpture, complete with nesting boxes for birds and bats, in Sturt Street. Picture: Ellen Smith

Ms Claffey’s professional fee is $65,000, with a city council spokeswoman saying “we make no apologies for selecting the best talent for this important project, regardless of their country of origin”.

“Opportunities for local and international artists will take place over the next three years in accordance with the strategy Ms Claffey has developed in consultation with the City of Melbourne,” she said.

The artworks will also need to take into account Aboriginal traditional ethical, aesthetic and behavioural values, with each commission requiring an indigenous adviser/consultant/collaborator.

Dodds St and Southbank Boulevard will be turned into a pedestrian-friendly precinct under a $35 million council plan that will see the creation of more open space through reduced vehicle access.

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