Melbourne prides itself on its whirlwind sporting calendar, but sometimes the arts produce a beautiful set of numbers, particularly when they tap into Australia’s obsession with Japan.
The National Gallery of Victoria’s Yayoi Kusama exhibition has had more than 376,000 visitors since it opened in mid-December. With one month to go, Kusama is already among the gallery’s best-attended ticketed exhibitions.
The Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the NGV is breaking attendance records.Credit: Yayoi Kusama
Opposite the NGV, the design festival at MPavilion 10 – a concrete bunker by Japanese architect Tadao Ando – has closed after attracting more than 300,000 guests over two summers.
The MPavilion series is spearheaded by retail mogul Naomi Milgrom in partnership with the City of Melbourne. Architects pitch their ideas, the winning design is built, and the structures are eventually dismantled and relocated to permanent homes across Melbourne and Victoria, such as Melbourne Zoo and universities.
But Ando’s pavilion is different. It’s stayed open to the public at the Queen Victoria Gardens for a year longer than usual. And it’s made of concrete, making any move across town a lot more complex.
MPavilion says it has offered Ando’s structure as a gift to the City of Melbourne. It declined to comment further on whether the structure could be moved or who would bear the costs.
Tadao Ando’s concrete pavilion at the Queen Victoria Gardens has been offered to the City of Melbourne.Credit: John Gollings
However, according to the City of Melbourne, the artwork cannot be moved at all. It acknowledged the offer but says no decision has been made on its future beyond June 30.
A spokesperson said: “We are in discussions with the Naomi Milgrom Foundation about the future of MPavilion by Tadao Ando.”
For previous installations, the council put in money for the design and installation, while Milgrom’s foundation paid for the dismantling, storage and relocation. We await the next instalment.
The quiet place
Nobody wanted to be in Canberra for Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ fourth budget. Nobody except Clive Palmer. The billionaire mining magnate and wannabe political chaos agent flew in on his private jet on Tuesday afternoon to watch Chalmers’ speech.
Nobody is really sure why he came, least of all Clive himself. “It’s a lot of hoo-ha about nothing, really,” Palmer said to CBD of the budget.
Clive Palmer, Trumpet of Patriots chairman, arrives at Parliament House on budget day.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
A few weeks ago, most political insiders would have expected to be in the thick of an election campaign, until Cyclone Alfred had other ideas. And most staff involved with the Labor campaign remained at the party’s Surry Hills headquarters in Sydney rather than return to Canberra for the budget reveal.
CBD did run into a few of the usual suspects hanging out in the corridors of power. Former federal treasurer and Labor elder statesman Wayne Swan, who’s done a few of these in his time, held court at Aussies cafe.
Swan is now chair of superannuation fund Cbus, a role that has seen him dragged before the Senate for a bit of a grilling in a Coalition-led inquiry into the sector.
The super sector was amply represented on Tuesday, with a contingent from the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, led by chief executive Mary Delahunty, occupying a table throughout the afternoon. National Press Club vice president and Super Members Council chief executive Misha Schubert was also around.
Also out in force were representatives from Responsible Wagering Australia, the peak body representing the gambling industry, including chief executive Kai Cantwell. Given they’ve already had a major win in putting gambling reform off the table until after the next election, what more could they want?
Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Michele O’Neil also did the rounds. Trailing Labor defector and senator Fatima Payman was veteran political strategist and notorious “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery, who is now chief-of-staffing for Payman.
No go, Cazaly
Australians love sticking it up the English almost as much as they love Mike Brady’s song Up There Cazaly. The AFL anthem has been performed at every grand final for yonks – even to an empty ’G during Victoria’s lockdown era.
Inspired by the marks of Roy Cazaly, a ruckman about 100 years ago, the song is as Australian as Alf Stewart from Home and Away calling someone a “flamin’ mongrel”.
But English soccer club Derby County has developed its own version of the song, called Steve Bloomer’s Watching.
“I was genuinely flattered originally,” Brady told ABC radio last year of the same-but-different English version. “The thing that really got up my nose is they didn’t give me credit for a long, long time. It just said ‘original composer unknown’.”
The Hamish & Andy podcast was asked last week to settle a dispute about the song’s origins between Stefan, an Australian man living in the UK, and the English family of Stefan’s partner.
The family plans to attend the blockbuster round-four match between Collingwood and Carlton during a trip to Australia. So the couple requested: would the AFL play Up There Cazaly at the game to prove the song’s Australian bona fides?
Up There Cazaly won’t be on the playlist at Carlton v Collingwood, one of the biggest games of the season. Credit: Paul Rovere
Turns out that home teams are responsible for pre-game and game theatrics, so it’s Collingwood’s call. And Collingwood says no.
“I don’t believe this is happening, unfortunately,” a Collingwood spokesperson told CBD. Typical.