Another fictional explanation for the unsolved theft of Picasso’s Femme au mouchoir (the Weeping Woman) from the NGV has been published – Framed – The “True” Story of the Theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman (Brolga, 2024). It is the fourth novel that uses theft in its plot. The three other novels are Anson Cameron’s Stealing Picasso in 2009, Chris Womersley’s Cairo in 2013, and Gabrielle William’s The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex in 2016. There is little originality in Australian art crime fiction, with the same crimes turned into works of fiction again and again. Pablo Picasso, Femme au ..read more

Does this wall support the political statements it is making? And the more radical question: is this wall for or against people? I thought of this question last night at the Collingwood Yards after the book launch of Sabina Andron’s Urban Surfaces, Graffiti and the Right to the City. At the launch, Andron tried to get people to think of questions to ask about a wall in the city. As I left, I stopped at the wall to photograph a poster advertising her book. Someone had written “Free Palestine” in some white space on the poster. It was only then that I thought of my questions. Not all walls are ..read more

A big guy delivered a parcel to me. On my flyscreen door is a small Palestinian flag with “Free Palestine” on it, which I’d saved after a rally. As he was about to leave, he turned to me and, with a halting voice, asked. “You support free Palestine?” Yes. “I am Palestinian. My relatives are in Gaza.” I’m so sorry… we were both about to cry and finding it hard to speak. As I walk around this wicked city, searching for street art and beauty in this insanity, I ask myself, is all hope lost? And then I see a message written in large aerosol letters, a stencilled image, an act of resistance, howev ..read more

As I sat in the swing at Cambridge Park in Collingwood, making notes for a previous blog post, I never would have imagined it would be controversial. I sat in the swing because it was lunchtime, and there was nowhere else to sit in the small inner city park. It was also pleasant to swing gently back and forth; like a rocking chair or cradle, it is suitable for all ages. This post is about playgrounds, play, and relaxation and who is entitled to enjoy them. It is about playing in the urban environment; how is play designed for, and who is excluded? The original swing at Cambridge Park Public pl ..read more

I was walking through Melbourne, looking at photographs on the sides of buildings, on double-sided displays outside the Melbourne Town Hall, outside the State Library, around Parliament Station, and inside Arc One and RMIT Gallery. Some were part of the Photo 2024 International Festival of Photography, and others were on exhibition at RMIT. Jo Duck, Brick Trick on the wall of 99 Spring Street Looking at Photo 2024 raises the question: What do we expect from a photograph? Innovative and startling images like Jo Duck’s “Razzle Dazzle” series, or depictions of life, photos of cool Africans in mid ..read more

On Sunday night, 25 February 2024, the statue of Captain Cook in Fitzroy Gardens was cut down at the ankles in an act of anti-colonial iconoclasm. In a video released on social media, two black-clad, masked activists use an angle grinder to cut the statue off at the ankles. The video is similar in style to the video earlier this year of the cutting down of the Captain Cook statue in St. Kilda. Marc Clark, Captain Cook, 1973 (in better condition) The bronze statue by Marc Clark (1923 – 2021), a Melbourne-based artist, was commissioned in 1973, almost two hundred years after Cook’s death. The st ..read more

Geelong Gaol Museum is now the National Crime & Justice Museum and it tells the history of prisons in Australia from within a historic location, the old Geelong Gaol. Australia needs a national prison museum because of the foundational role of prisons in Australian history. It also has a remarkable collection of prison art. The Geelong Gaol Museum is becoming everything that Pentridge should have been. It tells the story of the state’s prisons from the prison hulks to the present day. Significantly, it has all four suits of the Kelly gang’s armour. There are displays of prison uniforms, c ..read more

The last time I visited Hosier Lane, there was a colourful aerosol stencil piece at the top of the lane by Alfieium. I haven’t been able to find out anything about the artist but I do know that stencil art in Hosier Lane is now rare when it once was common. It has been over a decade since Smallman and Nyman wrote Stencil Graffiti Capital Melbourne (Mark Batty Publisher, 2011). It has been over a decade since I was the secretary of the Melbourne Stencil Festival. Stencils were once that significant to Melbourne’s street art, and now, Melbourne’s street art scene only has a few stencil artists ..read more

I’ve been exploring Geelong and visited the Geelong Gallery and saw some public sculptures and street art. Most of it was located around the Lt. Malop Street area, Geelong’s cultural zone.  Geelong Gallery needs both more space and a more substantial permanent collection. So it is very dependent on its current temporary exhibitions. When I visited, there was a temporary exhibition of John Nixon’s minimalist prints and an exhibition by women artists from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY) focused on the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters, the Pleiades) story. (Curiously, the ..read more

On 26 January 2024, Bill Henson was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). I generally think less of someone who receives honours from the Australian government, as it is akin to receiving honours from Count Dracula. However, as Henson’s AO is more of an apology from the government and an insult to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, I might make an exception. For some background, read my original blog post about the Rudd-led attempt to criminalise Bill Henson’s art. I wrote a post soon after news of the police seizing Henson’s art broke, which has stood the test of time far better tha ..read more