|
Australia: Iconic Art
Melbourne had finally got the building it deserved - that was the consensus among Melburnians when Federation Square opened in late 2002. It is situated in the town centre, across the road from the train station, an impressive architectural setpiece, a showpiece of modern Australian architecture, and the largest arts centre in Australia. I visited Federation Square several times, and each time I felt compelled to return because I couldn't conclude what to make of it. Most Australians agreed that it was a place worthy of respect, but non-Australians, like me, had mixed feelings about it. Some foreigners I asked thought it was overdone or gaudy.
Federation Square: the name itself sets a mood and tone of grandeur, a name that insinuates that this arts centre is one of Australia's eminent achievements in arts and architecture. More symbolism of greatness is suggested by its locale at the town centre. It is indeed an iconic and monumental building; it has the presence of an ideologically-driven edifice designed to awe and impress. The building is fronted by a square and it is unlike any traditional square: it has a freeform shape, and the ground, tiled in a checkerboard of maroon and grey, undulates in dips and felts. The building itself is a smorgasbord of shapes and materials and sharp angles, like a distorted or re-arranged zigzag. A turret of shiny metal, with windows cut through in lopsided geometric shapes, is embedded into one corner of the structure. The underlying structure of metal frames can be seen in the rest of the fa‡ade, a structure that uses the scheme of squeezed triangles. These triangular frames are covered by glass panels, some translucent, others dark grey, others cream brown - a kind of fanciful layered fa‡ade.
The reason why I didn't know what to make of it is because at first I assumed that since the structure drew my attention and kept my attention it had to be creatively memorable. But the longer I studied the building, the more I thought that its creativity is an unarticulated splurge: it is showy, attracting attention to itself; and it is a design that seems obsessed with presence, the making of an architectural setpiece, like an installation, in which composition and presence is everything (the Australians are much given to the grand gesture). The exterior, moreover, seems like a juxtaposition of jarring pieces of vignettes; it's an exterior that lacks innate coherence or any patterns that lead the eye.
I had seen the exterior a few times before I found the time to explore the art inside. It is an interior painted in soft pastel colours, with wide walkways, spacious lobbies, elevated glass walkways, a confluence of escalators, and high ceilings. I found the interconnecting series of exhibition halls disorientating, without order - but is that deliberate? Perhaps an attempt to create chaos, or create a particular mood in the design itself? In any case, the film centre was so bare and hushed that I turned away halfway through. The exhibition halls, meanwhile, felt tentative and sparse, as if only half the intended art had arrived; the collections occupying the various halls seemed incomplete. There is the standard fare of Aboriginal art (the same old dotted paintings, the primitive shields and spears and other tools), followed by paintings by early settlers (these depicted romantic scenes of life in the Australian bush: cottages in idyllic countryside, poly-faced farmers on horses, angelic sheep clad in impeccably white fur), and lastly came the contemporary Australian art (these were conceptual pieces mainly, some travesties and parodies of pop art, and nudes or semi-nudes, and other conceptual setpieces which I couldn't understand or get the point of).
It took me an hour to see all the paintings in the handful of exhibition halls - it had taken me longer to take in the building itself, especially the variegated exterior. This struck me: isn't the point of an art centre the rich density and climactic pattern of its exhibits? Why had the creators reversed this logic, creating an arts centre where the structure itself - with its sheer presence and unusual form - overwhelmed the exhibits it held?
Only later did it occur to me, as I contemplated this apparent anomaly, that Federation Square couldn't be simply considered as a space for a collection of exhibits. I thought then that the reason why more emphasis was put on the space itself, rather than the exhibits (which feel like an afterthought, or a depository of Melbourne's accumulated art), is because Federation Square is, consciously or subconsciously, primarily a kind of shrine. This is how it can be seen: an eminent shrine, situated in the city that prides itself as the city of arts and culture. In fact, for the past decade or so Melbourne has distinguished itself - and competed with - Sydney by reinventing itself as the Australian capital of arts. The state government has consistently encouraged the arts, a policy that has lured many artists to the city. The largest concentration of bare-footed ragtag-clad artists live in Fitzroy, a district of beautiful art nouveau colonial buildings whose main drag is cluttered with veggie restaurants and designer bars and shops of Asian accessories and weird collectibles. Once I considered this context - Melbourne's eagerness to maintain and project itself as the Australian capital of arts - I could understand why presence has been given such importance. After all, this is the city that has two yearly art festivals - the experimental (and good, but imitative) month-long Fringe Festival, and the more elitist week-long Melbourne Festival (which features internationally-renowned artists and performers). This is also the city that is home to the Melbourne Museum (also a recent addition), arguably the best museum in Australia (the museum gobbles up millions of dollars in state subsidies yearly).
There is something else. While public galleries in other Western countries are put into renovated historic buildings, or disused power stations or factories, in Australia the inclination is to build something new, and more modern, like Federation Square - something, in fact, that pushes the boundaries of modernity, or post-modernity. This may be something of a mission for Australia. Twenty years ago (and to a lesser extent today), Australia was derided for its provincialism, for its bad food, for its non-existent nightlife or arts' scene, for its incomprehensible slang, for its lack of urbanite sophistication. And ever since Australia has took it upon itself to catch up with Europe, artistically speaking. Indeed, Melbourne isn't just consolidating its reputation as the Australian centre for arts, it is also trying to establish itself as one of the world's artistic beacons. To move from a provincial nowhere to a cosmopolitan somewhere, perhaps Melbourne felt it needed Federation Square. In other words, Federation Square is something of a statement, the reason why Melburnians are impressed but international visitors can't decide what to make of it.
© Victor Paul Borg
|
