Saturday, June 22, 2013

Public Art in Canberra

Australia is known as the lucky country, and it still seems to be deserving that title. Where other economies have been spluttering along out of gear, Australia continues to power forward, riding China's need for raw materials.

It can have unpleasant side effects for visitors, in particular prices. Small items like coffee and chocolate bars can be two to three times what they would be in the UK.

But there is at least one upside: they is spare cash for discretionary spending on art, and in Canberra there's a lot of scattered over the city.

I've been too busy working to visit any of the galleries so instead have been playing spot the public art, and however many I find there always seems to be more just a block away.

After a bit of searching I found there is a Google maps mash-up here where you can wander virtually among the streets of Australia's Capital and suburbs, discovering the name and artist of each work.

The previous post was of Ainslie's Sheep (2006) by Les Kossatz (1943-2011) and Owl (2011) by Bruce Armstrong.

As the taxi was taking me to the airport I kept spotting others I hadn't photographed, but it was too late for that.

However there was one last public art to admire at the brand new terminal:

I'll post some more of Canberra's public art tomorrow (or when I get time).

2 comments:

Baydog said...

Is that Life Saver Winto-green, or Pepo-mint?

JP said...

Apparently its "Keizo Ushio
Oushi Zokei, Dream Lens for the Future, 2012"

But I would call it something like "Fossilized Polo"