NEWS DESK
‘I am’ here to stay in a roundabout way THE once-controversial sculpture “I am” is to stay at the roundabout on the main intersection in Flinders. A survey by Mornington Peninsula Shire has shown enough support to justify the sculpture remaining at the Cook and Wood streets roundabout. There were 564 responses to the survey, 337 from Flinders residents. Just under 60 per cent said they wanted the Andrew Rogers sculpture to stay, with 39 per cent against. More than half of those against the statue remaining on the roundabout said they would not object to it being relocated within the town. The survey followed assurances by the shire in August 2014 that it would ask the public about the sculpture’s future two years after it was erected. The council last week agreed to keep the $100,000 sculpture on the roundabout, which will cost ratepayers about $1000 a year to maintain. The money for the sculpture was donated as a present to mark the town’s 150th anniversary. “We are determined to enhance, celebrate and promote Mornington Peninsula’s cultural vitality through public art,” the mayor Cr Bev Colomb said in a news release announcing the decision. “Across the peninsula we are lucky to have a range of public art on display promoting the diversity of our townships and we look forward to seeing more sculptures be considered at other prominent locations around the peninsula.” The shire’s media officer Emily Lees said on Thursday that “there are currently no locations or sculptures under consideration at present”. Jane Alexander, the shire’s arts and culture coordinator, said the sculpture would continue to oxidise “creating a rich patina characteristic of this type of sculpture, and will require only periodic cleaning approximately every six months with clean water”.
Roundabout home: Andrew Rogers’ sculpture “I am” will stay at the Cook and Wood streets roundabout in Flinders. Picture: Keith PLatt
Talk of Nordic art for winter for peninsula MEMBERS of Mornington’s Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society will attend their regular monthly Friday evening talk on the work of Edvard Munch’s work The Scream on Friday 7 July and then, the next day, Saturday 8 July, they will hear a presentation at Beleura House and Garden entitled Rubens to Rembrandt: The Art of Brabant, Flanders and the Dutch Republic. ADFAS offers members and their guests an opportunity to learn more about the arts. Lectures are held at the Peninsula Community Theatre, Wilsons Rd, Mornington, 5.30pm on Friday evenings. The hour-long lectures are illustrated and are followed by light refreshments and an opportunity to meet the lecturer and fellow members. The July speaker is British art historian Gerald Deslandes who teaches art history and visual studies and is a consultant to museums and galleries. He also leads cultural tours to France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands as well as to many areas of the UK. On the Friday evening Mr Deslandes will focus on the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The lecture, Munch and the Nordic Imagination, will compare Munch’s suggestion of a remote and claustrophobic world of frustration and emotional extremes to the fantastical imagery of the Viking sagas. Mr Deslandes will discuss Norwegian landscape artists, such as Hans Frederik Gude and Eilif Peterssen,
as well as the work of two women artists: Harriet Backer, whose intense lamp-lit interiors resemble those of Munch, and the painter and activist Aasta Hansteen, who became a model for Lona in Ibsen’s The Pillars of Society. The talk will conclude by discussing whether such ideas have continued in the larger-than-life characters and violent narratives of Jo Nesbo. Mr Deslandes in Saturday’s talk will discuss Rubens to Rembrandt: The Art of Brabant, Flanders and the Dutch Republic. He will compare the art of Protestant Holland to the triumphant reassertion of Catholicism in the work of Rubens, Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens, showing how the artists of the Counter Reformation used drama, movement, light and colour. The cost of attending is $20 for nonmembers. For more information, memberships or to make a booking, call 9787 2092.
Gallery show OAK Hill Gallery is holding its annual members’ exhibition until 30 July with a $2000 prize pool. The gallery is at 100 Mornington-Tyabb Rd Mornington. The community arts centre aims to promote and develop the arts, artists and their work and enable the experience, enjoyment and appreciation of art in the wider community. The notfor-profit group is run by members and volunteers. Details: Call 5973 4299 or email art@oakhillgallery.com.au
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Western Port News 4 July 2017
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