Doing the flan on King Street

I walk down King Street and it is changing. Has changed, will change. The shoe shops have changed. Funky running shoes and doc martens have been replaced by kitten heels and courts. The endless stretch of infinite overnight cafes – in a multitude of themes derived from scavenging at Tempe tip. (Zambezi, blue, chock Beenz, alley Katz, 381) have all been replaced by an endless stretch of Thai restaurants, and more café bars, juice bars, gelato bars. Lots of chrome, MDF, hard chairs and tiny tables. Infinite hues of beige. The Ocki no longer has an ecosystem of urban feraldom as a flooring. It has gone upmarket and orientalesque, and turned away my girlfriend the other day – she didn’t conform to the aperitif and Tapas target market. People reckon getting rid of Makkas was a victory – but I have my doubts. Balmain and Woollahra don’t have Makkas either and they are hardly hotbeds of urban life.

There are still a few old and familiar faces, the beggars outside Newtown station, the punks congregating outside the NA meetings at Newtown neighbourhood Centre, the chance encounter at the townie – other faces caught in crowds of commuters, shoppers, cinema goers, pub fiends, –always consumers, striding, straggling, staggering along that long stretch of tarmac which I’ve called home for 14 years.

Something different happened today. It made me nearly as cross as the closure of burland hall by south Sydney council. I was standing at the traffic lights and noticed a guy ripping down the announcements on the traffic pole. He wasn’t some random angry guy but a council employee. Somewhere some of my taxes were funding this. This caused me to look around – and notice – that the posters, stickers, graffiti have started to vanish. OK there are now bright coloured signal boxes and arty sculpted bin holders, but the bill posters have been replaced by perspex bus shelters, and the patina of A4 notices, stickers, political posters – and my favourite – weird anarchist manifestos all in unreadable 9 point font wedged in every crevice between shops, on traffic lights, near bus stops have all started to vanish.

I’ve got an intense distrust of the institutionalisation and regulation of any activity. Monocultures are boring and also lethal – as any scientist will tell you. A society is fecund when people have a multitude of ways of communicating with each other –languages, but also gestures, intimate and random spaces for interaction and exchange. A culture is fecund where there are multiple sites as well – where there is not merely the finest theatre or most successful art gallery – but where the street itself is a canvas, where people can engage with where they live, depict it add to it, deride it – and not merely pass through it as passive consumers.



What Elizabeth’s works show is how simple it is to respond and engage with our urban landscape. The art of the flaneur or stroller – is not a slick negotiation of the sophisticated urban environment – but a space for meandering confusion, for a dazed wandering – a shuffling back and forth, a stillness, a level of quiet unimpaired by coffee grinders or poker machines, or the blare of the latest tinny electronic audio product. A healthy musical scene has buskers, guitars in cafes, dodgy pub bands, electronic artists and even karaoke – ranging from the exrecable to the sublime. Just ask anyone who has been to New York. Music is in the ways that ordinary people make noise – and respond to it. Equally for art. I don’t think inner city artists need more spaces to sell our work – at the moment we need spaces just to make it. This means not only to have access to affordable studio or living space but also having time unsupervised or regulated by work or Centrelink – shopping schedules or waiting in traffic jams– where we can just drift – and let our hearts and hands form a response. Just as importantly we need exhibition spaces unregulated by the demands of bottom line exhibition sales or effective PR outcomes. (that btw is not a reason not to buy her work!).

I’m glad that places like the “Ari” are supporting artists like Elizabeth to show their work, and I’m glad that artists like Elizabeth are doing work about our spaces, about the performers in our spaces like Jackie – and who are providing a record of what it is to sit in local spaces and hear live original music, easily and often. I think it is really important that exhibitions like this are held not only by professional artists – and that people who do respond visually and creatively to our urban environment are not treated like a client class of aspiring artworld superstars – but as the sensitive, engaged and thoughtful people they are. Jackie Orzsaczky is someone who has performed an important role for musicians in Sydney. He has kept performing and recording and encouraging spaces for many other musicians to do the same. So he’s a great subject matter for work which bears witness to the importance of having vital living cultural spaces, unregulated by funding schemes or bureaucrats. Elizabeth’s work is testimony to this, and I hope her images won’t survive as a relic of a vanishing cultural milieu – but contribute to its ongoing survival.




I walk donw King street and it is changing. Has changed, will change.

The shoe shops have changed. Funky running shoes and doc martens have been replaced by kitten heels and courts. The endless stretch of infinite overnight cafes – in a multitude of fancies derived from scavenging at tempe tip. (Zambezi, blue, chock Beenz, allli Katz, 381) have alll been replaced by an endless stretch of thai restaurants, and more café bars, juice bars, gelato bars. Lots of chrome, MDF, few couches,. Infinite hues of beige. The Ocki no longer has an ecosysytme of urban feraldom as a flooring. It has gone upmarket and orientalesque, and turned away my girlfriend the other day – she didn’t conform to the aperatif and Tapas target market. People reckon getting rid of makkas was a victory – but I ahe my doubts. Balmain and wollahra don’t have makkas either and they are hardly hotbeds of urban life.

There are still a few old and familiar faces, the beggars outside Newtown station, the punks congregating outside the NA meetings at Newtown neighbourhood Centre, the chance encounter at the townie – other faces caught in crowds of commuters, shoppers, cinema goers, pub fiends, –always consumers, striding, straggling, staggering along that long stretch of tarmac which I’ve called home for 14 years.

Something different happened today. It made me nearly as cross as the closure of burland hall by south Sydney council. OK it was 7 years ago but some of us still maintain our rage…….. I was standing at the traffic lights and noticed a guy ripping down the announcements on the traffic pole. He wans’t some random angry guy but a CCOS employee. Somewhere some of my taxes were unding this. This caused me to look around – and notce – that the posters, stickers, graffittii have started to vanish. OK there are now birgh coloured signal boxes and arty sculpted bin holders, but the bll osters have been eplaced by JC decaux bus shelters, and the patina of A4 notices, stickers, political posters – and my favourite – weird anarchist manifestos all in unreadable 10 point font wedged in every crevice between shops, on traffic lights, near bus stops have all started to vanish.

The reason why this shits me are following:
I like to read stuff while waiting for traffic lights. I like to find out about local share house prices and criteria, lost and found dogs, weird weight loss schemes and other strange scams –without having to waste gold coins on Murdoch/Fairfax fuckup propaganda. I like to think that there is still a space – where one day –aided by a photocopier and lots of glue I could self publish my great Australian manifesto anonymously and madly up and down King Street. The other relates to bill posters – and the history of everyone I know who has worked bill postering – but also the amount of artists – like me who use decollage – which is the chance tearing of, texturing or subtle altering of bill posters and notices in public spaces. In Paris this quiet and free form of social protest and creative commuter play has become an art form – here it is becoming illegal. Tearing a poster, is easy –cutting open a perspex bill board is not.

I’ve got an intense distrust of the institutionalisation and regulation of any activity. Monocultures are boring and also lethal – as any scientist will tell you. A society is fecund where people have a multitude of ways of communicating with each other –languages, but also gestures, intimate and random spaces for interaction and exchange. A culture is fecund where there are multiple sites as well – where there is not merely the finest theatre or most successful art gallery – but where the street is a canvas, where people can engage with where they live, depict it add to it, deride it – and not merely pass through it as passive consumers.

The art of the flaneur or stroller – is not a slick negotiation of the sophisticated urban environment – but a space for meandering confusion, for a dazed wandering – a shuffling back and forth, a stillness, a level of quiet unimpaired by coffee grinders or poker machines, or the blare of the latest tinny electronic audio product. A healthy musical scene has buskers, guitars in cafes, dodgy pub bands, electronic artists and even karaoke – ranging from the exrecable to the sublime. Just ask anyone whose been to New York. Music is in the ways that ordinary people make noise – and respond to it. Equally for art. I don’t think inner city artists need more spaces to sell our work – at the moment we need spaces just to make it. This means having time unsupervised or regulated by work or centrelink –or shopping schedules – where we can just drift – and spaces unregulated but the demands of bottom line exhibition sales or effective PR outcomes. There are healthy moves afoot in the “50 most unsaleable artists” and in the irrepressible graffitti art movements. A lot of grafitti art is not made by ‘alienated yoof’ however – but middle class, sophisticated artists with graduate of not postgraduate qualifications.

I’m saying all the above to try to convey a sense that reality is very rarely as it seems – and most things are ambiguous. What seems slick and sophisiticated often is pretty raw and humble – whereas stylised art brut effects are often conscious references to something entirely imaginary.

Something fairly special happens when you sit down to draw in an urban space. Time slows down. It is so rare that we actually pause in public. Our urban spaces are largely spaces of transit. We pass through them –and objects and money pass through us in the process. Cruising, consuming, not a great deal of time to stop. I noticed this particularly when I went to Marrickville metro to sketch the trees. The surrounds of metro is regarded as a nicely landscaped non zone surrounding a shopping mall –and it is filled with people – but the people there don’t ever stop. It’s as if the space doesn’t exist. So an artist drawing acts as someone bearing witness to a space – not only because of the images that they create – because a camera could do that, but because OF THE time it takes. The slow consciousness of presence. Of sitting with a place, taking time with it. Drawing is like a mediation – and to draw in a space, and to draw a subject renders homage to it in a way, especially when so little of our urban spaces make this easy or comfortable. Drawing is a low consumerist activity. It is slow, anachronistic, uncontrolled, and yet it seems so simple and accessible.