(Below) New Piece for the New Lockdown, Victoria, Australia (feb 2021)
(above)
Happy new lockdown.
Diary of an Unofficial War Artist
Episode 9:
"Happy new lockdown", he says.
"Although it's better to have a short sharp lockdown than a long drawn out one..."
Can't forget those eyes. This hotel quarantine worker had had enough. Thrust into the world of pandemic management when only a year ago was in hotel maintenance.
As I sculpted the left side of his face, his eye twitched alot, so I thought it was best to convey the intense anxiety though wide open eyes.
"Our hotel just wants government money, don't care about us! We're not even trained for this, and our pay is so low! And the government just wants a cheap way if managing the outbreak!
Should be a solid, nationalised, quarantine system".
If you look closely at the crumpled up mask, it appears well locked onto his face here, but in reality it was drooping down loosely around his chin. Was just a bit hard to convey in sculptural form. Cheap and useless this mask, especially against the new UK strain. He said it was loose because it was borrowed from a colleague on the same shift. Were there enough of them?
"Don't mention the air ventilation. It's a virus's heaven. On hot, windy days, jet streams of air would rush through stair and lift wells and other gaps, pushing air all over the hotel."
(I tried to capture the wind coming at his face here by leaning his head back a little.)
There was no stopping him reveal his face in a local tennis court (the Australian Open tennis tournament is now closed to the public during this lockdown). Great positioning!
"Had to show that I was disgusted by the corporate sector of tennis, pushing for things to be open while we're all trying so hard to contain the virus."
On a final note, he said despite it being painful pushing his head through that fence, it was the best way to describe his and his fellow workers' exposure to the virus.
(End)
Sculpture location: Anderson St, Yarraville, Victoria.
Materials: Cardboard, plastic salad bowls, bed sheet, other stuff.
12/02/2021
#hotelquarantine #lockdown #covidartcrisis #covidstreetart @redflag.sa @workersartcollective @vic_socialists #pandemic2021
Happy new lockdown.
Diary of an Unofficial War Artist
Episode 9:
"Happy new lockdown", he says.
"Although it's better to have a short sharp lockdown than a long drawn out one..."
Can't forget those eyes. This hotel quarantine worker had had enough. Thrust into the world of pandemic management when only a year ago was in hotel maintenance.
As I sculpted the left side of his face, his eye twitched alot, so I thought it was best to convey the intense anxiety though wide open eyes.
"Our hotel just wants government money, don't care about us! We're not even trained for this, and our pay is so low! And the government just wants a cheap way if managing the outbreak!
Should be a solid, nationalised, quarantine system".
If you look closely at the crumpled up mask, it appears well locked onto his face here, but in reality it was drooping down loosely around his chin. Was just a bit hard to convey in sculptural form. Cheap and useless this mask, especially against the new UK strain. He said it was loose because it was borrowed from a colleague on the same shift. Were there enough of them?
"Don't mention the air ventilation. It's a virus's heaven. On hot, windy days, jet streams of air would rush through stair and lift wells and other gaps, pushing air all over the hotel."
(I tried to capture the wind coming at his face here by leaning his head back a little.)
There was no stopping him reveal his face in a local tennis court (the Australian Open tennis tournament is now closed to the public during this lockdown). Great positioning!
"Had to show that I was disgusted by the corporate sector of tennis, pushing for things to be open while we're all trying so hard to contain the virus."
On a final note, he said despite it being painful pushing his head through that fence, it was the best way to describe his and his fellow workers' exposure to the virus.
(End)
Sculpture location: Anderson St, Yarraville, Victoria.
Materials: Cardboard, plastic salad bowls, bed sheet, other stuff.
12/02/2021
#hotelquarantine #lockdown #covidartcrisis #covidstreetart @redflag.sa @workersartcollective @vic_socialists #pandemic2021
(below) A great message from a supporter on Instagram!
(below) New sculpture, in support of #Invasion Day2021, (26th Jan, 2021)
(above and below)
Title: “...Australia Day? Yeah nah….Can’t celebrate crimes committed against our Aboriginal sisters and brothers” (25th jan, 2021)
Location of artwork: South Rd (towards Aldi), Braybrook (West Footscray), Melbourne.
Materials: Scrap cardboard, plastic salad bowls etc.
"DIARY OF AN UNOFFICIAL WAR ARTIST"
€pi$ode 8:
This particular moment that I’ve tried to capture in sculptural form occurred some time in 50 degree heat, while a person (featured in this artwork) was confronted by a packed community hall somewhere in Australia.
The hall wasn’t full of locals because the wealthiest iron ore baron had paid for bus loads of substitutes to pack the vote for yet another massive hole in the ground (size of a meteorite crater). After stacks of glowing mega-profit projections, the mine looked a go-go.
The person in question raised their hand and asked to speak (the whole room couldn’t wait for yet another pro-mine submission, cos, well, this person had clearly just finished a shift deep down one of the nearby pits).
But the whole room couldn’t see they were about to be flattened by a string of words that matched the magnitude of the thousands of people now surrounding the hall - itching to throw out that iron ore billionaire baron (and to never let another mine go ahead on stolen Aboriginal land).
I could only capture the final words of their speech (sorry I was busy drawing their face, and excuse the spelling mistake in the speech bubble), after the billionaire interrupted with this:
'Mines are great for the nation as a whole! And today is Australia Day! Don’t tell me you hate Australia Day?'
The person: '...Australia Day? Yeah nah….Can’t celebrate crimes committed against our Aboriginal sisters and brothers......cos celebrating this day only benefits the mega rich like you..."
It was gold....
Title: “...Australia Day? Yeah nah….Can’t celebrate crimes committed against our Aboriginal sisters and brothers” (25th jan, 2021)
Location of artwork: South Rd (towards Aldi), Braybrook (West Footscray), Melbourne.
Materials: Scrap cardboard, plastic salad bowls etc.
"DIARY OF AN UNOFFICIAL WAR ARTIST"
€pi$ode 8:
This particular moment that I’ve tried to capture in sculptural form occurred some time in 50 degree heat, while a person (featured in this artwork) was confronted by a packed community hall somewhere in Australia.
The hall wasn’t full of locals because the wealthiest iron ore baron had paid for bus loads of substitutes to pack the vote for yet another massive hole in the ground (size of a meteorite crater). After stacks of glowing mega-profit projections, the mine looked a go-go.
The person in question raised their hand and asked to speak (the whole room couldn’t wait for yet another pro-mine submission, cos, well, this person had clearly just finished a shift deep down one of the nearby pits).
But the whole room couldn’t see they were about to be flattened by a string of words that matched the magnitude of the thousands of people now surrounding the hall - itching to throw out that iron ore billionaire baron (and to never let another mine go ahead on stolen Aboriginal land).
I could only capture the final words of their speech (sorry I was busy drawing their face, and excuse the spelling mistake in the speech bubble), after the billionaire interrupted with this:
'Mines are great for the nation as a whole! And today is Australia Day! Don’t tell me you hate Australia Day?'
The person: '...Australia Day? Yeah nah….Can’t celebrate crimes committed against our Aboriginal sisters and brothers......cos celebrating this day only benefits the mega rich like you..."
It was gold....
(below) New Refugee Piece (Footsrcay, Victoria, Australia)
(above and below)
"There is no window. They don't want me to see you. It's horrible, I cannot breathe."
(Imprisoned Refugee, Park Hotel, Carlton.)
DIARY OF AN UNOFFICIAL WAR ARTIST.
€PI$ODE 7:
"You can get quite a shock when a large face emerges right next to you....but from a distant location.
To capture this moment in a photo was quite difficult, especially as it was very sudden and jolting.
I believe this gesture may have come from one of many refugees trapped in a room with white walls.
Have they used that same white wall as the background for the speech bubble you see here?
Escaping war and persecution has become routine, even in Australian hotels that have made bank from Australian government contracts.
As I was walking by, I was very lucky to photograph this small gap in space and time.
Could you say that the more people who show solidarity with their struggle, the bigger their bodies appear in these types of photos?
For sure!"
(Sculpture made from cardboard. Location: Barkley Street, Footscray, Australia)
"There is no window. They don't want me to see you. It's horrible, I cannot breathe."
(Imprisoned Refugee, Park Hotel, Carlton.)
DIARY OF AN UNOFFICIAL WAR ARTIST.
€PI$ODE 7:
"You can get quite a shock when a large face emerges right next to you....but from a distant location.
To capture this moment in a photo was quite difficult, especially as it was very sudden and jolting.
I believe this gesture may have come from one of many refugees trapped in a room with white walls.
Have they used that same white wall as the background for the speech bubble you see here?
Escaping war and persecution has become routine, even in Australian hotels that have made bank from Australian government contracts.
As I was walking by, I was very lucky to photograph this small gap in space and time.
Could you say that the more people who show solidarity with their struggle, the bigger their bodies appear in these types of photos?
For sure!"
(Sculpture made from cardboard. Location: Barkley Street, Footscray, Australia)
(Below)
Diary of an unofficial war artist.
€pi$ode 6
This sculpture did not take 20 years to make - the length of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. It took about six hours.
The child here, derived from some sketches, and born beneath some muddy footprints of Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan, can be found in an earlier painting study (as they fought a Trump-tank in the heart of Iraq).
Couldn't work out if she was whispering into the ear of her pre-covid teddy bear. But the safest spot to hide seemed to be in a nearby creek, where a neighbour's soccer ball had drifted 5km downstream.
Either way, planting this slice of Afghanistan at the recent anti-imperialism protest in Melbourne, Australia, proved what we always knew: she was in the resistance, and that a Biden-led USA was going to be just as difficult for her team.
(Location, footpath outside State Library Victoria, Australia, 27th Nov 2020. 2nd photo by Robin Scott. Lightweight sculpture made from cardboard, second hand clothing, paper mache, pvc café blinds, other stuff, 2020).
@workersartcollective
@redflag.sa @vic_socialists
#streetsculpture #streetartmelbourne #carboardart #waterart #occupationofafghanistan #warcrimes #saswarcrimes #imperialism #usimperialism @dreadscottart #covidartcrisis #pandemicart #terrain #afghanistan
Diary of an unofficial war artist.
€pi$ode 6
This sculpture did not take 20 years to make - the length of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. It took about six hours.
The child here, derived from some sketches, and born beneath some muddy footprints of Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan, can be found in an earlier painting study (as they fought a Trump-tank in the heart of Iraq).
Couldn't work out if she was whispering into the ear of her pre-covid teddy bear. But the safest spot to hide seemed to be in a nearby creek, where a neighbour's soccer ball had drifted 5km downstream.
Either way, planting this slice of Afghanistan at the recent anti-imperialism protest in Melbourne, Australia, proved what we always knew: she was in the resistance, and that a Biden-led USA was going to be just as difficult for her team.
(Location, footpath outside State Library Victoria, Australia, 27th Nov 2020. 2nd photo by Robin Scott. Lightweight sculpture made from cardboard, second hand clothing, paper mache, pvc café blinds, other stuff, 2020).
@workersartcollective
@redflag.sa @vic_socialists
#streetsculpture #streetartmelbourne #carboardart #waterart #occupationofafghanistan #warcrimes #saswarcrimes #imperialism #usimperialism @dreadscottart #covidartcrisis #pandemicart #terrain #afghanistan
(below) So.......after the Covid Pandemic hits the world, I've gone back to some sculpture to put up on the streets!!
Here's a new sculpture piece for the streets (at some point in the future). What do you think of it?
Took a break from street sculpture a few years back, and now feels like a good time to continue where I left off.
Using mostly second hand materials including cardboard boxes, cafe blinds and 2nd hand clothing, it is an attempt at expressing the anxiety felt by many during the pandemic when the wealthy corporate sector of society screams for a return to business as usual, to restore profit margins at the expense of human life and the natural environment.
Here's a new sculpture piece for the streets (at some point in the future). What do you think of it?
Took a break from street sculpture a few years back, and now feels like a good time to continue where I left off.
Using mostly second hand materials including cardboard boxes, cafe blinds and 2nd hand clothing, it is an attempt at expressing the anxiety felt by many during the pandemic when the wealthy corporate sector of society screams for a return to business as usual, to restore profit margins at the expense of human life and the natural environment.
(above) The sculptures above are some of the latest works done in 2020.
(below) A photo of a refugee sculpture for a Refugee Action Collective fundraiser in December 2016. The photo was taken in my kitchen. These sculptures are made with cheap materials (2nd hand clothes, paper mache, cling wrap for casting, newspaper etc)
(below) This sculpture called #BorderForce was censored after only 3 hours of being exhibited at a gallery at Collins Place, Melbourne. (see blow for further details)
(above) A Student Cut in Half (no more cuts to education - 2013)
This is a video of a student cut in half . It is a street sculpture that was created in 2013 (this video only just edited in 2016), and aims to highlight the way governments and corporations around the world are destroying our public education. Instead they fund wars and borders to punish refugees.
This is a video of a student cut in half . It is a street sculpture that was created in 2013 (this video only just edited in 2016), and aims to highlight the way governments and corporations around the world are destroying our public education. Instead they fund wars and borders to punish refugees.
(above) Showing you a video experiment of one of my sculptures. Thanks Juan Pablo Pizarro for shooting the video. The sculpture featured was used in a free West Papua exhibition in 2015 (see below). I'm attempting to create movement in the sculpture without the use of digital effects.
Above) This is a photo taken of a sculpture that was made in solidarity with West Papuan independence from Indonesian rule and also in support of the overall struggle against rampant exploitation and destruction of people and the natural environment by capitalist forces. And in this case it's U.S based company Freeport represented by the hand pulling at the clothing from behind. (Some new photos will be available soon). The exhibition is called Sampari, and will run from Dec 4th to Dec 14th, 2015, Australian Catholic University Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. There has been other events during the show such as spoken word and films. Here's the statement from the exhibition facebook page:
The exhibition is designed to inspire a bounty of imagery and knowledge about West Papua as......
a bounded territory of extraordinary physical beauty (albeit being plundered).....
an ancient landmass of complex geologies
(albeit being exploited).....
a living museum of rare flora and fauna
(albeit being flogged in black markets).....
the homeland of an indigenous peoples whose footprints dominate ancient time and space as much as their inquiries are determining today’s geophysical domains and political arenas.
There will be a week of events, talks, films, food and art at the ACU gallery.
The exhibition is designed to inspire a bounty of imagery and knowledge about West Papua as......
a bounded territory of extraordinary physical beauty (albeit being plundered).....
an ancient landmass of complex geologies
(albeit being exploited).....
a living museum of rare flora and fauna
(albeit being flogged in black markets).....
the homeland of an indigenous peoples whose footprints dominate ancient time and space as much as their inquiries are determining today’s geophysical domains and political arenas.
There will be a week of events, talks, films, food and art at the ACU gallery.
(above) November, 2015 - A new exhibition of a new sculpture of mine. It's called "Off to Christmas Island (End Mandatory Detention)" - a reference to this holiday period and the joy that many children feel as they take off school for holidays. Only some end up in Australia's refugee detention system and suffer for indeterminate periods along with all refugees illegally detained. This work is particularly inspired by the teachers' strike at Yeronga State High School, November 17 to free 21-year-old Mojgan Shamsalipoor from immigration detention. Get to this if you can! It's at Northcote Gallery window space! 234 High St, Northcote, Victoria, Australia. It will be there for 2 weeks! More updates soon!
(above) Here's my sculpture on location for the Big West Festival 2015 (November 20th to 28th). The picture to the left is a test photo done at home. Very happy with the sculpture and there were some great reactions from people. The festival theme is around public housing and the lack of it. Controversy almost immediately but I won't go into that just yet - I will be placing it out there tomorrow morning and hopefully the rest of the week! A big thanks to those who helped!! Here's my original statement about the sculpture (it was going to be a different artwork from the beginning but I think the statement still suits it):
In the middle of their night time sleep, people are raided by state forces that frame them for 'extremist' activity. They face terms in prison even though there's no evidence that can convict them in court. It doesn't take long to work out they're being abused by a strategic government objective to scapegoat refugees and migrants (especially those from the middle east) in order to distract from a government / big business mission to strip away our rights to free healthcare and education through their ongoing privatization plans. Their efforts to lower our wages even further, and to divide us in the workplace by attacking our unions, is standard practise, while they do absolutely nothing to stop environmental catastrophe. Add to this their overt participation in expensive, murderous war ventures that adds to the desperation of refugees. All so the market can run smoothly and profits can increase. Isn't this the terror we face? Isn't this extremism?
And to add salt to our wounds, we're told that to become aware of all this, and to act upon it to change the world for the better, we're becoming radicalised or extreme in our views. Surely this isn't extreme behaviour. Isn't this radicalisation a perfectly rational thing to do given the circumstances we face?
The sculpture changed into an entirely new thing?
It's worth making a note here that my sculpture has evolved quite a lot since the first proposal because of the lack of clarity on the part of Big West Festival organisers as to the location of the artwork. Read below for a summary of what transpired during the festival.
november 25th, 2015
ok, so I don't usually back down when I'm told to shift my sculpture from a designated space for a festival. I put an artwork proposal called 'Sleepless Nights' into the Big West Festival 2015 (which has a theme around housing) of a person lying down, and it's been incredibly hard to get a confirmation from the festival organizers and Maribyrnong Council as to where I could exhibit it. Eventually, I was convinced that I could have a spot in public beside a toilet block next to the Big West House display (cnr Paisley and French st Footscray). Anyway, it was better than nothing, and the sculpture had to be in public. After 2 days of exhibiting, 2 ambulances had come to the artwork, which is a great sign that people actually care, despite the fact that neo-liberal governments and their severe cuts to public education, health and housing, put people on the streets in greater numbers with less ambulances to go round. Instead of the festival leaving the work where it was, and pointing the finger at the government and big business for their privatization of public health services, the festival organisers go in to panic mode and hide the sculpture. They've urged that I exhibit it indoors in another festival space called MetroWest in Footscray (see image insert), and I have accepted this decision very very reluctantly. The sculpture loses much of its power indoors (as many people have also told me) - a fact I know. But I did begin to feel guilty that when an ambulance is called because of a public artwork (twice), you morally cannot exhibit it because you are taking away a precious health resource that is meant for real people, not a sculpture. What was I to do? Probably the toughest dilemma I've been in with my art. I then begin to regain a more realistic consciousness and ask the question: What/who has been ferociously taking away and gutting this democratic right to free health/housing that turns it into this 'precious' commodity, over the last 4 decades? It's definitely not the poor, nor art for that matter. Answer: Neo liberalism and the governments that embrace it. Oh, and of course, neo liberalism is the dirty bathwater of a disgustingly filth-ridden and destructive capitalism......It's why the festival and the local council gets away with hiding truths about our society and the reality of inequality. Lesson: no more Big West Fest for me in future.
In the middle of their night time sleep, people are raided by state forces that frame them for 'extremist' activity. They face terms in prison even though there's no evidence that can convict them in court. It doesn't take long to work out they're being abused by a strategic government objective to scapegoat refugees and migrants (especially those from the middle east) in order to distract from a government / big business mission to strip away our rights to free healthcare and education through their ongoing privatization plans. Their efforts to lower our wages even further, and to divide us in the workplace by attacking our unions, is standard practise, while they do absolutely nothing to stop environmental catastrophe. Add to this their overt participation in expensive, murderous war ventures that adds to the desperation of refugees. All so the market can run smoothly and profits can increase. Isn't this the terror we face? Isn't this extremism?
And to add salt to our wounds, we're told that to become aware of all this, and to act upon it to change the world for the better, we're becoming radicalised or extreme in our views. Surely this isn't extreme behaviour. Isn't this radicalisation a perfectly rational thing to do given the circumstances we face?
The sculpture changed into an entirely new thing?
It's worth making a note here that my sculpture has evolved quite a lot since the first proposal because of the lack of clarity on the part of Big West Festival organisers as to the location of the artwork. Read below for a summary of what transpired during the festival.
november 25th, 2015
ok, so I don't usually back down when I'm told to shift my sculpture from a designated space for a festival. I put an artwork proposal called 'Sleepless Nights' into the Big West Festival 2015 (which has a theme around housing) of a person lying down, and it's been incredibly hard to get a confirmation from the festival organizers and Maribyrnong Council as to where I could exhibit it. Eventually, I was convinced that I could have a spot in public beside a toilet block next to the Big West House display (cnr Paisley and French st Footscray). Anyway, it was better than nothing, and the sculpture had to be in public. After 2 days of exhibiting, 2 ambulances had come to the artwork, which is a great sign that people actually care, despite the fact that neo-liberal governments and their severe cuts to public education, health and housing, put people on the streets in greater numbers with less ambulances to go round. Instead of the festival leaving the work where it was, and pointing the finger at the government and big business for their privatization of public health services, the festival organisers go in to panic mode and hide the sculpture. They've urged that I exhibit it indoors in another festival space called MetroWest in Footscray (see image insert), and I have accepted this decision very very reluctantly. The sculpture loses much of its power indoors (as many people have also told me) - a fact I know. But I did begin to feel guilty that when an ambulance is called because of a public artwork (twice), you morally cannot exhibit it because you are taking away a precious health resource that is meant for real people, not a sculpture. What was I to do? Probably the toughest dilemma I've been in with my art. I then begin to regain a more realistic consciousness and ask the question: What/who has been ferociously taking away and gutting this democratic right to free health/housing that turns it into this 'precious' commodity, over the last 4 decades? It's definitely not the poor, nor art for that matter. Answer: Neo liberalism and the governments that embrace it. Oh, and of course, neo liberalism is the dirty bathwater of a disgustingly filth-ridden and destructive capitalism......It's why the festival and the local council gets away with hiding truths about our society and the reality of inequality. Lesson: no more Big West Fest for me in future.
(above - inset) The Sculpture placed indoors at MetroWest, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia.
Here's the results! (below)
#PensionerHandstand #RevolutionaryPensioner
Thanks to those that helped on the day!(24th June, 2015)
Where? Burke St Mall, Melbourne CBD. Australia.
#PensionerHandstand #RevolutionaryPensioner
Thanks to those that helped on the day!(24th June, 2015)
Where? Burke St Mall, Melbourne CBD. Australia.
In hobsons bay Leader (melbourne's west). I'd seen Larissa MacFarlane's cool paste-ups and wanted to place the #pensionerhandstand right next to one of them (on the day before the extravaganza installation in Melbourne's Burke St mall). Called in a Leader paper (Murdoch Press) photographer who's forced to take staged pics like this.......
The Other Rudd by Maxine Beneba Clarke
(Click here) This article appeared in the Saturday Paper.
The motionless body appears to commando-crawl across the Melbourne CBD pavement, one leg desperately trying to gain traction. The crawler, head down, wears dark jeans, an orange hoodie, worn sneakers. The body’s been sliced clean in two, precariously close to the tram tracks. Its insides are made of flat, box-cut cardboard, the words NO MORE CUTS TO EDUCATION scrawled on with black marker.
The second time I stumble upon a body like this, I’m passing a Footscray building site. Arms reach out of the construction fence: blue gloves over pleading fingers. A tracksuit-panted knee protrudes, a sneakered foot. Pedestrians and drivers-by triple-take at the suspended-in-struggle, trying-to-climb-through-from-nowhere body. Bold block letters on a white sign read: REFUGEE.
There’s an anonymity about artist Van T. Rudd, even in person. Sitting in a cafe in Melbourne’s west, for what will become the first of our many meetings, he’s cloaked in faded comfy-casuals, much like those that adorn his artworks.
“It’s not ‘gallery art’,” he says, running a hand over his thin grey-black ponytail. “People don’t see it as having intrinsic value.” Rudd’s gestures are understated. He speaks softly, as if being extra careful not to damage his escaping thoughts. “And it’s probably also my politics.”
In 2008, in a controversy that made headlines around Australia, Rudd’s Banksy homage depicting Ronald McDonald setting fire to a monk with the Olympic torch was rejected by the City of Melbourne for a scheduled exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City. On Australia Day 2010, Rudd and a fellow member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits holding “Racism: Made in Australia” signs outside the Australian Open tennis, protesting against the Victorian government’s refusal to treat recent attacks on Indian people in Melbourne as racially motivated. The two were charged with attempting to incite a riot. Later that year Rudd followed his uncle, former prime minister Kevin Rudd, into federal politics, spiritedly but unsuccessfully contesting then prime minister Julia Gillard’s seat of Lalor. “When people can’t see past your politics, you sometimes don’t get offered opportunities other artists do.”
The sketchbook in front of Rudd contains preliminary lead sketches for Pensioner Handstand, a comment on government cuts to healthcare and the pension. A childlike, handstanding figure is outlined on the open page.
“I just got an idea,” I say hesitantly. “Speaking of unlikely opportunities … I actually just wrote a kids’ picture book. I haven’t found an illustrator.”
Rudd raises an eyebrow, asks me to send him the text.
The grassy backyard of Rudd’s modest housing co-op rental backs on to an oval. While I chat with Rudd and his partner, Tania, neighbourhood kids wander through to use the secret entrance cut into the fence, Rudd’s loping dog, Django, sniffing around them. Our combined primary-aged brood have moved past the initial staring-shyly-at-each-other stage and are enthusiastically padding a wire basket with grass to make a “bird’s nest”.
Inside the house, Rudd moves aside a dragon and fully functioning foot-long car he has designed for his two kids to show me his casting technique. He wraps his lower leg with cling wrap, grabs a wide roll of sticky tape and tightly wraps the tape around and around the cling wrap, until a thick, hard layer has formed. Carefully, he slices the clear cast off with scissors, tapes it together at the join, and shoves newspaper inside to retain the shape. “I do most of the bodies like this, but I adjust them where I need to.”
Sketching back A couple of months after our first cafe meeting, I’m emailed a suite of photographs of exquisite oil-painted illustrations. The scenes are painted on old cardboard packing boxes. The works are raw, eerie, enchanting. The kind of reach-into-the-author’s-subconscious imaginings that make me realise, somewhat uneasily, that during the weeks I’ve been visiting Rudd to collect material for this piece, the artist has been quietly sketching back. I forward the illustrations to my publisher. “Holy fuck,” he replies.
On exhibition day, Rudd and I meet on the steps of Flinders Street Station. Pensioner Handstand is hoisted over his shoulder. Her body’s withered: flesh sunken, with a slightly twisted hip. She wears black parachute-material trousers, an old green zip-jacket and a tatty grey wig. Her collapsed walking frame leans against Rudd’s leg. Passers-by gasp at the slim Vietnamese-Australian with an elderly woman casually thrown over his shoulder. We make our way past McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Commonwealth Bank, Rudd’s down-and-out pensioner floating among startled shoppers.
Rudd settles on a spot outside a department store, near windows advertising end-of-financial-year sales. He sets up the elderly woman, handstanding on her walker, balances her cardboard protest sign: No more delusions. I want revolution. Rudd quickly moves back into the crowd. Three businessmen stop in their tracks, discuss the installation. A woman shoves a $5 note into the pensioner’s shopping bag. The local Big Issue seller comes over for a better look. A group of schoolchildren discuss the work with their teacher, gently prod the pensioner, as if testing whether or not she’s alive.
Van fidgets. “It’s time to go.” The artist seems genuinely uncomfortable – not because of potential police questioning, to which he’s well accustomed by now, but because there’s a very real emotional investment in the work. The not knowing what’s going to happen to her is difficult.
We walk on for a moment, in silence. “Did you get the illustration contracts?” I finally ask. “You know how we don’t use the front door of our place?” he says, “Well, the postman dropped the contracts there. In a priority express envelope and everything. The parcel sat at the front door for days. A local kid found it, and brought it round the back and said. ‘Hey, Van, I think this might be for you.’ And I said ‘Oh! Thank you for bringing that in. I’ve been expecting that. It’s a very important document.”
(Click here) This article appeared in the Saturday Paper.
The motionless body appears to commando-crawl across the Melbourne CBD pavement, one leg desperately trying to gain traction. The crawler, head down, wears dark jeans, an orange hoodie, worn sneakers. The body’s been sliced clean in two, precariously close to the tram tracks. Its insides are made of flat, box-cut cardboard, the words NO MORE CUTS TO EDUCATION scrawled on with black marker.
The second time I stumble upon a body like this, I’m passing a Footscray building site. Arms reach out of the construction fence: blue gloves over pleading fingers. A tracksuit-panted knee protrudes, a sneakered foot. Pedestrians and drivers-by triple-take at the suspended-in-struggle, trying-to-climb-through-from-nowhere body. Bold block letters on a white sign read: REFUGEE.
There’s an anonymity about artist Van T. Rudd, even in person. Sitting in a cafe in Melbourne’s west, for what will become the first of our many meetings, he’s cloaked in faded comfy-casuals, much like those that adorn his artworks.
“It’s not ‘gallery art’,” he says, running a hand over his thin grey-black ponytail. “People don’t see it as having intrinsic value.” Rudd’s gestures are understated. He speaks softly, as if being extra careful not to damage his escaping thoughts. “And it’s probably also my politics.”
In 2008, in a controversy that made headlines around Australia, Rudd’s Banksy homage depicting Ronald McDonald setting fire to a monk with the Olympic torch was rejected by the City of Melbourne for a scheduled exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City. On Australia Day 2010, Rudd and a fellow member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits holding “Racism: Made in Australia” signs outside the Australian Open tennis, protesting against the Victorian government’s refusal to treat recent attacks on Indian people in Melbourne as racially motivated. The two were charged with attempting to incite a riot. Later that year Rudd followed his uncle, former prime minister Kevin Rudd, into federal politics, spiritedly but unsuccessfully contesting then prime minister Julia Gillard’s seat of Lalor. “When people can’t see past your politics, you sometimes don’t get offered opportunities other artists do.”
The sketchbook in front of Rudd contains preliminary lead sketches for Pensioner Handstand, a comment on government cuts to healthcare and the pension. A childlike, handstanding figure is outlined on the open page.
“I just got an idea,” I say hesitantly. “Speaking of unlikely opportunities … I actually just wrote a kids’ picture book. I haven’t found an illustrator.”
Rudd raises an eyebrow, asks me to send him the text.
The grassy backyard of Rudd’s modest housing co-op rental backs on to an oval. While I chat with Rudd and his partner, Tania, neighbourhood kids wander through to use the secret entrance cut into the fence, Rudd’s loping dog, Django, sniffing around them. Our combined primary-aged brood have moved past the initial staring-shyly-at-each-other stage and are enthusiastically padding a wire basket with grass to make a “bird’s nest”.
Inside the house, Rudd moves aside a dragon and fully functioning foot-long car he has designed for his two kids to show me his casting technique. He wraps his lower leg with cling wrap, grabs a wide roll of sticky tape and tightly wraps the tape around and around the cling wrap, until a thick, hard layer has formed. Carefully, he slices the clear cast off with scissors, tapes it together at the join, and shoves newspaper inside to retain the shape. “I do most of the bodies like this, but I adjust them where I need to.”
Sketching back A couple of months after our first cafe meeting, I’m emailed a suite of photographs of exquisite oil-painted illustrations. The scenes are painted on old cardboard packing boxes. The works are raw, eerie, enchanting. The kind of reach-into-the-author’s-subconscious imaginings that make me realise, somewhat uneasily, that during the weeks I’ve been visiting Rudd to collect material for this piece, the artist has been quietly sketching back. I forward the illustrations to my publisher. “Holy fuck,” he replies.
On exhibition day, Rudd and I meet on the steps of Flinders Street Station. Pensioner Handstand is hoisted over his shoulder. Her body’s withered: flesh sunken, with a slightly twisted hip. She wears black parachute-material trousers, an old green zip-jacket and a tatty grey wig. Her collapsed walking frame leans against Rudd’s leg. Passers-by gasp at the slim Vietnamese-Australian with an elderly woman casually thrown over his shoulder. We make our way past McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Commonwealth Bank, Rudd’s down-and-out pensioner floating among startled shoppers.
Rudd settles on a spot outside a department store, near windows advertising end-of-financial-year sales. He sets up the elderly woman, handstanding on her walker, balances her cardboard protest sign: No more delusions. I want revolution. Rudd quickly moves back into the crowd. Three businessmen stop in their tracks, discuss the installation. A woman shoves a $5 note into the pensioner’s shopping bag. The local Big Issue seller comes over for a better look. A group of schoolchildren discuss the work with their teacher, gently prod the pensioner, as if testing whether or not she’s alive.
Van fidgets. “It’s time to go.” The artist seems genuinely uncomfortable – not because of potential police questioning, to which he’s well accustomed by now, but because there’s a very real emotional investment in the work. The not knowing what’s going to happen to her is difficult.
We walk on for a moment, in silence. “Did you get the illustration contracts?” I finally ask. “You know how we don’t use the front door of our place?” he says, “Well, the postman dropped the contracts there. In a priority express envelope and everything. The parcel sat at the front door for days. A local kid found it, and brought it round the back and said. ‘Hey, Van, I think this might be for you.’ And I said ‘Oh! Thank you for bringing that in. I’ve been expecting that. It’s a very important document.”
#RevolutionaryPensioner comes to Melbourne!
Press Release
#RevolutionaryPensioner
#PensionerHandstand in Melbourne's CBD on Wednesday June 24th, 12.30pm,
phone Van T Rudd on 0430 397 074 asap for the exact location
(Please see attached preview image)
Van T Rudd's new 'Hyper-realistic' street sculpture of a pension age woman doing a handstand on a walking frame, will hit a busy street in Melbourne's CBD on Wednesday, June 24th, 12.30pm. Rudd is positive that many people, young and old, will engage with the work and spread it on their social media networks.
Rudd has constructed a sculpture using materials such as cling wrap, packaging tape, 2nd hand clothes, and MX newspapers to deliver a very realistic sculpture that should stop passers-by in their tracks. The artist shares a similar sculpture-making approach to US street artist Mark Jenkins, arguably the pioneer of this cost-saving method. They have chatted via email and shared ideas.
The "hyper real" sculpture, part of a series of street sculptures by Rudd, targets the Abott government's recent budget as an ongoing attack on the elderly. A plackard on the pensioner's walking frame that reads, "No More Delusions, I want Revolution" may seem too radical for some, but according to various statistics pensioners continue to live below the poverty line in Australia, and it's getting worse.
It is also a play on words and action, challenging the commonly held perceptions: How can older people fight back? Aren't they too weak?
Rudd, not a stranger to art and controversy, hopes the sculpture will inspire a social media frenzy around the world, because it is not only in Australia that older people are being impoverished, but in places like Greece where the aged are going to such lengths as committing suicide because of financial hardship, unemployment, poverty and the shame associated.
Van T Rudd's new website: http://van-t-rudd.weebly.com
contact number: 0430 397 074
email: van.rudd1@gmail.com
#RevolutionaryPensioner
#PensionerHandstand in Melbourne's CBD on Wednesday June 24th, 12.30pm,
phone Van T Rudd on 0430 397 074 asap for the exact location
(Please see attached preview image)
Van T Rudd's new 'Hyper-realistic' street sculpture of a pension age woman doing a handstand on a walking frame, will hit a busy street in Melbourne's CBD on Wednesday, June 24th, 12.30pm. Rudd is positive that many people, young and old, will engage with the work and spread it on their social media networks.
Rudd has constructed a sculpture using materials such as cling wrap, packaging tape, 2nd hand clothes, and MX newspapers to deliver a very realistic sculpture that should stop passers-by in their tracks. The artist shares a similar sculpture-making approach to US street artist Mark Jenkins, arguably the pioneer of this cost-saving method. They have chatted via email and shared ideas.
The "hyper real" sculpture, part of a series of street sculptures by Rudd, targets the Abott government's recent budget as an ongoing attack on the elderly. A plackard on the pensioner's walking frame that reads, "No More Delusions, I want Revolution" may seem too radical for some, but according to various statistics pensioners continue to live below the poverty line in Australia, and it's getting worse.
It is also a play on words and action, challenging the commonly held perceptions: How can older people fight back? Aren't they too weak?
Rudd, not a stranger to art and controversy, hopes the sculpture will inspire a social media frenzy around the world, because it is not only in Australia that older people are being impoverished, but in places like Greece where the aged are going to such lengths as committing suicide because of financial hardship, unemployment, poverty and the shame associated.
Van T Rudd's new website: http://van-t-rudd.weebly.com
contact number: 0430 397 074
email: van.rudd1@gmail.com
See more sculptures below.
(below) Street Sculpture, corner St Kilda Rd and Southbank Boulevard, Melbourne CBD (2014)
(below) Street Sculpture, corner St Kilda Rd and Southbank Boulevard, Melbourne CBD (2014)
The above sculpture was created in support of tertiary education campaigns in Australia that are against the Abbott government's budget cuts to higher education. Below is some documentation of the creative process. As you can see to the right in this picture (taken with my mobile phone), there is some use of clear packaging tape and newspaper stuffed inside the outer layers.
And below shows some of the basic text design using photoshop. I played around with the order of the boxes (boxes supplied by Nicolas Jorquera from his workplace - thanks!) until I found the right composition.
(above) No More Cuts to Education, Melbourne, Australia (2013)
(above) No More Cuts to Education, Melbourne, Australia (2013)
(above) Fuck the Cuts (to education), University of Melbourne, Australia (2013)
(above) Fuck the Cuts (to education), University of Melbourne, Australia (2013)
(Above and right) Wounded Soldier, University of Melbourne, AUstralia, Festival of Ideas, curated by Matthew Fitch (2013-14)
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(above) Wounded Soldier on Princes Bridge during ANZAC Day, 2013.
(above) Wounded Soldier on Princes Bridge during ANZAC Day, 2013.
(above) Wounded Soldier on Princes Bridge during ANZAC Day, 2013.
(above) Wounded Soldier on Princes Bridge during ANZAC Day, 2013. Police removing the sculpture. Please see the video version of this exhibition under the 'video' section of this site.
(above) Free Gaza Footballer, Footscray, Melbourne, 2013
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(above) Free Gaza Footballer, Footscray, Melbourne, 2013
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(Right and above) Con Pasos Lento mi cuerpo se regresar a la lucha, (translation: I slowly return to the class struggle). Santiago, Chile (2012). The day before this was installed, Santiago was once again filled with over 100 000 protesting students against the neo-liberal policies of the government. This sculpture was dedicated to those protests.
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(above) Baillieu Stole My Education, Laneways Festival, Footscray, Australia. (I think this was in 2013?) This sculpture was inspired by the protests against the State government of Victoria's budget cuts to Technical and Further Education (TAFE) courses. Was a fun exhibition! I hadn't done one for a music festival yet.
(above) Refugee, Footscray, Australia (2012)
(above) Refugee, Footscray, Australia (2012)