Our group has come to the conclusion that there is, in fact, art present in the CBD/city outside of the National Art Gallery. This has been backed up with questionnaires, photographic evidence and secondary sources, like Google Maps.
Sculpture Exhibition
This is a card advertising a sculpture exhibition in the Melbourne CBD.
39 Reasons Why Melbourne Is The Art Capital
This is a list of 39 reasons why Melbourne is the art capital. This is a page from the Melbourne Festival information booklet that we found at Federation Square.
Flinder’s Lane Gallery
This is a photo of the previously mentioned Flinder’s Lane Gallery. We were unable to take photos inside, because it was closed at the time.
https://artgeographytte.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/map-of-art-within-the-melbourne-cbd-spatial-accotiation-map/
Graffiti
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- Example of graffiti in a narrow side street in Melbourne CBD.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
St. Paul’s Cathedral is an example of fine architecture; and to us, architecture is an art. Using this medium, nearly the entire CBD becomes a giant exhibition of art, but for the camera memory’s sake we shall only include some pictures of iconic buildings, instead of them all.
https://artgeographytte.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/map-of-art-within-the-melbourne-cbd-spatial-accotiation-map/
Aboriginal Art
An example of Aboriginal-styled art we found near City Square (corner of Swanston St and Collins St). This picture is marked on the map.
https://artgeographytte.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/map-of-art-within-the-melbourne-cbd-spatial-accotiation-map/
Map of Art within the Melbourne CBD (Spatial Accotiation Map)
The black ‘x’s are the locations where some of our photos of art in the CBD were taken (we were in a hurry, and the cameras kept failing us, so some of the locations were not marked), and as shown the majority of the ‘x’s are close to and on Russel Street. They also seem to be on major streets, where the footpaths are wider as opposed to smaller ones.
The artworks displayed in the CBD mostly seem to follow a straight line and if you continue walking, you will soon come across another artwork. They also seems to follow a theme, as the artwork around Chinatown has a distinct Chinese feel to it while contemporary and Aboriginal art are located in other, neutral regions of the CBD.
Map of Art Galleries in Melbourne CBD (Distribution Map)
This is a map of different art galleries in the Melbourne CBD. These include RMIT Gallery (C), The Old Treasury Building (D), Flinders Lane Gallery (F), Kirra Galleries – Federation Square (G), Karen Woodbury Gallery (H), Birrarung Marr (I) and Ian Potter Centre (J).
The majority of the art galleries are located close to the Yarra River, either along or close to Flinders Lane. This seems to be for convenience, as people looking for art/art galleries most likely will not want to tour around the CBD for half the day. There are only two other art galleries not located in the aforementioned locations, one of them being a university gallery, so it is mainly for students to use and visit, not the public, and the other being the Old Treasury Building, making its location not unusual (that being near State Government Offices).
Survey No.2
We took a second survey from the same seven people and we asked them “Do you think that graffiti/street art is art?”. Almost all of our results reflected our own views on the matter. Six of the seven people that we surveyed answered “Yes”, which is consistent with our views. The one other person that we surveyed responded with “No”. We suspect this was because he was very traditional and he told us that “Graffiti is vandalism”.
artgeographytte 