Melbourne

Post image for Melbourne Street Art From the Artists' Point of View

Alison Young is a lawyer and a professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, but don’t let that intimidate you. She has also extensively covered the Australian street art world, writing and teaching on the “intersection of law, crime and culture.” In Street|Studio: The Place of Street Art in Melbourne, Young works with street artists Ghostpatrol, Miso (Stanislava Pinchuk) and designer Timba Smits to create a book that documents the culture of street art in Melbourne. From introductory essays to photo spreads to in-depth interviews with artists about their work and the role of street art, Street|Studio covers everything you’d want to know about a city’s scene in a way that few other street art compendiums manage to accomplish. Beyond its excellent good looks, this is a surprisingly informative volume.

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Post image for From the Comments: A Banksy Rat & Banksia Coccinea

Lotus Johnson left this illuminating comment on Alison Young’s post “Art, Value & Banksy’s Rats in Melbourne,” which included an illustration of a stencil depicting a native Australian flower stabbing a Banksy signature animal, the rat. Turns out there’s more than meets the eye.

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Post image for Art, Value & Banksy’s Rats in Melbourne

It seems that Melbourne City Council just can’t get it right when it comes to street art, and especially when it comes to the work of Banksy: two weeks ago, they “accidentally” ordered a cleaning crew to remove one of Banksy’s iconic rats from a wall in Hosier Lane, in the centre of the city. The news of this rodent’s demise was greeted by a storm of media criticism.

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