After weeks of fiddling, late night working, stressing over our projects, wordpress templates (finding one that suits your site can be tricky!)  and frustrating over the fickleness of the world wide web in general, Melbourne Muse is up and running, and looking really good, if I can say so myself. We’ve made a few changes with the feedback we were given last week, adding more categories (Comments & Critiques, Getting Out & Involved), changing the overall design of the site, and of course – paying attention to our audiences. I think this was a particular concern. We had a lot of substantial material (articles, grants and workshop listings, gallery listings) but were confused as to who the site was actually for, and were particularly concerned about singling out one group or another. We decided that the site would be helpful for emerging artists and those are interested in Melbourne art – we have made our information and site design accessible to both parties.

I am pretty pleased with how the site looks and hope to keep adding content in the future. Well done group! I believe that this is what the Melbourne art community needs – a site where people can read substantial articles about the local art scene, generate discussions and hopefully build a stronger community of both emerging and more prominent artists.

Thanks for reading this semester!

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A common feedback our group received was in relation to the headings. ‘Community’ was confusing because this is where we had posted information about grants and workshops, however, classmates had originally thought this as a platform for artists to basically meet other artists and share work (which makes sense and I think this was the original intention of this page). Community has now been scrapped and we’ll be replacing this with a heading more suitable.

Another feedback received was that users couldn’t tell as to who the site was really for, whether we were artists, or art enthusiasts (although I think these distinctions are blurry especially in relation to the emerging art scene). We have been making adjustments to our site and taking into account the feedback we were given. We’ve been fixing our headings, adding categories and fixing the gallery listing to make it more user friendly – just in time for the presentation next week.

I’m getting excited about Dachshund U.N., which I covered briefly in my Indonesian-language blog site Rantang, and a few others. I’ll hopefully be writing about it (and perhaps put it up on Melbourne Muse if there is time)!

In 2008 there was a public outcry when paint was poured over a Banksy stencil of a diver wearing a trenchcoat, which was located on a laneway just off Flinders Lane. Melbourne Council has introduced a permit systems which lets building owners display graffiti and street art, however, the recent Banksy one did not have one, and therefore destroyed.

A Banksy stencil, image from SaltLakeMagazine

Here’s more Banksy in The Vine and in The Age .

Marie has created a superb gallery listing for the North side; I have yet to do a list of the rest of Melbourne. I am only familiar with the galleries in the suburbs mentioned so far (considering I live in a little bubble) so hopefully I’ll broaden my knowledge and get to know more from what the other side of the river has to offer!

I think it’s all coming along nicely… and hopefully next week we can all meet. In the mean time, any more suggestions?

‘The Slumps’ is moving up in the world. No more smelly rodent-infested back alley, smoker-packed balcony or sweaty-arm-pit art-gazing. This might be a drastic change for the Slumps, but don’t worry —the art is staying—it’s just going to be a bit classier. Melissa Loughnan, the young curator-turned-gallery owner of not-for-profit Utopian Slumps, has had three years of sell-out shows in her Collingwood space, but a shortage of public funding has made it tough. At 24, Loughnan opened the gallery as a space to show the occasional exhibition featuring experimental and emerging artists. It took off massively , and over its three years clocked up many firsts: Conor O’Brien‘s first solo show, Brendan Huntley’s first paintings, Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s first head-hitting burning saxophone. But Loughnan felt that it was “time to get a little more professional and to grow up a little bit”, and so the Utopian ideal slump has sparked a new venture into commercial art.

Founding Director of Utopian Slumps, Melissa Loughnan. Photo taken from The Age.

Okay, so ‘commercialism’ isn’t exactly a euphoria-inducing word for those trying to make it in the big-bad-art-world. Loughnan’s motives, however, are all in good order. She’ll be representing nine artists as part of the ‘commercial’ side of the new Slumps: Steven Asquith, Starlie Geikie, Nathan Gray, Misha Hollenbach, William MacKinnon, Dylan Martorell, Mark Rodda, Jake Walker and Amber Wallis. The aim is to work long-term and closely with each artist rather than doing the mere one-off show. The not-for-profit side of the Slumps will be renamed USSR (Utopian Slumps Second Round), and will function as the new gallery’s charitable outlet. In Loughnan’s words, this is “a way to continue giving back to the Melbourne art community”— a very noble gesture indeed.

Territorial Pissings opening at new CBD location at 33 Guildford Lane.

The shiny new space will be located at 33 Guildford Lane, Melbourne, and the inaugural appropriately-named show Territorial Pissings, including works by Amber Wallis, Nathan Gray and Jake Walker, will open on April 15. “The exhibition is about mark making, making a mark on the new gallery space, or marking its new territory. The theme of the opening show also references the Nirvana song of the same name, with all its glib inferences and grunge associations”, says Loughnan.
The new space is larger and somewhat grander than the Slumps’ old Collingwood haunt, situated on the ground floor of a three-level red-brick late 1800s building. Concrete will replace the previously vinyl floors, and heritage beams the timber ceiling. The main gallery will be more along the lines of the traditional white cube than its predecessor, and a cobble-stoned lane should prove very fitting for keeping up its patrons old drinking and smoking habits. “Ultimately the new space will be a slightly more grown up version of the old, with a view to its longevity”, says Loughnan. Not too shabby at all. Bring on Utopia!

By Marie Christodulaki

We thought of Melbourne specific art works that we could name our site after. No luck here, either.

Help!

I guess this is something we really have to narrow down and focus on. Originally the site was intended for artists and people who are interested in arts news and events, however, the site being used by patron audiences was also a notion brought up. Connecting all these groups is something that both Marie and Damien discuss. I think the key thing to do is to build a site that can bring all these groups together and thus create a positive online art community. The last thing we want is for artists, patrons and the general public to feel segregated from one another.