NEWS
It’s verbal aerosol cans at 20 paces as Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and his former deputy David Hinchliffe try to cover each other in blame for the removal of a striking piece of street art in Fortitude Valley.
Brisbane-born but now New York-based street artist Anthony Lister took serveral days to complete the work on a wall facing a vacant block of land between Wickham Street and Ranwell Lane. It was painted over last week by staff from the council’s graffiti reduction unit.
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman gave the Central Ward councillor the first spray, calling on Cr Hinchliffe to apologise for encouraging the street artist to “illegally vandalise” the building. Cr Hinchliffe fired back in the mainstream media this week, saying the artwork was legal, and that the graffiti reduction unit staff who painted over the work had trespassed.
Mr Lister, who has staged exhibitions in New York and London, was also reported as saying he had been given permission to do the work.
Cr Newman said Cr Hinchliffe as a councillor for more than 22 years would know that anyone seeking to carry out street art must seek approval from the building owner and advise council.
“Commonsense dictates that you would get approval from a building owner before encouraging an artist to paint a mural on it,” Cr Newman said. “Cr Hinchliffe however allowed this to go ahead without the proper approvals and now is jumping up and down about the fact that the mural was removed despite it being illegal.
“Rather than painting the hardworking members of the graffiti reduction unit in a bad light, he should have brought them into the planning process and this would have avoided the whole situation.”
Cr Newman said the unit had previously removed graffiti from the high profile site on several occasions without any incident. “The GRU is very supportive of artwork, but received no notification from the building owner, the local Councillor, or artist that work was being carried out for a mural,” Cr Newman said.
“Cr Hinchliffe is well aware that this notification must be received, but he failed to do the right thing by the artist by refusing to notify the GRU despite being up to his armpits in organising the artwork.
“Cr David Hinchliffe should apologise to the artist for misleading him into thinking that he was legally painting a mural.” Cr Newman said council would like to see the wall to be activated as it is a recurring vandalism hotspot, but the correct permissions must be sought. However he made no apologies for cracking down on graffiti vandals.
“There is a definite line between graffiti and art but when it is on private property and it hasn’t been approved, it is graffiti,” Cr Newman said.
“Graffiti is a blight on the Brisbane landscape and we make no apologies for taking the fight to these vandals to keep our city looking good.
“Members of the Taskforce Against Graffiti and the Graffiti Reduction Unit work in a proactive way with business, police and local artists and they should be commended for their work.”
The Lord Mayor has since announced council would launch a mural database to prevent commissioned street art from being painted over, and that he would like to see the Wickham Street site at the centre of the dispute become a legal public artspace.
Cr Hinchliffe had not responded to requests by The Independent for additional comment on various claims by the Lord Mayor as this issue went to press.
