We at pcbycp are appalled at the latest cuts in the public galleries sector.
Sacred. Another five hundred million to celebrate foreign policy disasters and the God-head of Anzackery!
And though we wring our hands in frustration there can be only one answer. Is it because the government is cynical about the arts? Does it point to an underlying cultural cringe? Does it point to the electoral gold of attaching your funding to the unquestionable shining sepulchure of Anzacdom and the eternal flame that burns brightly in homage to those who gave their lives so that politicians can indulge in appalling foreign policy?
Yes, we think to all of the above, But there has to be more,
We know that politicians don’t get society. They get real estate.
So there has to be something about the types of buldings they admire, less than the institutions themselves…
For example, have you ever thought about the nations war memorial, ??
Apart from the flags, and bunting and all those pollies willing to have their faces embroidered by the star studded cloak of Anzacdom.
Perhaps it’s something in the building itself, it’s a spirit of Graeco-Roman, Moorish and Hollywood. Sort of Romanesque late Byzantine with a bit of Busby Berkeley thrown in for good measure. And to our thinking that can only mean one thing. It’s real estate gold!
It’s not an industrial incinerator This is the National Gallery.
In Canberra that’s heritage, ! If you’ve got a house actually made before the 50’s it’s Ancient, Neolithic, Cultural and National. And that’s why all the other cultural institutions don’t rate a mention.
Look at em, They’re brutal, Take the ANG, Looks like an industrial incinerator. The Portrait Gallery, another block house to repel cultural non elites, the Museum, a Chrernobyl inspired dungeon, and the National Library, a block house.
Only one bulding projects the aura of futurism, fantasy and a sense of levity, that’s the National Science Museum dome, it looks like a flying saucer, but being in Canberra, It’ll NEVER fly! Like democracy, that’s just a illusion.
From the makers of Forbidden Planet.
We have a an approach that will work for the other cultural institutions. Make em look like military installations. Give em a dose of ANZACKERY! A lick of paint, some camoflague netting and “voila”, the ANG would rival the Zeppelinfield, and being Canberra there’s enough hot air to keep it flying…
Suggested makeover for the National Museum.
The National Museum a couple of tanks on plinth, anti aircraft guns and searchlights, and the National Library, a phalanx of katyusha rocket launchers and heavy field artillery, to show that we’re serious about literature but have no time for intelligentisia, lgbti’s or people of colour. And celebrate what we are, and our values as proudly mainstream, insular and posessed entirely of that one cultrual attainment we’re famous for.. The CRINGE!
We have enclosed some photographic suggestions for further reference, we hope someone out there will sensibly forward them to the powers that be. But being a coalition goverment, power, its origin and source is a vexed issue.
Recently Constructed AIS Aquatic Cente on Lake Burley Griffin
New Palace for Aussie Culture. Under Construction.