Although I try to steer away from it, the blog is these days focused pretty heavily on the myriad interesting and illegal ways with which Melburnians decorate their streets and alleys. Spraycans, stencils, slogans, stickers, paper cutouts; grafitti has become one of Melbourne’s defining features, (and one that the authorities now cynically use to promote the city as “hip” where once they were trying to stamp it out).
But this, this must be Melbourne’s Grafitti Crown Jewel;
The wall of the Collingwood Technical College on the corner of Johnston and Wellington Streets, as decorated in 1983 by the then-little known and now hugely famous American artist, Keith Haring. This grafitti, were it removed, would be worth millions. It is now under a heritage order.
Haring visited Melbourne as an up-and-coming 19 year old, and went on to become one of the most famous and influential pop artists of his time, friend and contemporary of Andy Warhol, famous among other things for bodypainting Grace Jones (below), before dying of AIDS in the 90s.The work he left on the wall in Collingwood, as well as a few random little works around Richmond and Fitzroy, would now be the envy of many museums, and highly, highly valuable.
And yet few people in Melbourne realise its there.
