CDH, a Melbourne street artist, recently sat down with the NGVs David Hurlston on behalf of Invurt, to talk about street art, as well as the new NGV Studio in Melbournes Federation Square  …

As the acting Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery for Victoria, David Hurlston is the man responsible for the entirety of the Australian Art Collection in Victoria. The collection at the NGV includes the first non-indigenous Australian works, all the way through to contemporary art. On top of this, David has also recently taken on co-supervision of the newly opened NGV Studio in Federation Square (with Deborah Ratliff),

You may have heard of this space in recent months, and the very first exhibition in the new studio space is a month long residency by Melbournes Everfresh crew. Everfresh competed against three other crews (AWOL, SDM and the Formula One crew), by painting a 25m long wall inside the space. Votes were then cast via new media (Twitter and Facebook) to determine who would occupy the space –with the Everfresh crew taking out the honours.

David is a champion for street art in Melbourne; someone who is helping it to be recognized as a legitimate part of our culture and true art movement. He’s also a really nice guy – halfway through the conversation that I had with David last week, an elderly Chinese man came up and asked for assistance sending a text message – and David patiently helped him for a good 15 minutes …

This is going to be a difficult question,  but what do you think are the future directions for street art, and where is it likely to go?

Yeah that is a tricky one. You talked before about how this moment is a tipping point, and it’s an interesting observation.

The first real experience I had in exhibiting street art was in the 1990s, when I was involved with the NGV’s Access Gallery. We did an exhibition then with the Victorian Association of Youth and Communities with a guy called Joe Morris. At that time, it was a bit daring to be doing a street art exhibition. We got a lot of criticism with people saying ‘This belongs on the street. It doesn’t belong in a gallery.’ There’s a little bit of that around, still, but people are far more accepting of street art holding its own in the gallery forum, and it not being seen as necessarily compromising its integrity. I’d hate to see it gentrified to the extent that everyone accepts it, because it’s that edge of the law aspect that makes it attractive and gives it vibrancy and strength. Then you look at people like Banksy or Basquait where it is becoming more accepted as a part of contemporary art. I think the future direction may be just that; that it becomes increasingly accepted as another form of contemporary artistic practice.

But does street art have to exist inside of a gallery to be accepted as part of a ‘legitimate’ art scene? Can it continue to exist in the street and still be awarded recognition for being artistically significant?

Well, I’d like to think so, because I think that’s what keeps it real. What we don’t want to do is sanitize it. That’s part of what we’re trying to do with the Studio Space. Artists occupy it, and feel like it’s theirs. We’re not about curating exhibitions of street art. It’s about providing an opportunity, a space and an audience. I think it has to stay in the streets to remain real, relevant and legitimate. Its origins are in protest art and the work Keith Haring was doing in the ‘80s. The NGV has had a long association with these types of artists. Keith Haring painted the wall [water wall at the entrance to the NGV] and so did Barry McGee. I think we can embrace that, yet at the same time recognise that it’s an art form that has its origins in the streets.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in LA has an exhibition on at the moment called ‘Art in the Streets’ which documents the history of graffiti art. The exhibition curator has described many of the artists as “outlaws” who are not used to “exhibiting in a normal gallery setting”, which has made it more difficult to curate. Have you had any similar problems with the Studio Space?

No, not at all. We’ve set up the Studio Space to accommodate artists at the peripheries of contemporary art practice. We expect to be dealing with artists that are not used the normal gallery structure.

When we can, we pass on a few skills in presentation and display techniques but we try to allow for as much flexibility as possible. We want the artists to feel that it’s their space and allow them to do what they want to do.

‘Art in the Streets’ has been an overwhelming commercial success, largely on the back of the publicity surrounding its controversy. What’s has the traffic, and the public reaction, been in regards to Everfresh being in the Studio Space?

We’re not trying to set-up a controversy or anything like that. It’s been an interesting range of responses. In the main it has been incredibly positive. It’s been surprising but a lot of older audiences have made really positive comments about being able to witness street artists at work. I’m not aware of any really negative reactions. There probably are, but we’ll take that as it comes. We’re not setting out to be controversial, but at the same time, we’re not about to water it down. We want this to be relevant and real. There will be some rough edges, and there might be some stuff that does potentially upset some people, but we don’t really make any apology for that, because, in the end, we want it to work for the audience and, particularly, for the artists.

I notice it’s not just an exhibition of art. The artists’ working area is the most visible location within the space. Is this a deliberate decision to put an emphasis on the spectacle of street art as much as the actual art, as you were saying to allow people to see the artists at work?

Well, we didn’t set out to do that. Really we gave the space to Everfresh and it was for them to decide how they wanted to set it up. They came through while it was still a building site. They took photos and even photographed the builder’s plans on the floor. Then they started to lay it all out, think about it and started to send ideas in. As we’re a tenant and the space is managed by Federation Square Pty Ltd, they have to approve things like treatment on the glass etc. So we got a few things off and running. But the final arrangement of the space was really their choice. It’s as the name suggests; we’d like to think of it as a studio. It’s a space where we can have exhibitions but we can have events as well. In the future we could be doing things that will have no pictures on walls. It’s not a traditional gallery setting, which is about having artwork nicely presented. It could be a performance. It could be lots of different things.

We’re referring to it as an exhibitions and events space, with the idea being that it can be used in a whole bunch of different ways – we certainly didn’t set out to create a fishbowl of artists at work.

*Laughs* That’s a good turn of phrase!

Is the NGV giving a stamp of approval or an endorsement to street art with this show? As an example, if one of the artists in this show was arrested (as Revok was in LA) would you go to court to argue against a charge of vandalism?

It’s an interesting question, because it’s something I’ve already had to face along the process up until now. I suppose to some extent we are giving an endorsement to street art, but at the same time I think what we’re really doing is presenting the design and artistic aspect to the culture. We’re not about promoting vandalism or the tagging culture. A bit like the city of Melbourne in a way: acknowledging that it’s an important and vibrant part of the cultural life of Melbourne but trying to find that balance where we’re not promoting vandalism. Although we have to be honest; the origins of street art are not always legal. Many of the artists have a history of doing… or aren’t always…

We could say they’re in a legally grey area …

*Laugh* Yes we could say that. So it’s a fine line sometimes. We would like to think that we’re promoting the style and culture of street art. It gives young people something to aspire to. Many of the artists we’ve been working with own businesses now and work professionally as artists or designers. From my point of view, that’s been an interesting experience because these guys are actually business people too. They are artists and designers and can operate in the commercial side of that world.

Jeffrey Deitch (Director of LA MOCA) has described street art as “…the most influential art style since the great innovations of the ‘60s. Since pop, minimalism and conceptualism.” How do you see street art fitting into contemporary art history?

It’s an interesting comment. When you think about it, it really has. It’s now already infiltrating fashion in such a strong way. It has entered into that much broader sphere of design. And if you look in any of those glossy magazines the fashion images are now so commonly shot against a wall or in a laneway. What I find really amusing is the number of weddings that now take place in locations like Hosier Lane!

I think the styles that are coming through from some street artists are certainly starting to influence contemporary culture, and contemporary art. Yeah, it’s an interesting thought. When you think about it, it’s potentially so.

Attitudes to street art have changed dramatically over the past decade to a point today where the majority of the community sees it as having some cultural value. Similarly the self-perception of many street artists has changed. Today many artists would see themselves as part of an important contemporary art movement. Can the art suffer from this change in public perception or from the rise in self-awareness amongst the artists?

Well it’s a funny one isn’t it. It’s similar to what we were saying before. On the one hand it’s great that street art is being celebrated and recognized for its artistic contribution to the culture of Melbourne. At the same time I’d hate to think that it lost its subversive qualities because there’s always just that balance between it being real and it being watered down so that it’s acceptable or through over-appropriation or whatever. Then it becomes exploited and something else altogether.

That might be a concern for placing it in galleries. What about just a rise in self-consciousness? Can awareness of your art and spending time thinking about meaning ever be a bad thing?

I’m in two minds about it I think. It’s this whole fine line, this edge we’re trying to balance on with this project; we don’t want to sanitise. We don’t want to take it off the street. We want to recognize it for what it is; an important and legitimate part of contemporary artistic practice. And that it has matured. If you look at some of the stuff that is illustrated in Kings Way from the earlier times there was such a distinct Melbourne style. It’s far more international now. That in itself is a good thing. As other art practices might, it has matured and developed … but I don’t know.

This is an argument I hear from a lot of street artists and I’d like to put it to you for comment: “Melbourne bills itself as a cultural city. But the fine arts in Melbourne (the MSO, the Australian Ballet and the Melbourne Opera) are all a bit mediocre on a world stage. But by contrast, the low brow culture (street art and live music) are world class. Melbourne’s street art is easily ranked amongst the top 10 cities in the world, perhaps the top 5. This cultural self-identity in Melbourne really comes from the counter culture, not the fine arts of the cultural hegemony.”

Well I’ve actually heard it said that if Melbourne was in Europe it would be considered one of the best street art cities, but what’s sort of interesting is I think it has changed. I mean you look at the stuff from the 80s and 90s and there was very much a Melbourne style. So much information is being shared now via the internet. People are looking at what’s going on in other places. Melbourne style is more a type of international style now. It’s clearly still very good because it has a long tradition. It’s interesting because we had Futura out for the Carbon festival. We were hoping to be able to accommodate him in the Studio Space, but unfortunately we couldn’t. We weren’t allowed to open the doors (because of ongoing construction work) but he did some painting outside. The origins and the role that people like Futura played in that sort of New York style. Then you go to New York now and it’s all a bit tame. You feel like there’s so much more exciting stuff happening here or in Spain. In other places like France. I don’t know what happened. I think they had very strict regimes that succeeded in effectively stamping it out.

I suppose if one was to identify a real Melbourne style that is still alive, well, it would probably be panels.

I’d like to follow up on one point. You said that you think Melbourne’s art is similar to a lot of international art…

Well not similar but it’s absorbed a lot of those international influences, where at one time it was a very distinct style I think. Obviously the origin was in New York subways but there was something that was more distinctively Melbourne. It’s absorbed some of the other things that were going on to the point that in AWOL, for example, some of the members are from overseas countries.

There’s this real mixing of all of that – I don’t mean it in any way as a criticism …

Check out CDHs website, and many thanks to him for this article. Also check out the National Gallery of Victoria, the Everfresh website, the Formula One crew at Sirums blog, AWOL and the SDM crew.