Artists. Yes. We have them. eX de Medici, Patricia Piccinini, David Pope, Omar Musa, E.L.K., C. J. Bowerbird, Mia Wasikowska, Mikelangelo – the list is offensively long and offensively good.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Only, somehow, this rolling renaissance doesn't seem to be quite reflected in our public society. Our town centres are mostly bus depot malls in homage to brutalism only without the heritage value.
The complaint that there aren't enough venues is a truth well beyond cliche. This week, I was speaking with lauded novelist Nigel Featherstone, who has been frustrated by being unable find a bar willing to take the non-risk of hosting his 60 guests for a literary panel. "Funny, I could get a venue in Goulburn at the drop of a hat, but ... no audience," he laments.
If Canberra is more interesting than Goulburn, but nobody's around to see, are we really any better than a place chiefly remembered for Ivan Milat and a concrete merino?
Even the omnipotent Molonglo Group is under pressure for daring to pollute the city suburb of New Acton with live jazz. In the afternoon. Taking jazz from yuppies is like kicking children for laughing.
So, why the disconnect? Given that these perennial issues accompany the growth of our fancy festivals, the triumphant tit-whale and a marked increase in bars with murals; you may be asking what the big deal is anyway.
Well, friends, the big deal is: we're sitting on an absolute goldmine of talent and enthusiastic audiences but are still somehow unable to quite forge the society we deserve.
And one key reason is so mind-numbingly obvious; so insidious; and so clearly a loss in the war of good versus evil, that I can't believe I'm still writing about it in 2014. Of course, DING DING DING one can only point the finger at: pokies.
The fortunes of the clubs, their collective dominance of public space and uneven ability to subsidise meals and drinks to lure punters from legitimately competitive businesses is a pervy vampire on the throat of any chance this city has to grow beyond a collection of near-identical suburbs.
It's hair-tearingly frustrating to mount a case for the Canberra we should have, being so unable to point at the ghosts of the artists, shows and experiences that we never get to see in the places we never get to have.
It remains the norm that we bleed our leading candidates for cultural icons to larger cities. It's easier for Tilley's to sell coffee by masquerading as an arts institution than by actually being one. It's infinitely more rewarding for Mooseheads to print drunk jerks onto the streets than it is for the Front to host a poetry slam.
Government "picking winners" rarely works in worlds as subjective as the arts. Even when we strike gold (see: Sky Whale), we still offend that vocal cohort who hates their society enough to identify not as "citizens," but as "taxpayers".
Yet, by accepting pokies in their present form, we have picked a guaranteed loser of those communities that wish to exist without "who voted for a license to punt" charlatans driving everything.
Tragically, with governments benefiting directly from the parasites, it looks like we're decades from any meaningful correction. Beyond the substantial tax contribution, ACT Labor are more than addicted, with the Labor Club Group owning some 500 of the territory's machines. It's only too cynical that our current Minister for the Arts is also the Minister for Gaming.
Why should any of this matter? I suppose, relative to the great problems of the world, it doesn't. And those in the know can still find and celebrate the works of our world-class artists. However, the way we value the arts in society says a lot about how we value ourselves.
So it goes. If you know how, you can always just hook up Netflix.
Chris Endrey is a musician, comedian, and the former host of cult variety show In Canberra Tonight. Chris Wallace, Panorama's weekly columnist, is away.
