In July last year, City of Perth Council acquired an international artwork by Florida-based artist Brendan Murphy, which has since been judged by some in the WA arts sector as a dubious move lacking proper governance and due process.
In the lead-up to the work’s imminent installation in Perth’s CBD, a local activist group calling itself Save The Kebab has initiated a campaign to call out what it sees as the Council’s flawed rationale for accepting the artwork, in a protest movement that has also raised questions about the Council’s decisions to remove other long-standing sculptural works from public space without adequate explanation.
Late last month, members of the Save The Kebab campaign put their concerns directly to City of Perth Councillors, asking them to explain their willingness to accept Brendan Murphy’s sculpture Boonji Spaceman as a gift to the City without putting the decision through its own Culture and Arts Advisory and Elders Advisory Groups (among other due processes).
On the night of the meeting, City of Perth Councillors and Council Executives avoided answering the activist group’s questions about this acquisition. However, a week later, in the Minutes of the meeting, responses to the group’s questions have been supplied by City of Perth General Manager Community Development, Rebecca Taylor.
Unfortunately, Taylor’s statements have done little to quell the concerns of Save The Kebab campaigners who remain outraged at what they say is the Council’s lack of transparency and due process around the acquisition.
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In its ongoing protest against the installation of the Boonji Spaceman work, Save The Kebab has published its own statement of responses detailing its continued lack of faith in the Council’s public art decision-making processes, and what it sees as the Council’s “explicit failures” to justify its actions.
Eight pointed questions to Council: zero adequate answers
At City of Perth’s 25 March Ordinary Meeting, Save the Kebab campaigners put a total of eight questions about the acquisition of Brendan Murphy’s gifted artwork, Boonji Spaceman, to Council representatives and executives.
These questions ranged from interrogating the rationale behind acquiring what Save The Kebab believe to be a “mass-produced artwork” that is “inconsistent with the Council’s Public Art Policy”, to questioning the Council’s budget allocations and cost increases associated with the work’s installation (where original Council budget allocations show a budget of $50,000 allocated for installation, revised to $171,000 in June 2024).
The Council’s written responses to these questions – which range from one to three sentences in length – were provided on 1 April by way of the Ordinary Meeting Minutes. These statements are attributed to City of Perth’s General Manager Community Development, Rebecca Taylor.
The responses included the Council’s justification that the Boonji Spaceman acquisition was made on the grounds that it “aligns with [City of Perth Public Art] Policy CP4.8, Principle 3(f), showcasing international art, and relating to the ‘City of Light’ identity”.
In relation to the work’s installation budget, City of Perth’s General Manager Community Development states that it “endorsed a $250,000 budget in June 2024 to cover acquisition, installation and transport [of the work]”.
Mounting its own response to what is describes as these ‘evasive’ and ‘inadequate’ statements, the Save The Kebab campaign group is continuing to press the Council for more detailed explanations.
Chief among the campaign’s most urgent concerns is that, “The City’s own records show that major public art decisions … were made without documented input from the Culture and Arts Advisory Group or the Elders Advisory Group”.
Its statement continues, “This is not a procedural oversight – it is a systemic sidelining of expert and cultural advice, and it has resulted in irreversible decisions that affect the City’s cultural landscape, heritage and public trust.”
Also, in relation to the costs associated with the Council’s plans to relocate this public artwork after its initial 12-month period of display at Perth’s Stirling Gardens (after which time it will be moved to Perth’s Elizabeth Quay area), the campaigners say these relocation plans “will incur additional freight, possible storage, site preparation and installation costs – all [costs which will be] publicly funded, but currently unbudgeted and undisclosed” – ultimately reflecting “irresponsible planning and poor asset management”.
Overall, the Save the Kebab campaign’s latest statement characterises the Council’s moves as “a reactive, rather than strategic approach to public asset management… [which] ignores public art policy commitments to sustainability, authenticity and site relevance”.
City of Perth Council is yet to respond to Save the Kebab campaigners’ latest request for more detailed explanations surrounding the acquisition of this work.
