(I am posting here an article I wrote for Nation Review in June 1978. At that time there were 13 million refugees worldwide. The figure today is 22.5 million, although 65.6 million are officially "displaced")
How much idealism can you stand
in one week? The story surrounding Austcare’s “boat people” mural outside Sydney’s T&G building
is saturated by idealism, personified in the three people most closely
associated with it.
Austcare’s original press
release in April said it was looking for an artist to paint a mural which would
draw attention to the plight of the world’s 13 million refugees – and
Austcare’s 28 May doorknock appeal.
It also said “Austcare is happy
to do anything it can to popularise in Sydney
the big public mural – a la Mexico
city – and in this way bring art to the people and the
people to art”.
Very strange. An additional two
pages proclaimed: “Austcare seeks brilliant muralist”. This quest was “inspired
by Diego de Rivera, Orozco and the other famous socially committed muralists of
Mexico city”.
The artist would be free to choose his own subject within the given theme, but
the final painting could be “one of terror, outrage or despair…an explosion of
hopeful joy or as blissfully tranquil and irrelevantly relevant as a Miro…on
the other hand something with the gut response of Picasso’s Guernica will also be welcome”.
Not your average advance PR for
a doorknock appeal.
The man behind the rhetoric was
Leo Kelly. I caught him on his way to batik class which he attends every
Tuesday evening. Kelly writes poetry, is modest about it but amused and pleased
that “hippy friends” of his in Melbourne
have recently published some of his poems.
It was his idea to use a mural
as a publicity event (this is the second he has organised for Austcare) because
he does believe in bringing art to
the people and the people to art. And he is
inspired by de Rivera and the socially committed muralists of Mexico city. Any suggestion that the
boatloads of refugees coming to our shores may be carrying bourgeois capitalist
exploiters on the run saddens him. He believes simply that most refugees are
desperate and deserving and that our policy must cater for them regardless of a
few possible undesirables.
Enter the sought-for “brilliant
muralist” – Gary Shead, chosen by Kelly from among two dozen interested
artists.
Shead’s dealer, Clive Evatt,
describes him as the last of the bohemians, which is a bit exaggerated.
Shead, who doesn’t really need
to make a living from his painting, has risked his popularity several times in
his career by changing styles. He began with dark toned surrealism (he still
believes that Dali is the greatest artist and “the only man who can lead us out
of the mess that Picasso got us into”). His style now is realistic and
romantic. He is one of a group known as the New Romantics, reactionaries
against all that is sterile, nihilistic and impersonal in modern art.
“Are you interested in the
artistic process?” he asked, talking of the mural. “I thought of ships because
they are a traditional image of freedom. Then I linked that with the boat
people.”
Eureka! As an idealist Shead is perhaps more
quirky than most, but he still qualifies. He painted the mural for very little
money. He makes no secret of loving publicity, but the 1220cmx366cm (40ftx12ft)
mural will become his property when it is removed from its present site and if
he can sell it he will give part of the money to Austcare.
Enter the dancer.
Last week, before the official
26 May unveiling of the mural, a dancer named Richard Boulez arrived in Sydney from Melbourne.
He immediately began making telephone calls around town to tell people that he
had read about the mural, felt that he had
to dance in front of it and “hopped on the first plane”.
Another alert self advertiser
on the hustle? No.
Boulez is a qualified teacher
and social worker. He studied hard for these degrees (“I put up with five years
of nonsense”) so that people would take him seriously. His real interests were
mime and dance, and for the past two years he has been using these as methods
of therapy in teaching deaf and psychotic children.
His spontaneous attraction to
the mural was emotional, but he soon had rationalisations ready when asked to
give a talk and a performance for art students at Alexander Mackie college.
“Men and women will always
cross the ocean in search of a better life,” he said. “Look at the population
of Australia.”
Gary Shead welcomed Boulez to
share his windy footpath.
When Leo Kelly heard about this
he rushed down to see the performance and decided that Boulez was just what he
needed to liven up the official ceremony. “I have to think of these things, to
give the TV crews something to shoot,” said Kelly, with some regret for the
practical necessity involved but mostly with obvious pleasure at having Boulez
join in on the event.
So the thin, whitefaced dancer
danced the anguish of refugees everywhere in front of Shead’s mural, a water
level view of ships approaching shore preceded by gulls and splashes of foam,
while Leo Kelly bantered tolerantly with two drunks in the crowd.
Kelly will certainly organise
another mural for humanity next year.
Shead will go back to being a
New Romantic in rebellion against the sterile and nihilistic.
Boulez is already in the Northern Territory
teaching deaf black children.
As I said in the beginning –
how much idealism can you stand in one week?
