“It’s the only permanent thing that I did while I was in Australia,” said Keith Haring in 1984 after painting a mural in a Melbourne suburb and art peeps are trying to keep it that way. Sounds noble, as long as they don’t dare repaint it, an option which has been debated.
The paint is cracking badly and the last time it was restored was in 1996, when it cost less than $200 a year to maintain. But now, 14 years later, it could cost as much as $22,000 to fix and almost $1000 a year to keep up. |The Art Newspaper|
Sounds like these Aussies are suffering from a labor shortage since doing away with the old penal system. Maybe we could do a deal with them and send over some of our convicts to help – we have plenty to go around. Maybe send some bankers too?
maybe they could spend that kind of dosh preserving something good and stop painting over banky's stuff