Sunday Arts Magazine

7 Dec 2020

Melbourne Town Hall is 150 years old. Andrew Stephens talks to David about this iconic Building

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Melbourne Town Hall is 150 years old. Andrew Stephens talks to David about this iconic Building

From 30 November – January 2021, the public can relive cherished memories and meander through poignant historical moments in You Are Cordially Invited – an exhibition celebrating Melbourne Town Hall’s 150 years at the centre of civic life, governance, politics and culture.

Housed within the newly refurbished City Gallery, the exhibition curated by Melbourne-born writer Andrew Stephens, explores the history of the Town Hall site and examines the relationship between the majestic building and the public through new works, archival film, photographs and ephemera from the City of Melbourne’s vast collection.

“Since 1870, the Town Hall has been a vital civic hub, hosting an extraordinary array of celebrities and events – from ABBA and The Beatles to the Queen, Dame Nellie Melba and Nelson Mandela, from Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Lionel Rose to Elizabeth Taylor.

Not only have there been the expected council events and mayoral balls but there’s also been everything from musclemen displays and hairdressing competitions to spiritualist evenings, radical art shows and even a circus. All manner of protests, parades and demonstrations by passionate Melburnians have been held in the streets on its doorstep. This exhibition is a fresh look at how so much important local history implicates the Town Hall,” said Stephens.

At the centre of the exhibition are specially commissioned new works by Melbourne artist Patrick Pound, surveying the Town Hall as being the epicentre of Melbourne’s collective psyche.

Using found images sourced through auction houses, Pound has created a work based around tourism postcards of the Melbourne Town Hall – many of these returned from the overseas destinations to which they had been posted by tourists over the past century and a half. Pound looks further afield with his other two works for the exhibition –exploring town halls of Australia and another, amassing hundreds of town hall postcards from around the world. Whilst some town halls are modest and others are grand designs, wherever they may be, they speak to the infinity of personal and civic moments that a town hall accumulates.

Many of the other artworks and objects in the exhibition are drawn from the City of Melbourne’s vast art and heritage collection including archival footage of the Queen, ABBA, Elizabeth Taylor and boxer Lionel Rose during their visits to the Town Hall, extraordinarily progressive health promotion posters from the 1920’s depicting the scourge of venereal disease as well as contemporary art works by Destiny Deacon, Fiona Foley and Nusra Latif Qureshi.

Rarely seen images of the devastation wrought by the 1925 blaze that destroyed the Town Hall’s main auditorium can be viewed as well as A “Protest Book” used by Melbourne City Councillors to air grievances and treasures from the Council Chambers including the Lord Mayoral chair and mallet.