Melbourne corporate art - 23 November

One of the interesting aspects of being an investment banker that I have been able to visit offices all over the world. Sometimes they are memorable spaces (such as Presidio in San Francisco) and sometimes they are not (think any hotel conference room).  This last week I have been down in Melbourne working on a deal that saw me snooping around the executive floor of a large listed corporate down in the docklands precinct.  So what did they have on the walls?

The room I spent most of the time in was dominated by the Elizabeth Nakamarra work (pictured above) called Water Dreaming.  I mostly subscribe to the contemporary (aboriginal) artist Richard Bell's view that aboriginal art is a white persons thing but I did like this piece. 

Unfortunately I wasn't given full run of the floor so only squizzed a couple of other pieces which included a large (and uninspiring but recognizable) Tim Storrier, a medium size John Kelly (he of the expensive cow paintings) and another large aboriginal piece by Greeny Petyarre.  A pair of digital prints by Young Zerunge (aka Hong Kong and Australian artist John Young) caught my eye so I did a little research on him.  He is represented by the Michael Reid gallery in Sydney and actually lists this corporate collection on his resume.  Not so amazing when you consider this resume, of an artist I have only just heard of, runs to 16 pages and can be downloaded in pdf.  Methinks the punters need to be sold a little on this guys importance prior to parting with the scratch required for one of his large colour printouts!

Verdict: nice building and from the glimpses I saw a decent, if fairly safe, corporate collection.  Points: 3 - Elizabeth Nakamarra; 2 - Young Zerunge; 1 - Greeny.