Sculptures of Melbourne, by Mark S Holsworth

I stumbled on Sculptures of Melbourne at the library—and what a treasure it is!

Mark Holsworth is a Gen-X art and culture critic and this book grew out of the part of his blog that deals with public sculpture.

There are five chapters:

1. Classicalism Forever 1780-2015
2. Monuments and More Memorials 1864-2012
3. Modernism Postponed 1957-2015
4. Melbourne by Design 1989-2015
5. The Temporary Present 2001-2015.

Vault, by Ron Robertson-Swann 1981, at its 3rd site at Southbank (Wikipedia Commons*)

There’s a timeline too, which starts in 1780 when Farnex Hercules was copied from the one in the Vatican; notes the first of countless war memorials in 1901; traces the movements of Vault a.k.a The Yellow Peril from 1980 to 1981 and 2002; and finishes up with the Plinth Projects in the Edinburgh Gardens.

In the Introduction, Holsworth makes the point that public sculptures are part of the surface archaeology of the city.