Latest news with #BoonjiSpaceman
Perth Now
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Cottesloe welcomes out-of-this-world spacemen art exhibition
Coming Out (Blue) Spaceman, artist Brendan Murphy and owner of Gullotti Galleries Paul Gullotti and Sitting Spaceman (Pink). Picture: John Koh Contemporary artist Brendan Murphy opened his blockbuster Australian exhibition debut in Cottesloe on Thursday, hours after unveiling a 7m spaceman sculpture he donated to Perth. The sculptor, painter and digital artist, who works from his Miami-based studio, launched his Life is Electric showcase at Gullotti Galleries, which is on display until July 10. The exhibition features 45 works ranging from vibrant graffiti-style paintings to carbon fibre sculptures of all sizes, including his renowned Boonji Spacemen, which represents embracing the unknown and the human desire to venture beyond. The opening comes after a custom-built Boonji Spaceman, titled Lightning, landed in Stirling Gardens outside Council House, where it will remain for the next year. SEE THE SOCIALS GALLERY BELOW Owner of Gullotti Galleries, Paul Gullotti, was overcome with emotion when talking about the moment he had secured a spaceman for Perth and a debut Murphy exhibition with help from former Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas. 'I just want to say something from personally from my heart about that moment,' he said during a speech. 'I've been in this business for 30 years now, what I've looked at today and what I've seen, I think I have to pinch myself, watching the smiles, seeing all of these people here, my phone hasn't stopped ringing. 'We need this kind of art here.' The new Boonji Spaceman artwork at Stirling Gardens. Credit: Riley Churchman / The West Australian However, the history-making landing of the spaceman has caused quite a controversy after it replaced the Ore Obelisk or The Kebab, which had been in place since the 1970s but was removed and put in storage in 2021. But it seems some people are warming to the idea of having the incredible piece after lining up to capture selfies to share on Instagram. Murphy said after making contact with Mr Gullotti and Mr Zempilas, he was hooked on gifting a sculpture to Perth. '(Mr Zempilas) sold me on Perth and his passion for the city and the city as a place that's looking to the future and there's a history of connection to space, so it was kind of a no-brainer,' he said. 'And that started a journey which, if I knew what it would have entailed, probably would not have taken that journey. But now that I'm here, everyone's been very nice and the city's gorgeous.' Murphy's spacemen can be seen in Knightsbridge, London and Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros baseball team in Texas. Murphy's art has been collected by celebrities including Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Ryan Gosling and Warren Buffett. Nadal's sculpture is a 2m tennis player called Vamos, which stands at the sporting legend's tennis academy in Mallorca. Murphy has also created a $25m diamond-encrusted statue for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. He has held multiple exhibitions in the USA, Canada and Europe.
ABC News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Boonji Spaceman sculpture unveiling angers fans of 'the kebab' in Perth
A gleaming blue, 7-metre-tall astronaut has been unveiled in Perth's CBD, taking pride of place outside Council House. Designed by US artist Brendan Murphy, the sculpture called Boonji Spaceman was a donation by the artist but City of Perth took on costs of transportation and installation, believed to be between $150,000–$250,000. The acquisition was championed by former Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas who stepped down from the council in March after being elected to state parliament. Mr Zempilas has long championed branding Perth as the City of Light — as it was dubbed by astronaut John Glenn in 1962 when the people of Perth turned on their lights to acknowledge his mission to become the first American to orbit the earth. It was that story and meeting Mr Zempilas that persuaded Murphy to donate one of his spacemen to Perth after the pair were introduced by gallery owner Paul Gullotti. "I'm not in the business of giving my work away. I'm one of the top-selling artists in the world," Murphy told Mark Gibson on ABC Radio Perth. "[Mr Zempilas and I] had a couple of great chats and Zoom calls, and Basil was really inspired by my work. "When that happens that means a lot to me, and this history of John Glenn identifying Perth as the city of lights, that really connected the dots for me." When the council voted to accept the donation last year Mr Zempilas said it was "an incredible opportunity" to bring a real tourist attraction that fit Perth's story to the city. But not everyone was pleased with the idea, particularly as the site allocated was previously occupied by another popular piece of public art — the Ore Obelisk, affectionately dubbed "the kebab". The 15-metre-tall sculpture was designed by City of Perth town planner Paul Ritter and erected to celebrate Western Australia's population reaching 1 million in 1971. Featuring different geological specimens of rock, it symbolised the expansion of mining in the state in the 1960s and 1970s. The sculpture was dismantled and placed in storage in 2021 following "engineering reports that it was unsafe and posed a risk to public safety", a spokesperson for the council said. Helen Curtis, who runs a public art consultancy, launched the "Save the Kebab" campaign to restore and bring back the Ore Obelisk. She was annoyed to find the council had allocated funds to the Boonji Spaceman. Now that the spaceman is in place she is continuing her campaign to reinstate the the kebab. "There is a huge groundswell of people from the arts, design, the history professions. "But also the broader Perth community and even people who worked in parks and gardens at the City of Perth are showing support for the campaign." Ms Curtis said the Boonji Spaceman was not unique to Perth, as Murphy had already installed versions of the sculpture in London, Oslo, Dubai and Antigua. The Perth version of the Boonji Spaceman is called Lightning. "This is not about parochialism at all," Ms Curtis said. "If the City of Perth is into Instagrammable tourism attractions then we can do that here ourselves. "Let's look after what we have first, right? That should be our priority. The Ore Obelisk — why didn't the City of Perth look after that? She said if the city wanted tourist attractions it should commission local artists to create original work. Murphy said he was surprised to learn that his spaceman had caused controversy. "I had no idea any of this existed until recently," he said. The artist rejected claims his work was not connected with the story of Perth and was simply a copy of work he had created elsewhere. "First of all I'm not an American artist. I'm an artist, and my role … is to bring people together and to try and create works that inspire people," he said. "Having put [the Boonji Spaceman] in other cities around the world I know the effect it has. "I've seen it bring people together and … in most cases, I think people will be proud because it's a very forward-looking, forward-moving sculpture. It's very contemporary." Murphy said the words written on the sculpture had been personalised for Perth, based on conversations with locals and research on the city's history. The words "ambition" and "City of Light" appear on the spaceman's chest. "I'm hopeful and pretty confident that everyone will come together once they experience the sculpture and I think they'll be proud of it," Murphy said. City of Perth said the Boonji Spaceman would remain in its Stirling Gardens location for a year before being moved to another, as yet unnamed, location in the city. It did not say how much it would cost to restore the Ore Obelisk but said it required significant work, including replacing all the conglomerate rock elements.
Sydney Morning Herald
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
When Basil met Boonji: It was love at first sight, but not everyone is starstruck
When American artist Brendan Murphy offered to give the City of Perth a seven-metre sculpture of an astronaut, Basil Zempilas embraced it with characteristic enthusiasm. The former lord mayor saw the freebie as a cool, Instagrammable piece of public art that aligned perfectly with the recently elected council's rebrand of Perth as the City of Light, a reference to John Glenn's 1962 triple-orbit of Earth in which our young metropolis put on a glittering show for the future senator. Zempilas was so entranced by an artist collected by the likes of Serena Williams, Ryan Gosling and Warren Buffett gifting a piece valued at $1.5 million to the City of Perth — albeit a gift that would cost ratepayers about $250,000 for transportation and installation — that he became part of the creative process, feeding the Florida-based Murphy information on the city he grew up in. Fragments of the story Zempilas told Murphy can be seen in the text on the skin of our Boonji Spaceman (including the story of Glenn's famous flight), which was eventually placed in Stirling Gardens and unveiled on Thursday in front of a large media pack. Zempilas is so invested in the Boonji Spaceman (titled Lightening) that he took time out from his duties as the Liberal leader to attend the unveiling and to catch up with Murphy and Gullotti Galleries owner Paul Gullotti, who set up the deal and who is holding the artist's first Australian solo show (Zempilas also hosted the opening of the exhibit). 'Basil was the one who sold me on doing the project,' says Murphy in the lead-up to the unveiling of the Boonji Spaceman. 'He was so fired up about Perth and had this incredible energy. Here was the mayor of a major city who was genuinely interested in my work and wanted to bring it here. Loading 'I received a long email from Basil full of history and dates, including the story of John Glenn's flight. 'So this Boonji Spaceman is not a generic piece built on the other side of the world and shipped here. It's been created specifically for Perth and with input from someone who truly loves the place.' Zempilas said he told Murphy that Perth was 'very proud, it's adventurous, it's ambitious'. 'I note that he has adopted some of those,' Zempilas says. While Zempilas and Murphy were all smiles at the media launch, they spent much of their time answering questions about controversy swirling around the Boonji Spaceman, which has been sucked into more general criticism of the City of Perth's cavalier treatment of the public art works in its collection. Art activists believe that the city should not have paid a quarter of a million dollars for a work they claim has no merit and genuine connection to Perth. Even more galling for those pushing back against the Boonji Spaceman is that Murphy's piece has been placed on the plinth on which for half a century stood Ore Obelisk, Paul Ritter's monument to the mining industry which, critics argue, was not properly maintained and chopped up and removed without proper consultation. Now looming over the cherished Austaliana spread around Stirling Gardens — Joan Walsh-Smith and Charles Smith's kangaroos and Mae Gibbs' Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, statues of founding fathers and key historic buildings — is a hulking electric-blue space traveller whose clones grace public and private spaces in cities such as New York, London, Oslo and Riyadh. Prominent art critic John McDonald labelled the work as 'space junk' and compared the councillors who voted for Murphy's piece to be placed near Council House as 'a bit like Donald Trump deciding that the Kennedy Centre needs to ditch all that elitist crap and put on a great production of Cats or Fiddler on the Roof '. 'The arts are there to start discussions, to bring people into the room. It is what I hope the Boonji Spaceman will do.' Brendan Murphy 'It is not the role of the mayor to make decisions on art acquisitions for the City,' says Helen Curtis, a public art consultant who is leading the campaign to save both the Ore Obelisk and the Northbridge Arch, which were removed because of corrosion. 'The mayor's job is to promote the city and be a statesman. It is not making calls on works of art,' Curtis says. 'They can put something forward, like any elected member. But it must go through a proper process. 'Committees and advisory groups are a filter and safety net to ensure that the city does not find itself in this exact situation — paying an exorbitant amount of money for work whose connection to Perth is dubious and is so poorly regarded by the arts community.' Curtis believes that Zempilas managed to sway councillors and circumvent the normal procedures because he was an unusually high-profile and charismatic mayor, a well-connected media personality who during his single term brought a huge amount of attention to the city. She also believes the Boonji Spaceman represents a larger problem for the city and for Western Australia, in which the arts have been 'dumbed down' and subsumed by the grander project of branding, marketing and tourism. 'The Boonji Spaceman is a marketing stunt dressed up as art — and not a very good marketing stunt at that,' Curtis says. 'If the city wants to use art to draw tourists we need work that springs for here. Nobody is going to travel to Perth to see Ikea art that has popped up in Dubai or Miami or wherever. 'If the City wants something Instagrammable, we can do that here with authenticity. But fix the important works we already have first — that's what should be prioritised.' Murphy said he was unaware of the controversy swirling around his work until a couple of weeks ago. 'Not everyone's going to like it. But trying to stop it from being shown is shutting down discussion.' Brendan Murphy Since arriving this week, he's fielded questions from journalists about the appropriateness of a piece of American pop art sitting in a civic space, and a large piece of ratepayers money going to what is could be construed as an advertisement for a show. 'Whatever opposition there is to my Boonji Spaceman it has nothing to do with me. And it can't have anything to do with Basil because his motives are genuine,' says Murphy, a former professional basketball player and Wall Street trader who pivoted to art after watching many of his colleagues die on September 11. While Murphy has sympathy for the position of Curtis and the Save the Kebab movement — 'I stand by all artists,' he says — the Rhode Island-born sculptor and painter who counts Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michael Basquiat and Willem de Kooning among his influence does not want to be drawn into what he regards as a political dispute. 'Politics has no place in art. The job of the artist is to bring people together,' he says. 'I'm not interested in what divides us. I'm interested in our commonalities. I'm an artist. I'm not an American artist. All I care about is inspiring some young kid who dreams of one day being an artist.' Indeed, Murphy believes in remaining neutral even though he has recently had a show in the Kennedy Centre, which became a flashpoint for the resistance against Trump when he fired 17 board members and made himself the chair. 'When Trump said something stupid, as he always does, a group of singers pushed back and did not invite him to a show, which is why he got so angry and took over the place,' Murphy says. 'It was not their role. They should have sung for him and made their point. It's what Bob Dylan would have done. 'The arts are there to start discussions, to bring people into the room. It is what I hope the Boonji Spaceman will do. 'Not everyone's going to like it. But trying to stop it from being shown is shutting down discussion.' While the city says the Boonji Spaceman will be moved to Elizabeth Quay after 12 months, Curtis and her colleagues, who are fighting for the Kebab to be returned to the spot where Murphy's work now stands, remain convinced that Murphy's sculpture is here to stay. 'Our great fear is that in a year the city will announce that it is too costly to move the Boonji Spaceman and that it will be left there,' she says.
The Age
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
When Basil met Boonji: It was love at first sight, but not everyone is starstruck
When American artist Brendan Murphy offered to give the City of Perth a seven-metre sculpture of an astronaut, Basil Zempilas embraced it with characteristic enthusiasm. The former lord mayor saw the freebie as a cool, Instagrammable piece of public art that aligned perfectly with the recently elected council's rebrand of Perth as the City of Light, a reference to John Glenn's 1962 triple-orbit of Earth in which our young metropolis put on a glittering show for the future senator. Zempilas was so entranced by an artist collected by the likes of Serena Williams, Ryan Gosling and Warren Buffett gifting a piece valued at $1.5 million to the City of Perth — albeit a gift that would cost ratepayers about $250,000 for transportation and installation — that he became part of the creative process, feeding the Florida-based Murphy information on the city he grew up in. Fragments of the story Zempilas told Murphy can be seen in the text on the skin of our Boonji Spaceman (including the story of Glenn's famous flight), which was eventually placed in Stirling Gardens and unveiled on Thursday in front of a large media pack. Zempilas is so invested in the Boonji Spaceman (titled Lightening) that he took time out from his duties as the Liberal leader to attend the unveiling and to catch up with Murphy and Gullotti Galleries owner Paul Gullotti, who set up the deal and who is holding the artist's first Australian solo show (Zempilas also hosted the opening of the exhibit). 'Basil was the one who sold me on doing the project,' says Murphy in the lead-up to the unveiling of the Boonji Spaceman. 'He was so fired up about Perth and had this incredible energy. Here was the mayor of a major city who was genuinely interested in my work and wanted to bring it here. Loading 'I received a long email from Basil full of history and dates, including the story of John Glenn's flight. 'So this Boonji Spaceman is not a generic piece built on the other side of the world and shipped here. It's been created specifically for Perth and with input from someone who truly loves the place.' Zempilas said he told Murphy that Perth was 'very proud, it's adventurous, it's ambitious'. 'I note that he has adopted some of those,' Zempilas says. While Zempilas and Murphy were all smiles at the media launch, they spent much of their time answering questions about controversy swirling around the Boonji Spaceman, which has been sucked into more general criticism of the City of Perth's cavalier treatment of the public art works in its collection. Art activists believe that the city should not have paid a quarter of a million dollars for a work they claim has no merit and genuine connection to Perth. Even more galling for those pushing back against the Boonji Spaceman is that Murphy's piece has been placed on the plinth on which for half a century stood Ore Obelisk, Paul Ritter's monument to the mining industry which, critics argue, was not properly maintained and chopped up and removed without proper consultation. Now looming over the cherished Austaliana spread around Stirling Gardens — Joan Walsh-Smith and Charles Smith's kangaroos and Mae Gibbs' Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, statues of founding fathers and key historic buildings — is a hulking electric-blue space traveller whose clones grace public and private spaces in cities such as New York, London, Oslo and Riyadh. Prominent art critic John McDonald labelled the work as 'space junk' and compared the councillors who voted for Murphy's piece to be placed near Council House as 'a bit like Donald Trump deciding that the Kennedy Centre needs to ditch all that elitist crap and put on a great production of Cats or Fiddler on the Roof '. 'The arts are there to start discussions, to bring people into the room. It is what I hope the Boonji Spaceman will do.' Brendan Murphy 'It is not the role of the mayor to make decisions on art acquisitions for the City,' says Helen Curtis, a public art consultant who is leading the campaign to save both the Ore Obelisk and the Northbridge Arch, which were removed because of corrosion. 'The mayor's job is to promote the city and be a statesman. It is not making calls on works of art,' Curtis says. 'They can put something forward, like any elected member. But it must go through a proper process. 'Committees and advisory groups are a filter and safety net to ensure that the city does not find itself in this exact situation — paying an exorbitant amount of money for work whose connection to Perth is dubious and is so poorly regarded by the arts community.' Curtis believes that Zempilas managed to sway councillors and circumvent the normal procedures because he was an unusually high-profile and charismatic mayor, a well-connected media personality who during his single term brought a huge amount of attention to the city. She also believes the Boonji Spaceman represents a larger problem for the city and for Western Australia, in which the arts have been 'dumbed down' and subsumed by the grander project of branding, marketing and tourism. 'The Boonji Spaceman is a marketing stunt dressed up as art — and not a very good marketing stunt at that,' Curtis says. 'If the city wants to use art to draw tourists we need work that springs for here. Nobody is going to travel to Perth to see Ikea art that has popped up in Dubai or Miami or wherever. 'If the City wants something Instagrammable, we can do that here with authenticity. But fix the important works we already have first — that's what should be prioritised.' Murphy said he was unaware of the controversy swirling around his work until a couple of weeks ago. 'Not everyone's going to like it. But trying to stop it from being shown is shutting down discussion.' Brendan Murphy Since arriving this week, he's fielded questions from journalists about the appropriateness of a piece of American pop art sitting in a civic space, and a large piece of ratepayers money going to what is could be construed as an advertisement for a show. 'Whatever opposition there is to my Boonji Spaceman it has nothing to do with me. And it can't have anything to do with Basil because his motives are genuine,' says Murphy, a former professional basketball player and Wall Street trader who pivoted to art after watching many of his colleagues die on September 11. While Murphy has sympathy for the position of Curtis and the Save the Kebab movement — 'I stand by all artists,' he says — the Rhode Island-born sculptor and painter who counts Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michael Basquiat and Willem de Kooning among his influence does not want to be drawn into what he regards as a political dispute. 'Politics has no place in art. The job of the artist is to bring people together,' he says. 'I'm not interested in what divides us. I'm interested in our commonalities. I'm an artist. I'm not an American artist. All I care about is inspiring some young kid who dreams of one day being an artist.' Indeed, Murphy believes in remaining neutral even though he has recently had a show in the Kennedy Centre, which became a flashpoint for the resistance against Trump when he fired 17 board members and made himself the chair. 'When Trump said something stupid, as he always does, a group of singers pushed back and did not invite him to a show, which is why he got so angry and took over the place,' Murphy says. 'It was not their role. They should have sung for him and made their point. It's what Bob Dylan would have done. 'The arts are there to start discussions, to bring people into the room. It is what I hope the Boonji Spaceman will do. 'Not everyone's going to like it. But trying to stop it from being shown is shutting down discussion.' While the city says the Boonji Spaceman will be moved to Elizabeth Quay after 12 months, Curtis and her colleagues, who are fighting for the Kebab to be returned to the spot where Murphy's work now stands, remain convinced that Murphy's sculpture is here to stay. 'Our great fear is that in a year the city will announce that it is too costly to move the Boonji Spaceman and that it will be left there,' she says.
West Australian
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
‘Show stopper': Huge 7m-tall Boonji Spaceman unveiled at Perth's Stirling Gardens
The long-awaited Boonji Spaceman was officially unveiled out the front of the Perth council house this morning, where it will remain for the next year. The 'show stopper' Spaceman was unveiled to the tune of Around the world by Daft Punk at it's temporary home at Perth's Stirling gardens. The 7m-tall blue spaceman, titled Lightning, is covered in graffitied words that former Lord mayor Basil Zempilas said reflected the city. 'Words like ambitious, friendly, beautiful, City of light, are represented.' he said. Mr Zempilas said that the spaceman was 'hugely impressive' and will be a drawing point for people in Perth. 'People are going to come and have their photos, Instagram this, talk about Perth and push Perth on their own channels,' he said. City of Perth Deputy Lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds said that the Spaceman pays homage to the Perth City of Light origin story. 'Perth became known as the City of Light following American astronaut John Glenn's historic triple orbit of Earth in 1962, during which Perth residents and businesses left on their lights, shone torches to the sky and lit lanterns to make the city visible in space,' he said. 'BOONJI Spaceman is a tribute to our unique story and will no doubt become another must-see piece in the City of Light,' Cr Reynolds said. Renowned contemporary artist Brendan Murphy, who's based in the United States, donated the sculpture to the city. 'Art is an essential, it's not a luxury its something that brings us together,' he said. 'It's not something that I normally do, I'm not in the business of giving my art away. 'However when Basil and I met I felt his passion for the city and the people of the city. 'It's one of the best things I've done in a long time.' Perth has now joined six other cities across the globe to own a personalised BOONJI sculpture with the others installed in New York, London, Washington D.C., Riyadh, Mallorca and Oslo. Although the artwork was donated, The City of Perth budgeted $250,000 for the transportation and installation of the Spaceman. The transportation process of the 1,365 kg carbon fibre and steel giant took 12 months and involved engineers to ensure a safe trip from Miami. Despite local outrage and on-going petitions, the installation still went ahead. Followers of the social media profile, 'savethekebab' shared their frustration and disappointment online. '$250k that could have supported a local artist to create something more relevant that is unique to us,' one follower said. The sculpture will live where the sculpture Ore Obelisk once stood, but was uninstalled in 2021 due to safety reasons. It is currently in city storage. 'It's standing where Ore Obelisk stood for 50 years - a work that actually meant something to this city.' another follower said. Mr Reynolds said that a notice of motion was put forward to the city to reassess what to do with the art pieces currently in storage. Mr Murphy will be displaying his other artworks at his 'blockbuster' Australian solo exhibition at the end of May at Gullotti Galleries in Cottesloe. The BOONJI Spaceman will stay at Stirling Gardens for 12 months and is anticipated to find its forever home in another location in the city, which is yet to be confirmed.
