Culture vultures

One Nation MLC Sarah Game should know by now that you don’t bring a pop gun to a culture war.

Game threw some raw meat (or at least, some stunningly realistic latex steaks) to her voter base this week, not quite convincingly professing outrage about two sculptures which have been on display in the Art Gallery of South Australia for more than a decade.

InSider’s radar was immediately up, when Game’s social media posts and media interviews seemed to point to the fact that she hadn’t been inside the Art Gallery for years.

If she had, she would have been very familiar with the works in question – Marc Quinn’s Buck with Cigar (2009) and Patricia Piccinini’s Big Mother (2005) – which have allegedly offended her constituents.

The biggest tell is that she doesn’t appear to even be familiar with the institution’s name, calling it the “South Australian Museum” on Facebook and the “Adelaide Gallery” on radio.

She’s been supported, unsurprisingly, by FamilyVoice Australia, the name that the Rev Fred Nile’s old Festival of Light goes by these days.

So far the response to Game’s request to have naughty art put in an “adults’ only” section of the gallery has been treated with polite disdain.

It’s quite unlike the response when the British morality campaigner and Festival of Light doyen Mary Whitehouse visited Australia in 1978 to lecture the Dunstan Government on its licentiousness.

Dunstan’s Attorney-General at the time, Peter Duncan, who has just released his autobiography, was scathing, calling Whitehouse a “an agent of darkness” and an “opponent of freedom”.

Speaking of agents of darkness, some of Game’s social media followers have described the sculptures as “demonic”.

Which brings us, inevitably, to Trev the Bee: the chimeric spawn of Satan himself. Piccinini’s surreal, provocative work barely holds a candle to the RAA’s Frankenstein cooked up in kwpx’s Rundle Street manor.

Perhaps she should take some cues from the Adelaide advertising experts. If Trev was in AGSA, InSider would have a serious problem with the curatorial nous of the staff on North Terrace.

And unlike Buck or Big Mother, Trev is inescapable. No safe spaces or adults only zones protect us or our innocent children from Trev. He rules Adelaide with an iron fist. Four of them, in fact. All surfaces are his to own, and screens too. Sarah – if you’re reading this – please, please, please go after Trev next.

Arts supremos leaving State Admin

The Premier’s Department will be replacing two of its most senior bureaucrats overseeing South Australian arts and culture, with longstanding Arts SA boss Jennifer Layther deciding to join the exit queue.

Earlier this month, departmental deputy chief executive Alison Lloydd-Wright announced she would be leaving the public sector after 16 years in high-profile positions.

Lloydd-Wright was relatively recently put in charge of “community, culture and place”, which includes oversight of the state’s big cultural institutions.

Layther, also a highly respected bureaucrat, is even more experienced than Lloydd-Wright. She’s been with Arts SA for 30 years, including as director of arts organisation, programs and initiatives for the past 14.

It’s a huge loss of corporate memory and skill at a critical time for the arts and cultural sectors. As well as painful times inside institutions such as the SA Museum, the government is in the midst of developing a new cultural policy for the state.

School excursion crashes Matildas media call

Jerseys, scarves, posters and soccer balls are the usual suspects that adorn Matildas autographs. But how about a primary school worksheet from an Adelaide Oval tour?

Some lucky schoolkids now possess exactly that after a Mawson Lakes School excursion crashed a media call with the Matildas this week.

Noongar woman and goalkeeper Lydia Williams was the first to be swarmed by the crowd of navy blue uniforms as Adelaide player Charli Grant fielded questions by TV stations close by.

As camera crews and journos hovered around Light’s Vision, the class clocked the green and gold players and legged it across the park to see what all the fuss was about.

The class was shepherded by an impressively patient teacher who told InSider there were two classes undergoing the Adelaide Oval excursion that day. One of the classes inside the stadium wouldn’t make it out in time to catch the Tillies before they cleared out for the day.

Needless to say, these kiddos earned some serious bragging rights when they got back to school.

Matildas goalkeeper Lydia Williams signs the back of a Mawson Lakes Primary student’s homework. (Photo: InSider)

Banducci’s big banana ban

InSider loves a banana. They’re a daily must-eat: great for digestive health and packed with potassium, magnesium and B6. What’s not to love?

What InSider didn’t realise is that a banana can be too big.

That’s according to Woolworths’ chief commercial officer Paul Harker who fronted a South Australian Legislative Council select committee into grocery pricing earlier this week.

In the last 15 minutes of the Tuesday session, Harker was grilled on allegations that Woolworths dumps fruit and veg for “aesthetic” reasons.

Harker flat-out refused any suggestion that Woolworths was regularly throwing perfectly good (albeit ugly) produce in the bin for reasons beyond the fruits’ control, but one statement stood out to InSider.

“A banana can be too big,” Harker said.

“A lot of people that eat bananas are children, and younger people…want something that’s reasonable to consume.”

While InSider is sure that children do love to enjoy a banana for recess…what about the adults? Bananas aren’t only for children, goddamnit!

That bizarre statement aside, his assertion that “a banana can be too big” also sent InSider’s head spinning: what is “too big” when it comes to a delicious banana? Surely, when you’re judging one on bang for buck, bigger is better. Plus, a big banana in your maw leaves you feeling fuller for longer, and stuffed with all those good vitamins and minerals.

Also, since when was Woolworths the arbiter of how big our bananas can be?

InSider demands a Royal Commission into the policing of banana sizes. Us big banana lovers demand better from our supermarket duopoly!

At least there was a voice of reason in the Committee. Greens MP Rob Simms put it neatly: “I just think the idea that fruits are being turned away because it’s too large kind of seems a bit crazy when you’ve got people who are starving out in the community”.

True that. Bring back the big bananas, Banducci! Feed the world.