Episode 261 - Osvaldo Budet: What do we preserve, what do we question, and what do our monuments say about us.
About this episode
Osvaldo Budet discusses his exhibition 'Upriver Downriver' and the implications of public monuments in relation to history and identity.
Osvaldo Budet: Upriver Downriver Maitland Regional Art Gallery opens July 11th 2026, opening night 24th July and 25th July a talk and Q & A with Dr Nancy Cushing from University of Newcastle. Puerto Rican Australian artist Osvaldo Budet joins Art Wank to discuss Upriver Downriver , his exhibition at Maitland Regional Art Gallery exploring one of the Hunter region's most debated public monuments: Maitland's Black Boy statue, now more commonly referred to as Jocko Graves. For more than a century, the cast iron figure has stood in the centre of Maitland's civic life. Celebrated by some as a beloved local landmark and questioned by others for its racial imagery and colonial associations, the statue has become a focal point for conversations about history, memory, race, and heritage. Budet's work is informed by his experience growing up in Borikén, Puerto Rico, a place still shaped by colonial structures and histories. In Upriver Downriver , he considers how inherited images and public monuments continue to shape contemporary understandings of identity, authority, and belonging. Rather than offering simple answers, the exhibition asks how communities engage with historical objects…
More episodes of Art Wank
- Episode 262 - John Peart: Remembering an Australian Master with artists Euan Macleod and Joe Frost
- Episode 260 - Inga Dalrymple: Paint, Perception and the Fleeting Moments Held Within Abstraction.
- Episode 259 - Chris Horder: The Dynamic Force of Paint
- Episode 258 - Rosemary Lee on drawing, detail, and the Dobell Prize
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