Cratey (aka Crateman), Birrarung Marr 2007

Summary

This image was created by Lachlan MacDowall and displayed using a lightbox in the 2022 City Gallery exhibition 'Off the Grid: Invader and Melbourne Street Art in the early 2000s.' The text below is written by the exhibition curator, Lachlan MacDowall.

"Popularly known as “Crateys” or “Cratemen”, the milk-crate sculptures produced by an anonymous collective in inner Melbourne in the early 2000s are among the most creative and widely recognised examples of Melbourne street art from this period. Constructed of coloured milk crates and cable ties, these figures appeared along trainlines and rooftops in Melbourne and generated much attention from the public, also appearing briefly in the introductory sequence to Banksy’s film Exit Through the Gift Shop. In this example, the Cratey scales a retaining wall adjacent to Federation Square, greeting train passengers arriving at the centre of the city. The Crateys are exemplars of high-concept, low-technology artwork. They are instantly recognisable in design and are constructed from everyday materials, though the simple designs belie the complexity of engineering and installation, including the effort required to gather materials and secretly access high locations. Crateys exist in a highly-pixellated, low-resolution world, yet even with crude shapes still manages to generate human responses and emotions. The Cratemen displays the manner of its design, in fact it provides a map or plan for its own construction, inviting imitation or replication." - Lachlan MacDowall, 2024